Person of the Prophet. - Micah, מיכה, an abbreviated form of מיכיה (Micaiah), as he is called in Jer 26:18, which is also a contraction of מיכיהוּ, “who is as Jehovah?” - i.e., one dedicated to Jehovah the incomparable God (Greek, Μιχαίας; Vulg. Michaeas or Micha, Neh 11:17) - is called hammorashtı̄, the Morashitite, i.e., sprung from Moresheth-gath in the plain of Judah (see at Mic 1:14), to distinguish him from the elder prophet Micah the son of Imlah (1Ki 22:8.), as well as from other persons of the same name, of whom ten are met with in the Old Testament, apart from Maacah the wife of Rehoboam, a grand-daughter of Absalom (1Ki 15:2, 1Ki 15:10, 1Ki 15:13; 2Ch 11:20.), who is also called מכיהוּ in 2Ch 13:2 (see Caspari on Micha, p. 3ff.). Our Micah was therefore a Judaean, and prophesied, according to the heading to his book, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah; so that he was contemporaneous with Isaiah. He prophesied “concerning Samaria and Jerusalem,” the capitals of the two kingdoms, that is to say, concerning all Israel, the fate of which was determined by the circumstances and fates of the two capitals. The correctness of this statement, and at the same time the genuineness of the heading, are confirmed by the contents of the book. Micah not only predicts, in Mic 1:6-7, the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah; but he also mentions Asshur, the great enemy of Israel at that time, as the representative of the power of the world in its hostility to the kingdom of God (Mic 5:4); and he agrees so thoroughly with Isaiah in his description of the prevailing moral corruption, as well as in his Messianic prophecies, that we are warranted in inferring the contemporaneous labours of the two prophets (compare Mich. Isa 2:11 with Isa 28:7; Mich. Mic 3:5-7 with Isa 29:9-12; Mich. Mic 3:12 with Isa 32:13-14; and Mich. Mic 4:1-5 with Isa 2:2-5; Mic 5:2-4 with Isa 7:14 and Isa 9:5). To this we may add the account in Jer 26:18-19, that certain men of the elders of Judah, when seeking to vindicate Jeremiah, who was condemned to death on account of his prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, quoted word for word Mic 3:12, to show that in the days of Hezekiah Micah had predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, without having been put to death by king Hezekiah and all Judah. It is true that Hitzig, Ewald, and others, have founded an argument upon this against the correctness of the heading to our book, according to which Micah prophesied not only under Hezekiah, but also under Jotham and Ahaz, interpreting it as meaning that the elders of Judah knew from good historical tradition the time when the particular words in Micah 3-5 had first been uttered. But they are wrong in this. For even if Micah had uttered this prophecy for the first time in the reign of Hezekiah, it would by no means follow that he had not also prophesied before that, namely, in the reign of Hezekiah. The relation in which Mic 4:1-5 stands to Isa 2:2-5 is sufficient of itself to point to the times of Jotham (see at Mic 4:1). Again, Mic 6:16 does not suit the times of Hezekiah, but only those of Ahaz, who walked to such an extent in the ways of the kings of Israel (2Ki 16:3; 2Ch 28:2), that Judah could be charged with holding by the statutes of Omri and all the deeds of the house of Ahab. Moreover, the assumption that the elders of Judah in the time of Jehoiakim knew from good traditional authority the precise time in which Micah uttered that threat, is quite an unfounded one. They simply knew that Micah’s prophetic writings sprang from the time of Hezekiah; and of the kings under whom Micah prophesied according to the statement of the writings themselves (Mic 1:1), they mention only Hezekiah, because he was the only one who “constituted a spiritual authority” (Hengstenberg). But the fact that Micah’s prophecies were committed to writing in the time of Hezekiah by no means precludes the supposition that either the prophecies themselves, or certain portions of them, were uttered orally to the people before that time. Hitzig’s attempt to prove that all the three addresses in our book were composed in the time of Hezekiah, is founded upon a false historical interpretation, and upon unscriptural ideas of the nature of prophecy.
