Personality and Teaching of Micah. His Relation to Isaiah. Micah belonged to the country. He was a native of Moreshethgath, a village among the low hills between the highlands of Judah and the Philistine plain. Prophesying at the same time as Isaiah, he speaks from a different standpoint. Isaiah was one of the ruling class in the capital: Micah was one of the oppressed peasantry. The vices of the city he selects are almost the same as Isaiah scourges, avarice (Micah 2:2), oppression of the poor (Micah 2:9), and luxury (Micah 2:11). But Micah is specially severe on the religious leaders (Micah 3:5). Evidently, when Hezekiah made the Temple the centre of the national religion, he unintentionally made the religious teachers more dependent on the ruling class.
Isaiah preached, however, the security of Jerusalem. God will intervene to deliver His city from Assyria. Micah found men misunderstanding this promise, and believing that God would not destroy city and Temple, no matter what they did. He told them the only reason why the city was to be preserved was that it might become the centre of a better morality and a purer faith. Samaria and Jerusalem, the centres of the nation, ought to be the centres of justice and true religion. Instead they were the centres of irreligion (Micah 1:5; Micah 2:1; Micah 3:1). Therefore Samaria has fallen (Micah 1:6) and Jerusalem shall fall (Micah 3:12).
But this does not mean that Judah shall pass away. Judah's mission does not depend, like that of Assyria, on money and arms. There was a time when Jerusalem was a mere hill fort, when the 'glory of Israel' could house in the cave of Adullam (Micah 1:15), when Bethlehem, an open village, was a king's birthplace. This 'former kingdom' could not compete with the other nations in chariots, fortresses, and a wealthy capital, but it was rich in a great ideal, the ideal of a king who shepherded his people, and received their willing obedience. Though this time should come back, and the pomp of the capital disappear, the result will be to show the nation their true mission of teaching religion to the world (Micah 4:6; Micah 5:10). God is not casting away His people, though He destroy Jerusalem. There shall arise One from the old stock to represent the divine ideal. Messiah cannot arise in the soil of Jerusalem, full of vulgar ideals of vain glory, but in Bethlehem, where power is turned to unselfish uses and the eternal because divine hopes can be cherished (Micah 5:2).
Then Israel will have a mission to the world. So long as she tries to compete with it in chariots (Micah 5:10), she is doomed to failure, and has nothing which Assyria cannot give better. But, when she stands for true religion, she offers what the world needs, and becomes the source of Messiah and the world's light (Micah 4:1).
It should be added that Micah seems to vary in his prophecy of the result of Israel's mission. This is due, (a) to the idea he has of true religion, as no mere observance of a ritual, but as implying a moral claim (Micah 6:5), in this showing a striking resemblance to the strong ethical teaching of Amos; (b) to his view of the nations as free agents, who determine their own attitude to religion. Hence he now sees the peoples joyously accepting Israel's God, and sharing in Israel's peace and blessedness (Micah 4:1); again he sees them pursuing their own ideals and coming to ruin (Micah 4:11). But, because these truths axe divine, they cannot fail of their effect, either in curse or in blessing (Micah 5:7).