2:1Woe to those who on their beds devise iniquity and do evil. In the morning light they do it, for it is within their reach.
2:2So they covet fields and tear them away, and they also steal houses. They oppress a man and his household, even a man and his inheritance.
2:3For this reason, Yahweh says this:
Look, I am devising evil upon this clan. From this evil they will not be able to remove their necks. So they will no longer strut around, for it is a time of evil.
2:4On that day he will quote a proverb against you, and sing a sad song. ‘It is done!’ He said, ‘We are completely ruined’. He will change my people’s territory. How will he remove it from me? He will apportion our fields to the traitor!
2:5For this reason, no-one will be casting a measuring cord for you to distribute land in the assembly of Yahweh.
2:6’You (s) shall not drivel such things’, they shall drivel. ‘Stop them drivelling about these things!
Disgrace will not be averted!
2:7What shall be said, O House of Jacob? Is the Spirit of YHWH angry? Are these his doings? Won’t my words do good with the one who walks uprightly?
2:8But recently my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip off the robe of the garment in front of you, from those passing by a security [as if you are] returning from battle.
2:9You (pl) drive out the women of my people from the house of her delight, you (pl) take my honour forever from her children.
2:10Get up and go! For this is no resting place, because it is unclean and ruined and grievously destroyed.
2:11If a man walking of breath and deception lies, ‘I will drivel to you about wine and strong drink’, he is a driveller/speaker [for] this people.
2:12I will certainly gather Jacob, all of you (s). I will certainly collect you, remnant of Israel. In unity I will set him like a flock [in the] sheep pen, like a herd in the midst of his pasture. She will be noisy from men.
2:13 The one breaking out from the front of them goes up. They break out, and they pass through [the] gate and they go forth in it, and their king passes through before them, even YHWH at their head.
The prophecy we read in Micah chapter 2 is bad news first, but good news later. It’s, "you’ve got to eat your brussel sprouts before you get dessert". It’s gain only through pain. It is salvation only through suffering. Chapter 2 is mainly bad news. That’s what verses 1 to 11 are about. But it finishes on a note of hope. There is good news for a time beyond the evil days that are coming. That’s verses 12 to 13.
[Verses 1-11 are an oracle of doom, bound together by vocabulary. Verses 1 and 3 are tied together by assonance and vocabulary. Verses 5-11 are tied together with common vocab: hebel (v5, ‘measuring cord’ and v10, ‘destruction’), and in verses 5, 11 , the word for drivel is used figuratively for 'to speak'. Verses 12-13 are an oracle of hope.]
We open chapter 2 with an ominous word: "Woe". Not the teenagers, "Woah!", but an archaic, grief stricken, "woe". "Oh no, we’re doomed!" That is the theme of chapter 2 verses 1 to 11: God’s people are doomed.
We are not told who specifically this word of doom was aimed at. We don’t know whether to the North or to the South, to Jerusalem or Samaria. Probably that’s on purpose. Probably the word of doom was aimed at both. Because both kingdoms are doomed. Samaria was destroyed in 723 BC. All Judea except Jerusalem was ransacked in 701 BC. And Jerusalem only escaped by Yahweh's miraculous intervention. In the end it was only a 100 year reprieve.
Doom came a century later, when the Babylonians surrounded the city of Jerusalem in 687 BC. Jerusalem survived Assyria only to be destroyed by Babylon. So we probably should see this word of doom as addressed to both Jerusalem and Samaria. It is spoken to all God’s people, for whom it is appropriate. If the shoe fits wear it. And so we should listen carefully, to see if the doom would be fitting for us.
The prophecy of doom has three elements. First, it is very clear about the people’s sin. It lists the sins that the people have committed to deserve the prophecy of doom. Second, it stipulates a just punishment for sin. There will be retribution, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, for what the people have done.
And third, it complains about the false prophets that the people love to hear. False prophets are giving the people a message that simply is not true.
First, we see the sins stipulated and itemized. This is in verses 1-2 and verses 8-9. Let’s look at verses 1 to 2 first.
2:1Woe to those who on their beds devise iniquity and do evil. In the morning light they do it, for it is within their reach.
2:2So they covet fields and tear them away, and they also steal houses. They oppress a man and his household, even a man and his inheritance.
It starts with coveting, the 10th commandment. Coveting is looking and lusting, seeing and salivating over something. It’s a very easy sin to commit. In fact, that is how capitalism works. Our whole economic system--our whole society--works on coveteousness. As Ecclesiastes says, "I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbour" (Ecclesiastes 4:4 NIV). Envy happens on the inside, hands in your pockets, within the privacy of your mind and within the cavity of your own chest. You can do it all by yourself in your room with your eyes closed.