We know nothing more about the circumstances of Micah’s life, than what may be gathered from his writings. According to these, he no doubt prophesied in Jerusalem, the capital of his native land. This is evident from the fact that he chiefly condemns the moral corruption of the great and mighty men of the kingdom, and makes Zion and Jerusalem for the most part the centre of his prophecies. There is not sufficient ground for Ewald’s assertion, that there are many signs which indicate an inhabitant of the plain. The introduction of the names of particular places in Judah in Mic 1:10-15 furnishes no proof of any “peculiar interest in the Jewish country, more especially the Jewish lowland, as being his home.” Only a portion of the places mentioned in this passage were situated in the lowland. Moreover, Isaiah also enumerates a whole list of places in Judah (Isa 10:28-32), and is minutely acquainted with the circumstances of Zebulun and Naphtali, and the neighbourhood of the Sea of Galilee (Isa 9:1), although he was settled in Jerusalem, and had probably been born there. Still more precarious is the inference that has been drawn from Micah’s somewhat rough and rugged style. For all that can be adduced in support of this is confined to the rapid and abrupt transitions from threatening to promise, in which he resembles Hosea (vid., Mic 2:1-13; Mic 3:9-12; Mic 4:1.), and generally from one subject to another (e.g., Mic 7:1-7, Mic 7:11-13), but more especially from one person to another, or from one number and gender to another (Mic 1:10; Mic 6:16; Mic 7:15-19). This may be all explained from the vivacity of his won individuality, and the excited state of his mind; and simply indicaters the boldness of his words, but not any want of culture in his style. His words are never deficient in clearness or evenness; whilst in abundance of figures, similes (Mic 1:8, Mic 1:16; Mic 2:12-13; Mic 4:9, etc.), and rhetorical tropes, as well as in speciality, paronomasia, in play upon words (Mic 1:10-15), and dialogue (Mic 2:7-11; Mic 6:1-8; Mic 7:7-20, his style resembles that of his highly cultivated contemporary Isaiah. The traditional accounts respecting his descent from the tribe of Ephraim, his death, and his grave, contained in Ps. Dorotheus and Ps. Epiphanius (collected in Carpzovii, Introd. iii. pp. 373-4), have partly originated in the confounding of our Micah with the elder Micah the son of Imlah, who lived in the reign of Ahab, and are partly inferences from the heading to our book.
2. The Book of Micah. - The contents of the book consist of three prophetic addresses, which are clearly distinguished from one another in form by similarity of introduction (all three commencing with שׁמעוּ, Mic 1:2; Mic 3:1; Mic 6:1), and substantially by their contents, which pass through the various stages of reproof, threat, and promise, and are thereby rounded off; so that all attempts at any other division, such as that of Ewald to connect Mic 3:1-12 with the first address, or to arrange the book in two parts (ch. 1-5 and Mic 6:1, Mic 7:1), are obviously arbitrary. Mic 3:1-12 can only be connected with ch. 1 and Mic 2:1-13 so as to form one address, on the groundless assumption that Mic 2:12-13 are a later gloss that has crept into the text; and though the ואמר before שׁמעוּ־נא in Mic 3:1 does indeed connect the second address more closely with the first than with the third, it by no means warrants our dividing the whole book into two parts. In the three addresses, ch. 1, Mic 2:1-13, 3-5, and Mic 6:1, Mic 7:1, we have not “three prophecies of Micah, delivered to the people at three different times,” as Hitzig and Maurer still suppose, but merely a condensation rhetorically arranged of the essential contents of his verbal utterances, as committed to writings by Micah himself at the end of his prophetic course in the time of Hezekiah. For these addresses are proved to be merely portions or sections of a single whole, by the absence of all reference to the concrete circumstances of any particular portion of time, and still more by their organic combination, as seen in the clearly marked and carefully planned progressive movement apparent in their contents. In the first address, after a general announcement of judgment on account of the sins of Israel (Mic 1:2-5), Micah predicts the destruction of Samaria (Mic 1:6, Mic 1:7), and the devastation of Judah with the deportation of its inhabitants (Mic 1:8-16), and justifies this threat by an earnest and brief reproof of the existing acts of injustice and violence on the part of the great men (Mic 2:1-5), and a sharp correction of their abettors the false prophets. (Mic 2:6-11); after which this address closes with a brief promise of the eventual restoration of the remnant of Israel to favour (Mic 2:12, Mic 