Micah 1:2-4

A CALL TO HARKEN. Micah 1:2-4

RV. Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord Jehovah be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be melted under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place.
LXX. Hear these words, ye people; and let the earth give heed, and all that are in it: and the Lord God shall be among you for a testimony, the Lord out of his holy habitation. For, behold, the Lord comes forth out of his place, and will come down, and will go upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be shaken under him, and the valleys shall melt like wax before the fire, and as water rushing down a declivity.

COMMENTS

A CALL TO HEAR AND HARKEN.

EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSAL CONCERN. Micah 1:2(a)

At the outset of Micah's recorded prophecy there is evidence of God's universal concern for all men. The prophet's call is to both ye peoples, all of you, and to (hearken) earth, and all therein is.

The term people is frequently used in Scripture to designate the covenant people of God. It is a term used to delineate between Israel and the nations. (e.g. Psalms 50:7)

In Micah 1:2, Micah calls to ye people, all of you. His message is intended for all those to whom the expression the people may rightly be applied, both in the northern and southern kingdom.

By his use of ... earth and all that therein is, Micah calls the whole world to listen to God's indictment of His covenant people. The use of earth and all that therein is to describe the non-covenant nations (i.e. the Gentiles) was one of longstanding precedent.

Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:1, uses this expression to declare to all mankind the name and greatness of Jehovah.

Micah's contemporary, Isaiah, used the same phrase to tell all mankind that God's people have rebelled against Him. (Isaiah 1:2)

Two reasons are apparent for God's concern that the earth and all that is in it hear His charges against both Samaria and Jerusalem; i.e. against both branches of the covenant people: (1) All men have a vital interest in the fulfillment of the covenant through the people. The more nationalistic the people became, and the more their religious practices became polluted with Baalism, the less aware they became of God's promise to bless, through them, all the nations of the earth. But God never forgot. (2) The time was fast approaching when God would cast off His rebellious people. When this happened, neither the world nor the people themselves would have any reason to say that God was unfaithful. None could say that He had not warned the people of the dire consequence of their failure to keep His covenant and obey His law. (Cf. Romans 11:1-4)

A vital lesson is to be learned from this verse by today's people, the church, namely that he who will not learn from God's past dealings with His people can blame only himself and not God for his own suffering. When the Jews were finally cast off by God it was after they had ignored not only the warning of the prophets but the meaning of the captivity which they endured as a result of not heeding that warning.

THE LORD IS TO BE WITNESS. Micah 1:2(b)

The condemnation of God is never arbitrary, The people are to have a fair trial. The star witness for the prosecution is to be the Lord Jehovah Himself.
Moses had issued a similar warning of impending judgment, And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they shall see the plagues of the land, the sickness wherewith Jehovah hath made it sick; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, not any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zebion, which Jehovah overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath: even all the nations shall say, whereof hath Jehovah done this unto this land? Then men shall say, because they forsook the covenant of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that He had not given them: therefore the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring down upon it all the curse that is written in this book; and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day. (Deuteronomy 29:22-28)

Anyone who has visited present day Palestine has been amazed that this land was once called a land flowing with milk and honey. Excepting those sections that have felt the improvements of modern technology and agricultural reclamation, it is a barren rocky wasteland. Such a visitor finds himself asking, Wherefore hath Jehovah done this to this land?
The answer of both Moses and the prophets is ... because they (God's people) forsook, the covenant of Jehovah. What is true of the land is equally true of the people who once inhabited it. Micah presents the Lord Himself as the chief witness to the justice of God's wrath against His rebellious people.
Nor is the Lord the only witness. The defense of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was essentially the same testimony against the people as that made by the Lord in the prophetic writings. The burden of Stephen's defense is that God's dealing with the people had always been progressive, toward the accomplishment of His eternal purpose to bless all men rather than static and prejudiced toward the commonwealth of the Jews. This purpose Stephen saw as universal rather than local. Underlying his entire argument is Stephen's insistence that God's treatment of Israel has always been ethical, rather than erratic. His actions are governed by the same morality He demands of them. Stephen closes with the classic accusation that the people have always been stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears to the point of murdering the prophets whom God sent to call them back to the covenant. (Cf. Acts, chapter seven)

THE LORD IS IN HIS HOLY TEMPLE. Micah 1:2(c) - Micah 1:3(a)

The temple here is not necessarily, nor even probably the temple at Jerusalem. Psalms 11:4 speaks of Jehovah in His holy temple. The eleventh Psalm is generally recognized as a Psalm of David, and was therefore written before there was a temple in Jerusalem.