The board game ‘monopoly’ is based on envy. It’s about, well, monopolizing, having everything. It is about owning everything on the board and taking everyone else’s stuff. No wonder everyone ends up feeling grumpy and grubby and defiled after playing it.
At the time of Joshua, God gave his people their tribal inheritance. God himself shared out all the land: this bit for you, this bit for you. There could be no fights: "Hey, he got the best bit, she got more than me." God did it fair the first time, and it was meant to stay that way (Leviticus 25:8-34). The tribal allotments were permanent. No-one could sell the land permanently, because Yahweh owned the land, and Israel were just his guests (Leviticus 25:23). So if someone got in financial trouble and sold their land, they would get it back at the next Jubilee, which was every 50 years. That ensured (if it was observed) that no family would permanently be deprived of their allotment. Every 50 years, the land would revert back to it’s original allotment.
But these ancient allotments were not enough for those who had become rich and powerful. They wanted more than their fair share. They can’t sleep for their coveteousness. They were plotting evil under the doona. They look like they are asleep, but a world of sin has awoken in their hearts. Their dreams are about how to get their neighbour’s field and lovely house. They want it. They are working out how to can get it.
We’re not talking about ‘the Castle’ here: a stubborn eccentric offered a fair price for his house under the flight path, but he won’t sell because he likes the view of the power lines. The sort of thing criticized here is what Ahab did.
Ahab, the most wicked king of Israel, looks out over Samaria and sees Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21). The vineyard is Naboth’s family possession. Ahab wants it, so he offers to buy it off him, but Naboth refused: "The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers." That is the answer of a righteous Israelite. But the wicked King goes home, sulking on his bed and refusing to eat. His wife Jezebel asks, "What’s up?" "Naboth won’t sell me his vineyard", Ahab pouts. So Jezebel says, "You’re the king! Stop being pathetic! I’ll get you the field." Then she goes off, sets Naboth up, gets liars to frame him, has him killed, and then she gives Ahab the vineyard. That is the sort of coveteous plotting and scheming that we are looking at. And if that’s what the King does, you can bet it is rife in Samaria. And if it’s OK for King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in Samaria, you can bet it’s OK for daughter Athaliah and son-in-law Jehoram, King and Queen in Jerusalem, and their son Ahaziah.
The result is given in Micah chapter 2 verse 9: "You drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes. You take away my blessing from their children forever" (NIV). Women and children are deprived of their inheritance. There are eviction notices everywhere, and no-one cares about the Year of Jubilee.
We know it’s possible to play hardball to get what we want. But how can we Christians sin in this way today? Remember that the key sin here is coveteousness: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour" (Exodus 20:17-18 NIV).
How are you going keeping up with the Joneses? They’ve just got a new extension, and put in a pool and spa, triple garage, and landscaped yards with rainwater irrigation. Are you feeling jealous?
Are you worried about your parents will? Is there a sibling that wants to get you disinherited? Are they spreading lies about you? Is someone working over your parents to get you cut out of the will? Or are you doing it to someone else? "How can mum or dad give them that? I do all the work! I’m just protecting what’s rightfully mine."
Of course, coveting involves people as well as property: he’s got a pretty wife. Perhaps things are a bit hard at home at the moment, the marriage is not going so well. Maybe you think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Surely not, you say! We are Christians! We wouldn’t do such things! It happens. Such propensity to sin lives in our hearts. A man lurks at bible study, seducing his good friend’s wife, taking her for himself, wrecking his own family and hers. These things happen, with the result that spouses are devastated and numerous children are changed forever, having to deal with the consequences of a parent's sin. Maybe you’re jealous of someone else’s girlfriend or boyfriend? That’s simply adultery with training wheels.
Ministers are tempted in these things as well. Why do ministers get struck off? Usually it is because they were doing something with another man’s wife. Of course, there are more subtle ways ministers are sinister: a minister might covet another minister’s church, so tells lies, or says he’s rubbish, to draw away people to himself.
There might be other ways this happens in business: maybe foreclosing on a loan before it is necessary, to get assets cheap, and make a profit. There are other ways we can rip other people off, such as cheating on copyright law, rather than paying for your music or your videos or your games. Or perhaps cheating on tax, rather than being glad our taxes pay for hospitals and roads and schools. Or maybe using the work photocopier, pinching stationary, or running your own business on your employer’s time. They are all about coveting, dishonesty and lack of contentment.
Well, Yahweh is going to bring retribution on his people. He was fair in distributing the land, so now he’s going to be fair in punishing them for stealing the land. Since they take away their neighbour’s inheritance, God will take all the inheritance.
