Moresheth is a town south of Jerusalem near the border of the Philistine territory. The Lord speaks His Word to Micah during the reigns of three Judean kings between 735-710 BC.
“Hear, all you peoples! Listen, O earth, and all that is in it! Let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place. He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. The mountains will melt under Him, and the valleys will split like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?” Micah 1:2-5
Everyone on earth needs to hear this! Let the Lord speak from heaven to you. The Lord is about to bring about serious judgments on transgression. Which transgressions does the Lord intend to address? The answer is the transgressions which flow from the capital of Israel (Samaria) and the transgressions which flow from the capital of Judah (Jerusalem).
In 1 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul wrote, “I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.”
If the devil controls the capital cities of nations, he can control the nations under those governments more easily. Therefore, his aim is to turn our capitals into cesspools of corruption where good and honest people are either flipped from doing good or they are eliminated. God in His Word promises to bless our nations with quietness (lack of drama), peace and godliness if we pray for all who are in authority. The Lord led me to make a prayer list with the names of the USA’s leaders on it so I will not forget to pray for them. I also pray over maps of the nations.
“Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field, places for planting a vineyard. I will pour down her stones into the valley, and I will uncover her foundations. All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her pay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire. All her idols I will lay desolate, for she gathered it from the pay of a harlot, and they shall return to the pay of a harlot.” Micah 1:6-7
The proud buildings of Samaria will eventually become rubble and be replaced by grape yielding vineyards. Instead of consuming their nation’s wealth, their capital will begin to produce food for people. Their Idols will be shattered, and the income of idol worshippers will be burnt up.
“Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like the jackals and a mourning like the ostriches. For her wounds are incurable. For it has come to Judah. It has come to the gate of My people—to Jerusalem.” Micah 1:8-9
The Lord celebrates not the suffering of idolators. He weeps like a jackal which is loud. A jackal’s howl sounds like someone crying. The Lord mourns for Jacob like an ostrich. Ostriches make sounds like someone mourning and screaming. The wailing continues because Jacob’s wound will not heal. The sounds of the Lord’s grief over Jacob reaches even as far away as Jerusalem.
In Micah 1:10-16, the Lord lists towns situated between the land of the Philistines and Jerusalem that shall suffer losses as a result of attacks by the Assyrian army. They are Beth Aphrah, Shaphir, Zaanan, Beth Ezel, Maroth, Lachish, Moresheth Gath, Achzib, Mareshah, and Adullam. The Lord urges His people to feel their pain to the point of grieving for them.
“Harness the chariot to the team of horses, O inhabitant of Lachish—she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion—because in you were found the rebellious acts of Israel.” Micah 10:13
Lachish was the beginning of sin to Zion (Jerusalem) because Lachish was the first of Judah’s cities to imitate Israel’s worship of idols. Lachish, being close to Samaria, was the first city of Judah to be infected by Israel’s idolatry, which then spread to Jerusalem. [JFBC]
“Woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and take them by violence, also houses, and seize them. So they oppress a man and his house, a man, and his inheritance.” Micah 2:1-2
Rather than praying and thanking God for providing and protecting them, the idol worshippers laid awake thinking about which forms of violence they might use to defraud farmers and home owners of their properties. They used oppressive tactics to rob people of their inheritances.
“Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks; nor shall you walk haughtily, for this is an evil time. In that day, one shall take up a proverb against you, and lament with a bitter lamentation, saying: ‘We are utterly destroyed! He has changed the heritage of my people. How He has removed it from me! To a turncoat He has divided our fields.’ Therefore you will have no one to determine boundaries by lot in the assembly of the Lord.” Micah 2:3-5
Instead of loving their neighbors, the people in these towns were hateful and harmful toward them. God promised that a disaster that would defraud them of what they stole from others. They would have no one to turn to protect them in those days. Soon, they would be the ones crying bitterly and saying, “We are utterly destroyed!”
“Do not prophesy, you say to those who prophesy. So they shall not prophesy to you. They shall not return insult for insult. You who are named the house of Jacob: ‘Is the Spirit of the Lord restricted? Are these His doings? Do not My Words do good to him who walks uprightly?” Micah 2:6-7
In Revelation 3;19, Jesus declares, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” William Barclay wrote, “Jesus’ great love was expressed in His rebuke. It is, in fact, God’s final punishment to leave a person alone.”
God left those who did not want Him alone for a season. He silenced His prophets. He told His prophets not to trade insults with the mockers. God removed His Spirit’s convictions and restraints from the rebels for a time. Lawlessness, chaos and violence increased among them.
King David testified of the blessings that he received from reading God’s Word. In Psalm 19:9-11, David wrote, “The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb! By them, your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward.”
“Lately My people have risen up as an enemy—you pull off the robe with the garment from those who trust you, as they pass by, like men returned from war. The women of My people you cast out from their pleasant houses. From their children you have taken away My glory forever.” Micah 2:8-9
Where was love? Those who should have been protecting and providing for women and children, were ripping them from their homes, and ripping their clothes away as conquering soldiers do to widows and orphans of conquered nations.
“Arise and depart, for this is not your rest; because it is defiled, it shall destroy, yes, with utter destruction. If a man should walk in a false spirit and speak a lie, saying, ‘I will prophesy to you of wine and drink,’ even he would be the prophet of this people.” Micah 2:10-11
They were ripe for false prophets to harvest. They had closed their ears to truth. They would do anything for wining, dining and entertainment but nothing for God.
The Lord promised to separate the sheep (the remnant) from the goats (the rebels). He promised to gather the remnant from among the nations and bring them back to pasture.
“I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of their pasture. They shall make a loud noise because of so many people. The one who breaks open will come up before them. They will break out, pass through the gate, and go out by it. Their king will pass before them, with the Lord at their head.” Micah 2:12-13
The remnant still loved the Lord. He promised to connect them together as a shepherd herds scattered sheep together. He would lead them into His sheepfold of fellowship and provision.
Psalm 103:10-14 says that the Lord “does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust.”
God promised to purge sin from the towns of Judah. Fiery trials would help them to reconsider their treatment of God, God’s Word and God’s servants.
In Micah 2:12-13, the Lord assembled the remnant of His people as a good shepherd gathers the sheep that he loves into a green pasture. He would not treat them as their sins deserved. He would forgive them. He would have compassion on them. He would be gracious unto them and restore them to the Promised Land. He promised to go before them and lead the way.
[JFBC] = Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary
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