He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?- Mic_6:8.
1. The third section of Micah's prophecy, counting it as an integral part of the book, is best construed as a less impassioned, more thoughtful, and somewhat apologetic confirmation of the necessity, justice, and inevitable issue of the imminent calamity. In structure it is exceedingly dramatic, falling constantly into dialogue, in which the speakers rapidly change. Jehovah is dramatically represented as commencing a suit with Israel. He defends His faithfulness to His side of the covenant, and contrasts His real demands with the popular idea of religion. The wilful disregard of these requirements calls for punishment. The prophet speaks in the name of the true Israel, lamenting the universal corruption, and expressing its determination humbly to bear the punishment, in perfect confidence that Jehovah will one day vindicate His righteousness. In answer is heard the Divine proclamation for Zion's restoration. The prophet prays for this restoration, and Jehovah promises to bring it about. He concludes with an expression of perfect trust in the pardoning mercy and unchanging faithfulness of Jehovah.
2. In the religious history of mankind in general there has been little connexion between religion and righteousness in the ethical sense. Even the Jewish Church was slow in reaching the conception of personal and moral righteousness as the central thing in religion. For a long time legal and ritual righteousness was the main thing, rather than holiness of heart and life. The prophets were the earliest preachers of spiritual religion. They saw that God looks at the heart, and that what He supremely desires is the inward loyalty to righteousness. Everything else is instrumental to this. But there is always a tendency with the mechanically and unspiritually minded to mistake the forms and adjuncts and rites and ceremonies of religion for religion itself, and to rest in them. This happens in our own day; the religious thought and life of many centre in the externals of religion; and all the more it happened in the times of ignorance of the ancient Church. Hence the prophets had as one of their burdens to oppose this tendency and to set forth the spiritual nature of God's demands.
3. In spite of the preaching of Amos and Hosea, Israel persisted in cherishing an illusion. The key to the situation is furnished by Mic_3:11. A wrong conception of God held sway over the minds of the people. “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.” This was to look upon the relation of Jehovah to His people as necessary, and not voluntary on His part. It was to conceive of that relation, moreover, as unconditioned by any high demands. There was no essential difference between this conception of God and that common to the nations surrounding Israel. The language of Mic_3:11 is, of course, not to be taken as literally exact. Israel had experienced too many chastisements at the hands of Jehovah to suppose that it possessed any guarantee against further afflictions. Jehovah might become angry at His land and vent His wrath upon His people for some real or fancied slight, even as Chemosh executed his anger upon Moab (Mesha Inscription, line 5). But He would not definitely abandon His people to destruction; He could not remain obdurate and insensible to holocausts of oxen and rivers of oil. On His great Day, the Day of Jehovah, He would repent Himself of His anger and manifest Himself on behalf of His people in destructive might against their foes and His (cf. Amo_5:18). For people so minded, sacrifice and offering were the substance of religion. Let the ritual be exact and gorgeous and the sacrificial gifts numerous and costly, and Jehovah could desire little more (cf. Isa_1:11 ff.).
4. Against this whole attitude toward God, the prophets of the eighth century set themselves resolutely. Micah joined with Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah in an effort to purify religion by elevating the popular conception of God. This he does by emphasizing the true nature of Jehovah's demands upon His people. He seeks justice and mercy, not oxen and sheep. He desires right character rather than right ritual. Herein lies Micah's whole interest; he plays the changes upon this single string. He does not suppose himself to be announcing anything new to the people, nor indeed was he so doing. Israel had long credited Jehovah with ethical interests. But they were given only secondary significance, whereas Micah would make them the supremely important element in the Divine character in so far as it concerns men. Divine favour consequently at once ceases to be an affair of purchase at any price, and becomes a matter of striving after the attainment of Divine ideals of righteousness and justice.
Micah's statement might be paraphrased as follows without altering its essential meaning: “Religion in its essence is righteousness and good-will toward men and reverent humility and obedience toward God.” And this is no lonely utterance of this prophet; it is the underlying idea of both prophetic and apostolic teaching, as well as of the teaching of our Lord. Whatever our theological faith, whatever our religious practices, and whatever our religious pedagogics, their sole use and value consist in helping us to lives of love and righteousness before God and man. This is that for which they exist, and that which gives them meaning and justification.
