The prophet still speaks today- Part 3

Have you ever felt you had nowhere to turn? That everywhere you might have gone would be unsuitable, unhelpful or just unavailable? It’s not a fun place to be: on your own, needing help, but finding none.

This was the cry of many of the people living in Judah at the time of the prophet Micah. The majority were poor. They were desperate. They had nothing, and the little they had (as we saw in Micah 2:1-5) was being taken away from them by their own people. The powerful were oppressing the weak. The leaders, who had been entrusted by God to care for the welfare of the people, had become more concerned about themselves.

It is these leaders whom God addresses in Micah 3. Micah 3 is one of those ‘doom and gloom’ chapters. It contains a stern message of divine justice that is divided into three judgement oracles (or sermons) that work towards a climax in the last verse. The oracles are: 3:1-4, oracle against civil leaders; 3:5-8, oracle against prophets; and 3:9-12, oracle against all leaders in general.

Listen, you civil leaders

The chapter begins with the same words that open each of the three main sections in Micah: ‘listen’. Micah, speaking on behalf of God, is calling the leaders and rulers of Israel to give him their attention:

Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice,  you who hate good and love evil;
     who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones;  
     who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin
     and break their bones in pieces;
     who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?’
Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil
they have done. (Micah 3:1-4)

This is where it is helpful to remember that the book of Micah is poetry and that poetry isn’t always meant to be taken literally! At no time in Israel’s history do we know of Israel’s leaders being cannibals! However, Micah is telling us that things are so bad that it’s as if they were cannibalising the people.

Micah could have said, ‘You stole from people, took advantage of people. You destroyed their lives!’, but by painting a grotesque picture of starving wild animals that savagely rip people’s skin off their bones, he evokes an emotional response. We hear Micah’s heart when he conveys that Israel’s leaders were destroying the people in such a horrendous way that it was as if they were being devoured.

Micah calls these victims ‘my people’. In chapter one, we learnt that even Micah’s own town had been destroyed by the enemy, but now his people were being destroyed by their own leaders. For Micah, this was personal. It wasn’t about some people who were different and distant to him. It was about his friends and family.

When Micah says that God would punish the oppressors, he used language that would be used of someone crying out to a judge. However, he says that just as they hadn’t heard the voices of those they were meant to care for, God would not hear them. They were supposed to ‘embrace justice’, but instead they loved evil. And because of that, God would punish them by hiding his face from them. This was a dreaded thing, especially for a Jew. After all, God Himself lived in the temple in Jerusalem and the Jews lived in his presence.

Listen, you prophets

And so, in the second oracle God himself speaks to the prophets.

This is what the Lord says:
‘As for the prophets who lead my people astray,
     they proclaim “peace” if they have something to eat,
but prepare to wage war against anyone
     who refuses to feed them.  
Therefore night will come over you, without visions,
     and darkness, without divination.
The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them.
The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced.
They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God.’
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord,
     and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression,
     to Israel his sin. (Micah 3:5-8)

God accuses the prophets of becoming materialistic. While it was legal to pay a prophet, it seems those who paid the prophets more, got more favourable prophecies, and those who couldn’t pay only got bad news. The prophet’s concern was not to faithfully deliver God’s message, but to get all they could for themselves. God would not just sit by. Because of this injustice, the prophets would lose their ability to hear from him at all. The picture of their punishment is one of night and darkness, shame and disgrace. Like the leaders, God would answer the prophets with silence.

To conclude this oracle, Micah contrasts himself, a true prophet, with these false prophets. One might wonder if Micah was showing off! I don’t think he was. Micah might well have needed to justify his calling and message. In Micah 2:6-7 we read that the prophets didn’t appreciate his message and wanted him to be quiet. So Micah needed to reassure his audience that his message was not his own. It was God’s Spirit that compelled him to deliver a message of justice. Micah spoke for God, not for cash.

Listen, all you leaders

We reach the climax of chapter three in the third oracle:

Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel,
     who despise justice and distort all that is right;
     who build Zion with bloodshed,
     and Jerusalem with wickedness.
Her leader’s judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price,
     and her prophets tell fortunes for money,
     yet they look for the Lord’s support and say,
     ‘Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us.’
Therefore because of you, Zion will be ploughed like a field,
     Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
     the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. (Micah 3:9-12)

Again, the leaders are called to listen as God declares his charges against them. Note how the lines run parallel to each other. ‘Who despise justice’ is simply stated again in the next line, but with different words that help give an even clearer picture of what the crime is: ‘distort all that is right’. We read that they ‘build Zion with bloodshed’, which is echoed in the next line where ‘Zion’ is now ‘Jerusalem,’ and ‘bloodshed’, ‘wickedness’.

The reference to building Zion might be a part of this poem that we should take literally. Archaeology shows that there were enormous construction projects underway in Micah’s day. Two that are found in the Bible are Hezekiah’s wall and Hezekiah’s tunnel (2 Chronicles 32:3-5 and 27-30.) These projects would have required thousands of people to be involved in cutting and moving the massive rocks that were required.

Given that the Assyrian army was threatening to invade Jerusalem there would have been pressure to get these buildings done quickly. The Assyrians were on their doorstep. The wall had to get finished and time was of the essence. Maybe in their hurry to protect themselves, the leaders trampled others on the way.

Three types of leaders are brought together in verse 11: the judges, the priests and the prophets. Biblical scholar Leslie Allen says, ‘If you had a legal problem you would take it to a judge. If you had a religious problem you would take it to a priest. If you had a personal problem you would take it to a prophet’. But all of them were corrupt. This meant ordinary people had nowhere to go, no-one who would look out for their interests and rights.

The leaders were pretty smug about it. They thought they were God’s people, who lived in God’s city, in God’s presence. God had given them the land they were in and no ‘disaster would befall them’.

Well, yes, God had given them the land and yes, he did dwell with them, but these leaders were only remembering half of the story. They had a part to play too. To stay in the land they needed to be obedient to God, and they weren’t. Because of that, God declared that Jerusalem would be destroyed. Those great buildings—and even the great temple—would be levelled.

Turn back to God

In the strongest terms possible, Micah was saying God would not tolerate this injustice!

But here’s the interesting thing. Jeremiah 26:17-19 tells us the leaders heard the message that Micah gave Hezekiah. They listened. They repented. They changed their behaviour and God didn’t destroy Jerusalem. At least not at that time. Jerusalem was destroyed some 150 years later, but by Babylon, not Assyria. The prophecy was fulfilled, but it also allowed for people to turn back to God.

In Micah’s day, people listened and changed their behaviour. Allen says, ‘Micah’s words deserve to be taken to heart by each generation of God’s people. They challenge every attempt to misuse the service of God for one’s own glory and profit. They are a dire warning against the complacency that can take God’s love and reject His lordship. They are a passionate plea for consistency between creed and conduct’.

Micah 3 is a very challenging message to us today—especially to leaders—to treat people well, to use our power wisely, and to live lives of integrity.

Ponder This

Many of the awful crimes committed in the world today can feel as if they happen ‘over there’, far away and to people who look and live differently to us. Micah saw the victims in Micah 3 as ‘his people’. He was connected to them, he identified with them—and he got involved. Perhaps, if we saw all people as ‘our people’ we would get more involved in helping them?  Are there practical steps you could take towards identifying with people who are different to you?

In Micah 3, the Israelite leaders had a false sense of security. They thought they would never fall, but they were wrong. People today can have the same sense of smugness about their Christian faith. ‘I’ve asked Jesus into my heart’, ‘I go to church’, ‘I wear Salvation Army uniform’. We can forget that we are also called to lives of obedience.  Where does your security lie?