Micah 6

God’s dispute with Israel

1 Hear what the LORD is saying: Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains; let the hills hear your voice!

2 Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the LORD! Hear, eternal foundations of the earth! The LORD has a lawsuit against his people; with Israel he will argue.

3 “My people, what did I ever do to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!

4 I brought you up out of the land of Egypt; I redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.

5 My people, remember what Moab's King Balak had planned, and how Balaam, Beor's son, answered him! Remember everything from Shittim to Gilgal, that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the LORD!”

What does the LORD require?

6 With what should I approach the LORD and bow down before God on high? Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings, with year-old calves?

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with many torrents of oil? Should I give my oldest child for my crime; the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?

8 He has told you, human one, what is good and what the LORD requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

Punishment is near

9 The voice of the LORD calls out to the city; wisdom appears when one fears your name. Hear, tribe, and who appointed her!

10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness, while the shorted basket is denounced?

11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights

12 in a city whose wealthy are full of violence and whose inhabitants speak falsehood with lying tongues in their mouths?

13 So I have made you sick by striking you! I have struck you because of your sins.

14 You devour, but you aren't satisfied; a gnawing emptiness is within you. You put something aside, but you don't keep it safe. That which you do try to keep safe, I will give to the sword.

15 You sow, but you don't gather. You tread down olives, but you don't anoint with oil; you tread grapes, but don't drink wine.

16 Yet you have kept the policies of Omri, all the practices of the house of Ahab; you have followed their counsels. Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction, your inhabitants an object of hissing! You must bear the reproach of my people.

Micah 6 Commentary

Chapter 6

God's controversy with Israel. (1-5) The duties God requires. (6-8) The wickedness of Israel. (9-16)

Verses 1-5 The people are called upon to declare why they were weary of God's worship, and prone to idolatry. Sin causes the controversy between God and man. God reasons with us, to teach us to reason with ourselves. Let them remember God's many favours to them and their fathers, and compare with them their unworthy, ungrateful conduct toward him.

Verses 6-8 These verses seem to contain the substance of Balak's consultation with Balaam how to obtain the favour of Israel's God. Deep conviction of guilt and wrath will put men upon careful inquiries after peace and pardon, and then there begins to be some ground for hope of them. In order to God's being pleased with us, our care must be for an interest in the atonement of Christ, and that the sin by which we displease him may be taken away. What will be a satisfaction to God's justice? In whose name must we come, as we have nothing to plead as our own? In what righteousness shall we appear before him? The proposals betray ignorance, though they show zeal. They offer that which is very rich and costly. Those who are fully convinced of sin, and of their misery and danger by reason of it, would give all the world, if they had it, for peace and pardon. Yet they do not offer aright. The sacrifices had value from their reference to Christ; it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. And all proposals of peace, except those according to the gospel, are absurd. They could not answer the demands of Divine justice, nor satisfy the wrong done to the honour of God by sin, nor would they serve at all in place of holiness of the heart and reformation of the life. Men will part with any thing rather than their sins; but they part with nothing so as to be accepted of God, unless they do part with their sins. Moral duties are commanded because they are good for man. In keeping God's commandments there is a great reward, as well as after keeping them. God has not only made it known, but made it plain. The good which God requires of us is, not the paying a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but love to himself; and what is there unreasonable, or hard, in this? Every thought within us must be brought down, to be brought into obedience to God, if we would walk comfortably with him. We must do this as penitent sinners, in dependence on the Redeemer and his atonement. Blessed be the Lord that he is ever ready to give his grace to the humble, waiting penitent.

Verses 9-16 God, having showed how necessary it was that they should do justly, here shows how plain it was that they had done unjustly. This voice of the Lord says to all, Hear the rod when it is coming, before you see it, and feel it. Hear the rod when it is come, and you are sensible of the smart; hear what counsels, what cautions it speaks. The voice of God is to be heard in the rod of God. Those who are dishonest in their dealings shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make. What is got by fraud and oppression, cannot be kept or enjoyed with satisfaction. What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest. Sin is a root of bitterness, soon planted, but not soon plucked up again. Their being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept themselves in his love, was an honour to them; but now, being backsliders, their having been once the people of God turns to their reproach.

Footnotes

• [a]. Heb lacks everything.
• [b]. Heb uncertain
• [c]. Heb uncertain
• [d]. Or ephah, approximately twenty quarts of grain
• [e]. Heb uncertain
• [f]. Heb lacks in a city.
• [g]. Or he
• [h]. Or her

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO MICAH 6

This chapter contains reproofs of the people of Israel for their sins, threatening them with punishment for them. The prophet is bid to tell them of the controversy the Lord had with them, which he did, Mic 6:1,2; and the Lord calls upon them to declare if they had any thing to object to his attitude towards them, Mic 6:3; and then puts them in mind of the favours they had received from him, in bringing them out of Egypt, and giving them such useful persons to go before them, lead and instruct them, as he had, Mic 6:4; and also reminds them of what passed between Balak, king of Moab, and Balaam the soothsayer; the questions of the one, and the answer of the other; whereby the designs of the former against them were frustrated, Mic 6:5-8; but since the voice of the Lord by his prophet was disregarded by them, they are called upon to hearken to the voice of his rod, Mic 6:9; which should be laid upon them for their fraudulent dealings, injustice, oppression, lies, and deceit, Mic 6:10-12; and therefore are threatened with sickness and desolation, and a deprivation of all good things, the fruit of their labours, Mic 6:13-15; and that because the statutes of Omri, the works of Ahab, and their counsels, were observed by them, Mic 6:16.