2:13). The second address closes with a brief promise of the eventual restoration of the remnant of Israel to favour (Mic 2:12, Mic 2:13). The second address spreads itself out still more elaborately in the first half (Mic 3:1-12) over the sins and crimes of the heads of the nation, viz., the princes, the false prophets, the unjust judges and bad priests; and because of these sins threatens the destruction and utter devastation of Zion, and the temple hill. As an antithesis to this threat, the second half (Mic 4:1-13 and Mic 5:1-15) contains a promise, commencing with the opening of a prospect of the glorification of Zion and Israel at the end of the days (Mic 4:1-7), advancing to an assurance of the restoration of the former dominion of the daughter of Zion, after the people have first been carried away to Babel, and rescued again out of the hand of their enemies, and of her triumph in the last conflict with the nations of the world (Mic 4:8 -14), and culminating in the announcement of the birth of the great Ruler in Israel, who will arise out of Bethlehem, and feed His people in the majesty of Jehovah (Mic 5:1-5), and not only protect the rescued remnant of Jacob against the attacks of the imperial kingdom, but exalt it into a beneficent, and at the same time fearful, power to the heathen nations (Mic 5:6-8), and establish a kingdom of blessed peace (Mic 5:9-14). The third address sets forth the way to salvation in the dramatic dress of a law-suit between Jehovah and His people, by exhibiting the divine benefits for which Israel had repaid its God with ingratitude, and by a repeated allusion to the prevailing sins and unrighteousness which God must punish (ch. 6), and also by showing how the consciousness of misery will lead to the penitential confession of guilt and to conversion, and by encouraging to believing trust in the compassion upon His people, rebuild Zion, and humble the foe, and by renewing the miracles of the olden time fill all nations with fear of His omnipotence (Micah 7:1-17); after which the prophet closes his book with praise for the sin-forgiving grace of the Lord (Mic 7:18-20).
From this general survey of the contents of the three addresses, their internal connection may be at once perceived. In the first the threatening of judgment predominates; in the second the announcement of the Messianic salvation; in the third there follows the paraenesis or admonition to repentance and humiliation under the chastising hand of the Lord, in order to participate in the promised salvation. As this admonition rests upon the threat of judgment and promise of salvation in the two previous addresses, so does the allusion to the judgment contained in the words, “Then will they cry to Jehovah, and He will not answer them” (Mic 3:4), presuppose the announcement in ch. 1 of the judgment about to burst upon the land, without which it would be perfectly unintelligible. Consequently there can be no doubt whatever that Micah has simply concentrated the quintessence of his oral discourses into the addresses contained in his book. This quintessence, moreover, shows clearly enough that our prophet was not at all behind his contemporary Isaiah, either in the clearness and distinctness of his Messianic announcements, or in the power and energy with which he combated the sins and vices of the nation. There is simply this essential difference, so far as the latter point is concerned, that he merely combats the religious and moral corruptness of the rulers of the nation, and does not touch upon their conduct on its political side. (For the exegetical literature, see my Lehrbuch der Einleitung, p. 296.)
The prophet’s first address is throughout of a threatening and punitive character; it is not till quite the close, that the sun of divine grace breaks brightly shining through the thunder clouds of judgment. The announcement of the judgment upon Samaria as well as upon the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem forms the first part (Mic 1:2-16); the reproof of the sins, especially of the unrighteousness of the great and mighty of the nation, the second part (Mic 2:1-11); and a brief but very comprehensive announcement of the salvation that will dawn upon the remnant of all Israel after the judgment, the conclusion of the address (Mic 2:12-13).
Micah, commencing with the appeal to all nations to observe the coming of the Lord for judgment upon the earth (Mic 1:2-4), announces to the people of Israel, on account of its sins and its apostasy from the Lord, the destruction of Samaria (Mic 1:5-7) and the spreading of the judgment over Judah; and shows how, passing from place to place, and proceeding to Jerusalem, and even farther, it will throw the kingdom into deep lamentation on account of the carrying away of its inhabitants.
