Micah must have been a very striking personality. Like Amos, he was
a native of the country--somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gath; and
he denounces with fiery earnestness the sins of the capital cities,
Samaria in the northern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the southern. To
him these cities seem to incarnate the sins of their respective
kingdoms, i. 5; and for both ruin and desolation are predicted, i.
6, iii. 12. Micah expresses with peculiar distinctness the sense of
his inspiration and the object for which it is given; he is
conscious of being filled with the spirit of Jehovah to declare unto
Jacob his transgression and unto Israel his sin, iii. 8. In his
ringing sincerity, he must have formed a strange contrast to the
prophets who regulated their message by their income, iii. 5, and
preached to a people whose conscience was slumbering, a welcome
gospel of materialism, ii. 11.
The words of Micah must have burned themselves into the memories, if
not the consciences, of his generation; for more than a hundred
years after--though doubtless by this time the prophecy was written--we
find his unfulfilled prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem
alluded to by the elders who pled for the life of Jeremiah, xxvi.
17ff. It is certain from this reference that he prophesied during
the reign of Hezekiah; whether also under Jotham and Ahaz (Mic. i.
1) is not so certain, and depends upon whether his prophecy of the
destruction of Samaria, i. 6, was made before, or as seems equally
possible, after the capture of that city in 721 B.C. At any rate his
message was addressed to Judah, and must have fallen (at least i.-iii.)
before 701 B.C.--the year in which the city was saved beyond all
expectation from an attack by Sennacherib, iii. 12.
Micah begins by describing the coming of Jehovah. He is coming in
judgment upon Samaria and Jerusalem, the wicked capitals of wicked
kingdoms, i. 1-9; and in the difficult verses, i. 10-16, the
devastating march of the enemy through Judah is allusively described.
The judgment is thoroughly justified--it is due to the violent and
grasping spirit of the wealthy, who do not scruple to crush the poor
and defenceless, ii. 1-11. The prophet then[1] brings his charge in
detail against the leaders of the people--officials, judges, priests,
prophets--accuses them of being mercenary and time-serving, and ends
with the terrible threat that the holy hill will one day be made a
desolation (iii.).
[Footnote 1: Ch. ii. 12, 13, which interrupt the stern address of
the prophet, ii. 11, iii. 1 with a promise which implies that Israel
is scattered, are probably exilic; they can hardly be Micah's.]
These chapters are assigned almost unanimously to Micah. But serious
critical difficulties are raised in connection with the rest of the
book. Chs. iv. and v. constitute a section by themselves, and may be
considered separately. Their general theme is the certainty of
salvation, but it is quite clear that they do not form an original
unity; iv. 1-4, e.g., with its generous attitude to the foreign
nations, is inconsistent with iv. 11-13, which predicts their
destruction. Again, iv. 10 describes a siege of Jerusalem, which is
to issue in exile, iv. 11-13, a siege which is to end in the
annihilation of the besiegers. Similar difficulties characterize ch.
v; in _vv_. 7-9, 15 the enemies are to be destroyed.
No consecutive outline of the chapters is possible in their present
disconnected form. Ch. iv. 1-5 describes the Messianic age, in which
the nations will come to Jerusalem to have their cases peacefully
arbitrated, iv. 6-8 promise that those scattered (in exile) will be
gathered again, and the kingdom of Judah restored. Siege of
Jerusalem, exile, and redemption, iv. 9, 10. Unsuccessful siege of
Jerusalem and annihilation of the enemy, iv. 11-13. Another siege:
Israel's suffering, v. 1. Promise of a victorious king, v. 2-4.
Judah's victory over Assyria, v. 5, 6 and all her enemies, v. 7-9.
All the apparatus of war and idolatry will be removed from the land,
v. 10-14, and vengeance taken on the enemy, v. 15.