The temple, or holy dwelling place out of which the Lord comes to testify against His people is His real dwelling place. The sanctuary of Solomon's temple (or its reconstructed post-Babylonian counterpart) was never more than a type of the real habitation of God.

We have this on the word of no less an author than the writer of the New Testament epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews 8:5 (a) informs us that the tabernacle (which was given permanence in the building of the temple) was ... a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

God is not an absentee God. He does not dwell in temples made by hand, (Acts 17:24) it is true, but the fact that He is invisible is not to be misunderstood. His judgments in history are evidence that the Lord of Lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see. (1 Timothy 6:15(b)-16) does indeed come forth out of His place, and will come down. (Micah 1:3)

There is no need to read the second advent of Christ into these verses. God has always come out of His holy place to chastise His people. Perhaps these historic comings, such as this one spoken by Micah, are a foretaste, a warning, of the final coming of Christ in judgment, but the words of Micah were fulfilled in the judgments of God against the northern and southern kingdoms at the hands of Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar.

TREAD UPON THE HIGH PLACES. Micah 1:3(b) +

The high places refer to Baal worship. They were generally any natural or man-made projection which stood above their surroundings. (Cf. 1 Kings 13:32 and 2 Kings 23:15)

High places were forbidden by the law (Deuteronomy 12:11-14) and when Israel entered the promised land they were instructed to destroy them as monuments to Canaanite idolatry. (Cf. Leviticus 26:30, Numbers 33:52, Deuteronomy 33:29) These commandments were so completely ignored by the people that they became practically unknown.

By divine command, Gideon built altars in the high places, as did also Manoah. (Judges 6:25-26; Judges 13:16-23) Samuel also appears to have violated the commandment against high places in building the altar at Mizpah, (1 Samuel 7:10) and again at Bethlehem, (1 Samuel 16:5) Saul transgressed this command at Gilgal and Ajalon. (Compare 1 Samuel 13:9; 1 Samuel 14:35) David ignored the divine ordinance against high places on the threshing floor at Ornan, (1 Chronicles 21:26) as did Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:30) and other prophets. (1 Samuel 10:5)

Some of the above named men violated this command in obedience to directive from God for a special purpose (e.g. Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal.)

Rehoboam instituted definite worship in the high places. (2 Chronicles 11:15, 2 Kings 23:9)

Hezekiah's reforms included the systematic elimination of these shrines to paganism. (2 Kings 18:4; 2 Kings 18:22, 2 Chronicles 31:1) This task was completed under Josiah. 2 Kings 23, 2 Chronicles 34:3)

After this systematic destruction, there is no further mention of the worship of Jehovah in high places in the Old Testament. However, the worship in these hills mentioned by the Samaritan women at Jacob's well (John, chapter four) was probably a vestige of this despicable practice of mixing Jehovah worship with Baal worship. Baalbek, the last surviving center of sun god worship, continued to flourish under the Roman domination of the New Testament period and well into the third century A.D.

The working of God in history has long since trodden down the high places of Baal worship and of polluted Jehovah worship, but the influence of Baal among God's people is apparent yet today as Christians continue the observance of the same holy days by the use of many of the same devices and customs.
The more one learns of the abominable practice of Baal worship and of its devastating effect upon the covenant people, the more one questions the wisdom of promoting such days and customs in the church. The history of virtually every major Christian holiday is traceable directly to the worship of the sun god in one form or another.

MOUNTAINS TO MELT, VALLEYS TO MELT LIKE WAX. Micah 1:4

Fire is the traditional symbol of God's purifying judgment. Moses, exhorting Israel against covenant breaking, warned; Take heed to yourselves lest ye forget the covenant of Jehovah your God, which He made with you, and make you a graven image in the form of anything which Jehovah thy God hath forbidden thee. For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)

It is fitting that Micah, and other prophets (e.g. Isaiah 66:15) in their attempt to call the people back to the covenant through obedience to the law, should remind them of this symbol. The heat of God's wrath is depicted as melting the mountains and turning the valleys to wax. The symbolism is obvious, both the high and the low, the great and the small will be devoured by God's fiery wrath. God is no respecter of persons. As the song writer has put it:

The great man was there, but his greatness
When death came was left far behind.
The angel who opened the records
Not a trace of his greatness could find.

No matter how high or low the station, hearts hard as stone against the pleading of God's prophets become like wax in the presence of His wrath. One of the primary warnings of the prophets is that human greatness does not bring preferential treatment from God.