Mic 1:1-4
The heading in Mic 1:1 has been explained in the introduction. Mic 1:2-4 form the introduction to the prophet’s address. Mic 1:2. “Hear, all ye nations: observe, O earth, and that which fills it: and let the Lord Jehovah be a witness against you, the Lord out of His holy palace. Mic 1:3. For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth from His place, and cometh down, and marcheth over the high places of the earth. Mic 1:4. And the mountains will melt under Him, and the valleys split, like wax before the fire, like water poured out upon a slope.” The introductory words, “Hear, ye nations all,” are taken by Micah from his earlier namesake the son of Imlah (1Ki 22:28). As the latter, in his attack upon the false prophets, called all nations as witnesses to confirm the truth of his prophecy, so does Micah the Morashite commence his prophetic testimony with the same appeal, so as to announce his labours at the very outset as a continuation of the activity of his predecessor who had been so zealous for the Lord. As the son of Imlah had to contend against the false prophets as seducers of the nation, so has also the Morashtite (compare Mic 2:6, Mic 2:11; Mic 3:5, Mic 3:11); and as the former had to announce to both kingdoms the judgment that would come upon them on account of their sins, so has also the latter; and he does it by frequently referring to the prophecy of the elder Micah, not only by designating the false prophets as those who walk after the rūăch and lie, sheqer (Mic 2:11), which recals to mind the rūăch sheqer of the prophets of Ahab (1Ki 22:22-23), but also in his use of the figures of the horn of iron in Mic 4:13 (compare the horns of iron of the false prophet Zedekiah in 1Ki 22:11), and of the smiting upon the cheek in Mic 5:1 (compare 1Ki 22:14). ‛Ammı̄m kullâm does not mean all the tribes of Israel; still less does it mean warlike nations. ‛Ammı̄m never has the second meaning, and the first it has only in the primitive language of the Pentateuch. But here both these meanings are precluded by the parallel ארץ וּמלאהּ; for this expression invariably signifies the whole earth, with that which fills it, except in such a case as Jer 8:16, where 'erets is restricted to the land of Israel by the preceding hâ'ârets, or Eze 12:19, where it is so restricted by the suffix 'artsâh. The appeal to the earth and its fulness is similar to the appeals to the heaven and the earth in Isa 1:2 and Deu 32:1. All nations, yea the whole earth, and all creatures upon it, are to hear, because the judgment which the prophet has to announce to Israel affects the whole earth (Mic 1:3, Mic 1:4), the judgment upon Israel being connected with the judgment upon all nations, or forming a portion of that judgment. In the second clause of the verse, “the Lord Jehovah be witness against you,” it is doubtful who is addressed in the expression “against you.” The words cannot well be addressed to all nations and to the earth, because the Lord only rises up as a witness against the man who has despised His word and transgressed His commandments. For being a witness is not equivalent to witnessing or giving testimony by words, - say, for example, by the admonitory and corrective address of the prophet which follows, as C. B. Michaelis supposes, - but refers to the practical testimony given by the Lord in the judgment (Mic 1:3 ff), as in Mal 3:5 and Jer 42:5. Now, although the Lord is described as the Judge of the world in Mic 1:3 and Mic 1:4, yet, according to Mic 1:5., He only comes to execute judgment upon Israel. Consequently we must refer the words “to you” to Israel, or rather to the capitals Samaria and Jerusalem mentioned in Mic 1:1, just as in Nah 1:8 the suffix simply refers to the Nineveh mentioned in the heading, to which there has been no further allusion in Nah 1:2-7. This view is also favoured by the fact that Micah summons all nations to hear his word, in the same sense as his earlier namesake in 1Ki 22:28. What the prophet announces in word, the Lord will confirm by deed, - namely, by executing the predicted judgment, - and indeed “the Lord out of His holy temple,” i.e., the heaven where He is enthroned (Psa 11:4); for (1Ki 22:3) the Lord will rise up from thence, and striding over the high places of the earth, i.e., as unbounded Ruler of the world (cf. Amo 4:13 and Deu 32:13), will come down in fire, so that the mountains melt before Him, that is to say, as Judge of the world. The description of this theophany is founded upon the idea of a terrible storm and earthquake, as in Psa 18:8. The mountains melt (Jdg 5:4 and Psa 68:9) with the streams of water, which discharge themselves from heaven (Jdg 5:4), and the valleys split with the deep channels cut out by the torrents of water. The similes, “like wax,” etc. (as in Psa 68:3), and “like water,” etc., are intended to express the complete dissolution of mountains and valleys. The actual facts answering to this description are the destructive influences exerted upon nature by great national judgments.