The summary shows how disjointed the chapters are. They may not
impossibly contain reminiscences or even utterances of Micah; e.g.
the prediction of the fatal siege, v. 1, or of the overthrow of
idolatry, v. 10-14. But many elements could not possibly be Micah's:
e.g. iv. 8 implies that the kingdom of Judah is already a thing of
the past. iv. 6 postulates the exile,[1] and the prophecy of exile
to Babylon, iv. 10, would be unnatural in Micah's time, when Assyria
was the dominant power.[2] Again it is exceedingly improbable that
Micah would have blunted the edge of his terrible threat in iii. 12
by following it up with so brilliant a promise as iv. 1-4,
especially as not a word is said about the need of repentance. The
story in Jeremiah xxvi. 17ff. raises the legitimate doubt whether
Micah's prophecy, which was certainly one of threatening, iii. 12,
also contained elements of promise. On the whole it seems best to
assume that the fine picture of the glory and importance of Zion in
the latter days, iv. 1-4, was set by some later writer as a foil to
the stern threat with which the original prophecy closed, cf. Isaiah
ii. 1-4. Chs. iv. and v. may be regarded as a collection of
prophecies emphasizing the certainty of salvation and intended to
supplement i.-iii.
[Footnote 1: This might conceivably, though not very naturally,
refer to the deportation of _Israel_ in 721.]
[Footnote 2: Some retain iv. 9, 10 for Micah, and assume either that
the Babylon clause is a later interpolation, or that Babylon has
displaced another proper name.]
Chs. vi. and vii. take us again into another atmosphere, more like
Micah's own. The people, who attempt to defend themselves against
Jehovah's charge of ingratitude on the plea that they are ignorant
of His demands, are reminded that those demands are ancient and
simple: justice, love as between man and man, and a humble walk with
God, vi. 1-8. But instead, dishonesty and injustice are rampant
everywhere, and the judgment of God is inevitable, vi. 9-16. The
prophet laments the utter and universal degradation of the people,
which has corrupted even the intimacies of family life, vii. 1-6. In
the rest of the chapter the blow predicted has already fallen; in
their sorrow the people await the fulfilment of Jehovah's purpose in
patience and faith, pray to Him to restore the land which once was
theirs on the east of the Jordan, and thus to compel from the
heathen an acknowledgment of His power. He is the incomparable God
who can forgive and restore, vii. 7-20.
The accusations and laments of these two chapters come very strangely
after the repeated promises of chs. iv. and v.; and if the whole book
had been by Micah, it is hardly possible that this order should have
been original. Probably these chapters were appended to Micah's book
because of several features which they have in common with i.-iii.:
notice, e.g., the prominence of the word "hear," i. 2, iii. 1, 9,
vi. 1, 9, Most scholars agree with Ewald in supposing that these
chapters--at any rate vi. i-vii. 6--come from the reign of Manasseh.
The situation is that of i.-iii., only aggravated: the reference to
Ahab, vi. 16, with whom Manasseh is compared in 2 Kings xxi. 3, points
in the same direction. Even if written in this reign, Micah may still
have been the author; but the general manner of the chapters and the
individuality they reveal appear to be different from his. But,
considering their noble insistence upon the moral elements in religion
(esp. vi. 6-8) they are, if not his, yet not inappropriately appended
to his book. The concluding section, however, vii. 7-20, is almost
certainly post-exilic. The punishment has come, therefore the exile is
the earliest possible date. But there are exiles not only in Babylon,
but scattered far and wide throughout the world, vii. 12, and there is
the expectation that the walls of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, vii. 11.
As this took place under Nehemiah, the section will fall before his
time (500-450 B.C.). This passage of promise and consolation is a foil
to vi. 1-vii. 6, intended to sustain the same relation to that section
as iv., v. to i.-iii.
Thus many hands appear to have contributed to the little book of
Micah, and the voices of two or three centuries may be heard in it:
earlier words of threatening and judgment are answered by later
words of hope and consolation. But wherever else the true Micah is
to be found--and his spirit at any rate is certainly in vi. 6-8--he
is undoubtedly present in i.-iii. It is a peculiar piece of good
fortune that we should possess the words of two contemporary
prophets who differed so strikingly as Micah the peasant and Isaiah
the statesman. Unlike Isaiah, Micah has nothing to say about foreign
politics and their bearing upon religion; he confines himself
severely to its moral aspects, and like Amos, that other prophet of
the country, hurls his accusations and makes his high ethical
demands, with an almost fierce power, iii. 2, 3. His prophecy
justifies his claim to speak in the power and inspiration of his
God, iii. 8.