In most of the controversies which the prophets open between God and man, the subject on the side of the latter is his sin. But that is not so here. In the controversy which opens the Book of Micah the argument falls upon the transgressions of the people, but here upon their sincere though mistaken methods of approaching God. There God deals with dull consciences, but here with darkened and imploring hearts. In that case we had rebels forsaking the true God for idols, but here are earnest seekers after God, who have lost their way and are weary. Accordingly, as indignation prevailed there, here prevails pity; and though formally this be a controversy under the same legal form as before, the passage breathes tenderness and gentleness from first to last. By this as well as by the recollections of the ancient history of Israel we are reminded of the style of Hosea. But there is no expostulation, as in his book, with the people's continued devotion to ritual. All that is past, and a new temper prevails. Israel have at last come to feel the vanity of the exaggerated zeal with which Amos pictures them exceeding the legal requirements of sacrifice; and with a despair, sufficiently evident in the superlatives which they use, they confess the futility and weariness of the whole system, even in the most lavish and impossible forms of sacrifice. What then remains for them to do? The prophet answers with the beautiful words that express an ideal of religion to which no subsequent century has ever been able to add either grandeur or tenderness:
“He hath shown thee, O man, what is good;
And what is the Lord seeking from thee,
But to do justice and love mercy,
And humbly to walk with thy God?”
This is the greatest saying of the Old Testament; and there is only one other in the New which excels it: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”1 [Note: G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets, i. 424.]
5. The closing verses of the Book of Micah seem to be a collection of miscellaneous fragments from periods far apart in the history of Israel. One historical allusion suits best the age of the Syrian wars; another can refer only to the day of Jerusalem's ruin. In spirit and language the confessions resemble the prayers of the Exile. The doxology has echoes of several Scriptures. But from these fragments, it may be of many centuries, there rises clear the one essential figure: Israel, all her secular woes upon her; our Mother of Sorrows, at whose knees we learned our first prayers of confession and penitence. Other nations have been our teachers in art and wisdom and government. But she is our mistress in pain and in patience, teaching men with what conscience they should bear the chastening of the Almighty, with what hope and humility they should wait for their God. Surely not less lovable, but only more human, that her pale cheeks flush for a moment with the hate of the enemy and the assurance of revenge. Her passion is soon gone, for she feels her guilt to be greater; and, seeking forgiveness, her last word is what man's must ever be, praise to the grace and mercy of God.
Can none of you look back on any particular days or nights, and say, “O Lord, that Thou shouldst be so patient and so full of forbearance as not to send me to hell at such an instant! But, O Lord, that Thou shouldst go further and blot out mine iniquities, for Thine own sake, when I made Thee serve with my sins!” Lord, what shall I say it is? It is the free grace of my God! What expression transcendeth that, I know not.1 [Note: John Owen.]
6. What the immediate effect of Micah's preaching was we have no means of knowing. Apart from the record of his prophecies we have but one absolutely authentic reminiscence of his life-work. It is related in the twenty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah. The prophet of woes, at the bidding of God, had proclaimed the imminent destruction of the city and of the Temple. Arraigned on a capital charge, he is saved by the intervention of certain elders. “Micah the Morasthite,” say they, “prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them?”
The reference is of great interest. It shows what a great impression Micah produced on his contemporaries. And this is not strange; for he spoke to the masses of the people as one of themselves, and his whole picture of judgment and deliverance was constructed of familiar elements and appealed to the most cherished traditions of the past. David, as it is easy to recognize from the narrative of the Books of Samuel, was the hero of the common people; and no more effective method of popular teaching could have been devised than the presentation of the antique simplicity of his kingdom in contrast to the corruptions of the present. Thus Micah's teaching went straighter to the hearts of the masses than the doctrine of Isaiah, which at this time was still working only as leaven in a small circle. Isaiah's work, in truth, was the higher as it was the more difficult; it was a greater task to consolidate the party of spiritual faith, and by slow degrees to establish its influence in the governing circle, than to arouse the masses to a sense of the incongruity of the present state of things with the old ideal of Jehovah's nation. But both prophets had their share of the great transformation of Israel's religion which began in the reign of Hezekiah and found definite expression in the reformation of Josiah. It is Micah's conception of the Davidic king that is reproduced in the Deuteronomic law of the kingdom (Deu_17:14 ff.), and his prophecy of the destruction of the high places (Deu_5:13), more directly than anything in Isaiah's book, underlies the principle of the one sanctuary, the establishment of which, in Deuteronomy and by Josiah, was the chief visible mark of the religious revolution which the teaching of the prophets had effected.
