Micah

What This Book Is

A country prophet indicting the powerful for seizing land and perverting justice, and giving one of the clearest summaries of what God asks of anyone.

Overview

Micah came from a small farming town, and his anger has a rural accent. He is exercised about people who lie awake devising schemes and then in the morning seize fields and houses because they have the power to do it. He names judges who take bribes, priests who teach for a price, and prophets who tell people whatever they will pay to hear, and then all of them lean on the Lord and say surely no disaster will come upon us.

His message alternates between judgment and hope in a way that can feel abrupt. Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and also, in one of the most famous passages in the Bible, nations will come to the mountain of the Lord, beat their swords into ploughshares, and learn war no more, and everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree with no one to make them afraid.

Chapter 5 contains the line about Bethlehem, small among the clans of Judah, from which a ruler will come whose origins are from ancient days. Matthew quotes it when the wise men ask where the king is to be born.

The book's most quoted verse arrives in chapter 6 as the answer to a question. What does God want, thousands of rams, rivers of oil, a firstborn child? No. He has told you what is good: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

It ends asking who is a God like this, one who pardons and delights in mercy.

Structure

• Chapters 1 to 2: The chargeLand seizures, corrupt power, and coming judgment.
• Chapter 3: The leadersRulers, priests, and prophets who sell their office.
• Chapters 4 to 5: HopeSwords into ploughshares, and a ruler from Bethlehem.
• Chapters 6 to 7: The requirementA courtroom scene, the famous answer, and a God who delights in mercy.

Themes

Why It Matters

Micah 6:8 is one of the most compact statements of what faith asks in all of Scripture, and it puts action, disposition, and posture together rather than choosing between them. The book also holds fierce social criticism and radiant hope in the same short space, which is characteristic of the prophets generally and easy to miss when passages are read in isolation.

How to Read It

• Read chapter 6:6-8 as a question and answer rather than as an isolated slogan.
• Read chapter 2:1-2 and notice how ordinary the injustice is: paperwork and power, not violence.
• Read chapter 4:1-5 alongside Isaiah 2 and notice they are nearly identical.
• Read chapter 5:2 and then Matthew 2:1-6.

Key Verse

Did You Know?

• Micah 4:1-3 and Isaiah 2:2-4 are almost word for word identical.
• Micah 5:2 is quoted to Herod by the chief priests when he asks where the Messiah is to be born.
• Jeremiah's defenders cite Micah a century later as precedent for a prophet who predicted Jerusalem's ruin and was not killed.

Where to Start Reading