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fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man,
what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God' (Mic. 6:7,8).
The bitter fruits of
this influence of 'the statutes of Omri' and of
'the works of the house of
Ahab' are revealed, so that at last 'a man's
enemies are the men of his
own house' (Mic. 6:16; 7:6). Micah has no false
hopes for this backsliding
people, he says:
'Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my
salvation: my God will hear me' (7:7).
In the words, 'Until He plead my cause' (7:9) there is more than a hint
of the intercession of the One Mediator. The closing section of the prophecy
reverts back again to the theme of chapter 4, Israel's ultimate restoration.
This blessed conclusion is distributed under three references to
certain 'days':
A
7:14.
'As in the days of old'
The decree.
B
15 -17.
'The days of the coming out of Egypt'
Type.
A
18 -20.
'From the days of old'
The promise.
'In that day shall the decree be far removed' (Mic. 7:11). To what
does Micah refer in these words? The preceding verse speaks of lifting of
the desolations that had overtaken Jerusalem, and that simultaneously with
the building of her walls, in that day the decree shall be far removed.
Other prophets have used this expression. Joel says, 'I will no more make
you a reproach among the heathen; but I will remove far off from you the
northern army' (Joel 2:19,20). When the day comes for Jerusalem's walls to
be rebuilt, Isaiah says, 'Thou shalt be far from oppression' (54:14).
Some commentators render the passage, 'thy boundary shall be
widely extended', others, 'the decree is issued or extended', applying it to
the proclamation of the Persian monarch permitting the return of the Jews to
Jerusalem. In the ordinary way, a rule of interpretation that should be
observed is that every sentence has one and only one primary meaning. Micah,
however, has already given us a sample of his play upon words in chapter 1:10
-16, and it is therefore possible that some cryptic reference is here, to the
removing afar off the decree that brought the Assyrian army against Jerusalem
and the reverse of this, the extending of the decree that brought the exiles
back to Jerusalem, 'He shall come ... from Assyria' (Mic. 7:12). A special
variant reading is 'they shall come', and refers to the exiles, the returning
'remnant' (Mic. 7:18). The sentence that follows, 'the fortified cities, and
from the fortress even to the river' should read 'from Egypt to the
Euphrates', which cover the extent of the land originally promised to Abraham
and the restoration of Jerusalem is likened to the day when the Lord brought
Israel out of Egypt, the reference to 'marvellous things' being a fulfilment
of the covenant made in Exodus 34:10, 'I will do marvels'.
The propensity of Micah to the figure of paronomasia comes once more to
the fore. His name Micah means 'who is like God?' Consequently he cannot
close his prophecy of restoration without saying, 'Who Is A God Like Unto
Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the