A man of the countryside, like Amos, Micah was gifted with clearness of vision and time for thought. The simplicity and seclusion of his rustic life were conducive to “plain living and high thinking.” He was not misled by false standards of value to place too high an estimate upon those things which perish with the using. He had Amos's passion for justice and Hosea's heart of love. Knowing his fellow-countrymen intimately, and sympathizing profoundly with their sufferings and wrongs, his spirit burned with indignation as he beheld the injustice and tyranny of their rich oppressors. He was pre-eminently the prophet of the poor. He was absolutely fearless as their champion. He would denounce wickedness in high places even though it cost him his life. A man of this type must necessarily go his own way; he cannot slavishly follow where others lead. Breaking away from the prophets of the day who promise only blessings from Jehovah, he dares to “declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin,” and to point out the inevitable connexion between sin and punishment. To the citizens of Jerusalem, proud of their capital and blindly confident of Jehovah's protection, he unflinchingly announces the overthrow of their city. Completely dominated by a vivid consciousness of God and a fervid devotion to the highest interests of his country, he goes forth to his task unshrinking and invincible. To this man of keen perception and sensitive soul, the voice of duty was the voice of God. As with Amos and Hosea, neither angel nor vision was necessary to arouse in him the prophetic spirit; he found his Divine call in the cry of human need.
The Christian conscience needs to avail itself of the new knowledge of social facts, the new understanding of social processes, which alone can interpret its opportunity of sympathy and service. There must be dedication of the mind to the task of understanding the Will of God for modern life. Needs arise, and can only be met in ways which are not visible on the surface. Sympathy needs to be trained, that thoroughly and sanely it may flow into the right channels and contribute to the lasting satisfaction of the real need.
We have learned to recognize and respond to the suffering which comes through sickness, death, calamity to fortune, separation from old friends and old haunts. Have we learned to appreciate to the same extent the suffering that comes to our fellows through their hours and conditions of labour, irregularity of employment, the advance of prices whilst income remains small and stationary, the incidence of a new tax, the loss of business through legislation meant only to benefit poorer men, temptation to grievous sin in times of pennilessness and homelessness, the fear of losing employment through age, failing skill, fluctuation of trade, or other cause beyond one's own control? Are we sensitive to the change in the problems of life, religion, and character which come through the waning of an old industry, the closing of a mill, the failure of a mine, the depletion of the country towns and villages, sudden changes in the hours of labour, the sinking of a new pit and the consequent mushroom growth of a new community, the economic independence of working-class girls and boys, the failure of the apprenticeship system, the changing relations between children and parents due to the changed conditions of employment, the weakening of home ties, the unhealthiness of factory life, the dearth of playing-fields, the congestion of population in a new suburb or an old slum? These and a hundred other such things are the crucial issues in lives which appeal to us for neighbourly consideration.1 [Note: M. Spencer, The Hope of the Redemption of Society, 77.]
7. Amos, Hosea, and Micah form a splendid triad, a potent factor in the world's history. Their strength lies in their intense, passionate hatred of vice as the negation of religion. To Amos the great offence is judicial corruption, to Hosea sensuality, to Micah rapacity; and they have together so woven religion and morality into one perfect whole that they can never be divided. They lived in an age when individualism was first coming clearly into play, and, neglecting all aspects of it except that which was evil, they inveighed against it with an enthusiasm amounting to ferocity. The great thing is that in the moral sphere they were successful. Practice, of course, always falls far short of the teaching of the moralists, but Israel recognized, in a way no other ancient nation did, that their religion and their national existence were bound up with man's duty to his neighbour. It remained for a greater than any of these three to take their teaching and unite it with the trend of national development.
With all its superficial confusion there is a common language of humanity in the Land of Shinar [the district around Tottenham Court Road inhabited mainly by people of alien races]. Lord Bacon points out that “all colours agree in the dark”; and in our “Poverty Flats” all creeds blend, or merge into the one creed, which is a belief in love. One day I was out canvassing, endeavouring to persuade my neighbours that I was fitted to represent them on the London County Council. In a third floor back there was an old lady who was on the municipal register. She was very infirm, but her single room was a picture of neatness. I found that some forty people were living in the house. “We know of forty,” she whispered, suggesting that there might be a few more whom nobody knew. I had noticed that there was apparently only one water-tap for the house, and that was on the ground floor. This she confirmed; and when I asked her how she got her water up to the top of the house, she told me a beautiful story. A French woman from the other end of the street had called in to visit a fellow-countrywoman in this house, and hearing casually of this infirm old lady in a back room at the top of the house, had straightway gone up and offered to come in every day and carry up water for her. This she did month after month, with many added kindnesses. Between the two there was no racial tie. They could not even speak the same language. One was a Protestant and the other a Catholic. But they were “neighbours” in Christ's great sense of the word, and that was enough. I saw the good Samaritan before leaving the house. She had the bright face and animated manner of her race, and made nothing of her self-appointed task. She was a dweller in a mean street whom no street could make mean.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne, Pulpit, Platform, and Parliament, 114.]
