TEXT [Commentary]

  C.   True and False Prophets (2:6-11)

6 “Don’t say such things,”

the people respond.[*]

“Don’t prophesy like that.

Such disasters will never come our way!”

7 Should you talk that way, O family of Israel?[*]

Will the LORD’s Spirit have patience with such behavior?

If you would do what is right,

you would find my words comforting.

8 Yet to this very hour

my people rise against me like an enemy!

You steal the shirts right off the backs

of those who trusted you,

making them as ragged as men

returning from battle.

9 You have evicted women from their pleasant homes

and forever stripped their children of all that God would give them.

10 Up! Begone!

This is no longer your land and home,

for you have filled it with sin

and ruined it completely.

11 Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you,

“I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol!”

That’s just the kind of prophet you would like!

NOTES

2:7 patience. The Hebrew idiom here (referring to Yahweh) is “has the spirit (ruakh [TH7307, ZH8120]) been shortened (qatsar [TH7114B, ZH7918])?” That is, “the spirit of Yahweh has not been exhausted; he has filled Micah with power to declare Israel’s sin (3:8)” (Andersen and Freedman 2000:311). God is indeed patient and slow to anger, but he will eventually confront the guilty and punish sin (cf. Exod 34:6-7; Nah 1:2-3).

do what is right. Lit., “the one who walks with the just” (yashar [TH3477A, ZH3838] + halak [TH1980, ZH2143]). Since Yahweh is upright, he expects his people to behave in like manner (cf. Ps 25:8). The word “just” or “upright” (yashar) is prominent in Hebrew wisdom tradition, where we learn that the upright will be rescued (Prov 11:6) and will live in the land (Prov 2:21).

2:8 steal. Lit., “strip off” (pashat [TH6584, ZH7320]). It is unclear whether Micah was condemning those who were actually robbing people of their outer garments by stripping them of their cloaks and stealing them or whether he condemned the wealthy creditors seizing the cloaks of debtors as pledges without warning. Given the economic context of this oracle and the one preceding it, Allen (1976:296-297) favors the latter. If this is the case, then the wealthy creditors were in violation of an ancient covenant stipulation that prohibited the retention of garments taken in pledge overnight (Exod 22:26-27).

2:9 evicted. The verb (garash [TH1644, ZH1763]) “describes forcible expulsion” and continues Yahweh’s indictment of the wealthy oppressors begun in 2:8 (Andersen and Freedman 2000:321).

stripped . . . of all. Lit., the wealthy oppressors have “taken away” (laqakh [TH3947, ZH4374]) “my glory” (hadar [TH1926, ZH2077]) from the children. “Micah draws a pathetic picture of the eviction of a peasant family; the women driven from their pleasant homes, the children robbed of their expectations, of their title to share in God’s own land, his glory” (McKeating 1971:165).

2:10 Up! Begone! Taken together, the two imperative verbs (qum [TH6965, ZH7756], “arise”; and halak [TH1980, ZH2143], “go”) signal Israel’s exile from the land of covenant promise in anticipation of the later promise of restoration (2:13; cf. Lev 18:24-30).

land and home. Lit., “the rest area is not this place” (cf. “for this is not your resting place,” NIV). Theologically, the land of covenant promise, Canaan, was understood as the place of “rest” (menukhah [TH4496, ZH4957]) with respect to peace, security, and spiritual well-being because of right relationship with God (Deut 12:9; Ps 95:11; cf. Heb 3:18–4:3).

sin. Lit., “uncleanness” (tam’ah [TH2931.1, ZH3239]). The word often connotes defilement and ritual impurity that compromises worship and a right relationship with God (Lev 5:3; 7:20). Hosea described a similar situation where the land had been defiled by the sin of idolatry and the Israelites would be expelled from their land and exiled to Assyria (Hos 5:3; 6:10; 9:3-4). This is in keeping with the warnings threatening exile from the land of covenant promise if the Hebrews defiled themselves with the pagan practices of the surrounding Canaanites (Lev 18:24-30).

2:11 prophet full of lies. The words “falsehood/deception” (sheqer [TH8267, ZH9214]) and “to lie/deceive” (kazab [TH3576, ZH3941]) are consistently associated with false prophets in the OT (cf. Isa 9:15; Jer 5:31; Ezek 13:22). Micah used the same terms to describe those who would preach a false message to the people. The authentic prophet of God both speaks the truth (Jer 26:15) and lives an upright life (Ezek 2:5-8; cf. Isa 28:7; Zeph 3:4).

COMMENTARY [Text]

God’s prophetic messengers often faced stiff opposition from both civil and religious leaders (cf. 3:11). False prophets were one such group of organized opponents. They dogged the true prophets of Yahweh and challenged their right to speak (2:6). They countered their call to repentance and covenant renewal with self- indulgent teaching pleasing to their audience (2:11; cf. Jer 5:31). They denied that God would bring disaster upon his people for their sin (cf. Jer 5:12-13); in fact, their preaching and teaching was often a denial of reality (cf. Ezek 13:10). Later, Micah indicates that these false prophets promise peace to those who can feed them well (3:5-11). As Waltke (1997:938) notes, the false prophets addressed but one dimension of Yahweh’s covenant with Israel since they “preached only God’s promises, not his threatened judgment.” Jeremiah summed up the ministry of the false prophets in a similar fashion, since “they offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound” (Jer 8:11).

Micah’s message to the false prophets prompted Kaiser (1992:43) to warn of the “evil of placebo preaching.” The true prophet of God must “tell the rest of the story” as it were; or as Waltke frames it, like Micah, the true prophet of Yahweh must “not flinch from delivering the ever unpopular message that the wages of sin is death” (1997:938). False teaching and preaching springs from bad theology, as evidenced by Micah’s antagonists who assumed that God’s presence among his people as symbolized by the Jerusalem Temple meant only peace and security for Israel (3:9-12; cf. Jer 7:4-11). Micah’s experience serves as a reminder to the Christian church that not only must we preach the “whole purpose” of God (Acts 20:27, NRSV; “I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know,” NLT), but also we must be committed to teach and live out “wholesome teaching” (Titus 1:9, 13; 2:1). The Lord sent his prophets to Israel in Old Testament times to cut them to pieces and slaughter them with his words (Hos 6:5). The same should be no less true today, as M. J. Dawn would challenge us: “In a society doing all it can to make people cozy, somehow we must convey the truth that God’s Word, rightly read and heard, will shake us up. It will kill us, for God cannot bear our sin and wants to put to death our self-centeredness” (1995:206).