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Micah, the Prophet of Unchanging Love, part 12

Micah 7:1-6 gives us another round of indictments against Israel, spoken through Micah.

¹ Woe is me! For I am like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers [olaylaw, “gleaners”]. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat, or a first-ripe fig which I crave. ² The godly person has perished from the land, and there is no upright person among men. All of them lie in wait for bloodshed, each of them hunts the other with a net [herem, “net, devotion, accursed”].

In view of God’s indictments against Israel, both God and Micah himself express feelings of impending disaster. There seem to be no godly people left in the land. Micah compares this to a grape harvest, where the harvesters left no gleanings for the poor. Clean gleaning was unlawful, but it seems that the statutes of Omri did not protect the poor by enforcing the gleanings law.

That law itself is found in Leviticus 19:9-11,

⁹ Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰ Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger (gar, “foreigner”). I am the Lord your God. ¹¹ You shall not steal…

Micah specifically refers to Leviticus 19:10, which speaks of the gleanings from the grape harvest. Verse 11 is associated with this law, implying that it is theft to leave no gleanings for the needy and for the foreigner. The law establishes rights, and in this case, the needy and even foreigners have the right to claim the gleanings from a field. Of course, he must do the work of picking up the fruit and carrying it home.

Micah identifies the gleanings with “the godly person” and the “upright person,” who had disappeared from the land. No gleanings—no godly person. The practice of clean gleaning, then, was a lawless act that had reduced the number of godly persons in the land. The underlying principle tells us that God has given godly people (spiritual gleanings) to the needy. Essentially, they are God’s gift to support the needy, both physically and spiritually.

So we see that Jesus came to the needy, the sinners, the publicans that others despised. On a spiritual level, the religious leaders had clean gleaned their vineyards, leaving little or no gleanings for those that they had cast out of the synagogue. And they certainly had no love for foreigners such as the Samaritans.

Micah 7:2 says,

² All of them lie in wait for bloodshed, each of them hunts the other with a net [herem, “net, devotion, accursed”].

Herem has a double meaning: net and devotion. A veil is a net, which is worn by those who have been “devoted” to their husbands. (Hopefully, they are not “accursed”!) But the prophet uses the term specifically because of its double meaning. In those days men often used nets to trap birds. Micah says that all of the ungodly people “lie in wait for bloodshed, and each of them hunts the other with a net”—earnestly, or with devotion. It is for this reason that the godly are gone, and this is part of God’s indictment against Israel. Their violation of the gleanings law was a symptom of a deeper spiritual problem.

Bribery

Micah 7:3 continues,

³ Concerning evil, both hands do it well, the prince asks, also the judge, for a bribe, and a great man speaks the desire of his soul; so they weave it together.

This is a reference to the law in Exodus 23:8, 9,

⁸ You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear sighted and subverts the cause of the just. ⁹ You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.

As in the days of Micah, much of the world today functions on bribery. Those who are given positions of authority tend to misuse their authority by making money on the side. Christians too have been caught up in demanding bribes for their services. Such Christians fall into the category of lawlessness, those who are lawless (anomia), as we see in Matthew 7:22, 23.

In the passage above, I included verse 9 because it was most common to demand bribes from foreigners who, in order to obtain justice, had no choice but to give the bribe that was demanded. Discrimination against foreigners was commonly practiced. But God reminds Israel that they should remember how they were oppressed when they were foreigners in Egypt.

Don’t Be a Briar

Micah 7:4 says,

⁴ The best of them is like a briar, the most upright like a thorn hedge. The day when you post your watchmen, your punishment will come. Then their confusion will occur.

This is similar to Isaiah 7:24,

²⁴ People will come there with bows and arrows because all the land will be briars and thorns.

Briars and thorns symbolize ungodly people. We can trace the origin of thorns back to Genesis 3:18, as part of the curse on the earth for Adam’s sin:

¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field.

When men become ungodly, they become briars and thorns on the earth because they are living manifestations of the curse on the ground. Numbers 33:55 identifies the Canaanites as “pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides.” The reason is not on account of their non-Israelite biology but their worship of false gods. We see this later when God determined to leave Canaanites in their midst. Judges 2:3 makes this clear,

³ Therefore I also said, “I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

In Micah’s day, God condemned Israel for being a land of briars and thorns. This was not because they were Canaanite, but because they worshiped false gods and were lawless insofar as God’s law was concerned.

But we are called to be a blessing to all families of the earth (Genesis 12:3), if indeed we are Abraham’s children. The antidote to a curse is a blessing. Those who are briars and thorns are part of the problem. We who are in Christ and who are not lawless are God’s solution.

Family Problems

Micah 7:5, 6 says,

⁵ Do not trust in a neighbor; do not have confidence in a friend. From her who lies in your bosom guard your lips. ⁶ For a son treats father contemptuously, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law rises against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

Exodus 20:12 says, “Honor your father and you mother,” but in Micah’s time, one had to be careful and even suspicious of those around him—even “the men of his own household.” Jesus quoted Micah in Matthew 10:35, 36. This was in the context of Jesus’ teaching on discipleship.

This ends God’s indictment against Israel, and it is followed by Israel’s prophetic response in repentance and faith in the promise of God.