There was a TV ad, where the kids are fighting over who gets the last chicken nugget, so the dad eats it. And the caption is ‘love problem solving’. I like that ad. That’s what God is going to do. Since you fight over the land, none of you will have it. I will take the land away from you, and you away from the land.
Micah chapter 2 verses 3 to 4:
3 Therefore, the LORD says: "I am planning disaster against this people, from which you cannot save yourselves. You will no longer walk proudly, for it will be a time of calamity. 4 In that day men will ridicule you; they will taunt you with this mournful song: 'We are utterly ruined; my people's possession is divided up. He takes it from me! He assigns our fields to traitors.'"
The original of verses 1 and 3 has actually rhymes: I might paraphrase it, "You plan evil on your divan; I’ll plan evil on your clan." The rhyme actually brings out the justice of the punishment. And the evil Yahweh is planning is that God will take the land from his people and give it to others. The leaders assigned the fields to themselves by treachery. Now Yahweh will do the same thing, and assign the fields to traitors. Moreover, the people have not distributed the land fairly. Therefore, the time is coming when fair distribution will be impossible, Micah 2:5: "Therefore you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by lot." It is as if God is saying, "You haven’t been fair. So things are going to be so bad that you will wish for fairness, but you won’t get it.
The ultimate punishment for this unfairness is verse 10: "Get up, go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled, it is ruined, beyond all remedy. "
Israel suffered forced labour and painful toil in Egypt. God brought them from Egypt to the promised land to have rest. But there is no rest where such unfairness rules. The law about inheritance and the Jubilee ensured rest. But these laws have has been ignored and broken. They have irrevocably polluted the land, so the only solution is banishment, expulsion, get up and go away. And that’s what Israel did. The Northern Kingdom was destroyed, expelled to Assyria, never to return. The Southern Kingdom was exiled to Babylon, to return in 70 years.
Now we are reading the prophet Micah. And because we believe the bible, we take it for granted that Micah is the good guy. Micah told his people the true word from Yahweh. And we know that because Jesus and his apostles accepted that Micah spoke the truth. Micah is the true prophet sent from Yahweh. But it is not as if Micah or Hosea or Isaiah were the only prophets going around from 750 to 720 in Samaria. They didn’t have a monopoly on prophecy services, just like our church, or our denomination, or our type of churches, are not the only type of churches, and our gospel message is not the only gospel message that takes the name ‘Christian gospel’. In fact, Micah tells us there were other prophets at the time, even though we don’t have their names. And they had a critique of Micah’s gospel, and a different message to offer.
First, here is the critique, in verse 6: '"Do not prophesy," their prophets say. "Do not prophesy about these things"' (NIV). Micah preaches so much negativity. He is driveling on about sin and punishment, judgment and exile. He is like a leaky tap, drip, drip, drip. It’s all very depressing and negative. These other prophets have a very different gospel, verse 7: "Should it be said, O house of Jacob: "Is the Spirit of the LORD angry? Does he do such things?" (NIV). These other prophets are saying to Micah, "Stop talking about Yahweh’s anger and impatience! Isn’t God a God of love? Surely he doesn’t do such things as send his people out of the land."
These false prophets seem to be preaching God’s love without God’s anger. They don’t realize that God’s anger comes from his love. For God’s wrath is God’s love rejected. Sometimes it is said that we get the preachers we deserve. After all, where do we get them from? From you lot. The place from where we recruit the clergy is the laity.
Sometimes we are right to complain about our preachers. But sometimes when we complain about our preachers, we should look to ourselves as churches. That way of thinking stands behind verse 11: "If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!" (NIV). The people of Micah’s day gathered around them teachers who would say to them what their itching ears want to hear. They wanted plenty of wine and beer. They wanted their prophets to promise this from God.
What are the things that you want from your preachers?
The last word Micah has for us is a word of hope. Micah looks beyond exile, to God gathering together a remnant like a flock, verses 12 to 13:
12I will certainly gather Jacob, all of you (s). I will certainly collect you, remnant of Israel. In unity I will set him like a flock [in the] sheep pen, like a herd in the midst of his pasture. She will be noisy from men. 13 The one breaking out from the front of them goes up. They break out, and they pass through [the] gate and they go forth in it, and their king passes through before them, even YHWH at their head.
And this points us to Jesus, the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is Israel's king. And Jesus reveals himself as the good shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep (John 10). He will do this so that he can bring them in and out in safety and find pasture. And Jesus will also find other sheep, not of his pen, the gentiles, and will be one shepherd over one flock.