God’s indictment against His people
6
📚Hear now what the LORD says:“Arise, plead your case before
the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 📚Hear the LORD’s case, O mountains,
and you strong foundations
of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against
his people, and he will plead
his case against Israel.
6:1-2 In this chapter God makes His accusations against Israel. It is like a scene in a courtroom, only the court in this case is the wide outdoors with mountains and hills as witnesses. Compare Isa 1:2. Israel is called on to make its defense, if indeed it dares to attempt any.⚜
3 📚“O my people 📖, what have
I done to you?
And how have I wearied you 📖?
Testify against me.
4 📚For I brought you up from the land
of Egypt, and redeemed you out
of the house of servitude,
and I sent Moses 📖, Aaron,
and Miriam 📖 in front of you.
5 📚O my people, remember now
what Balak, king of Moab,
counseled, and what Balaam 📖,
the son of Beor, answered him from Shittim
to Gilgal 📖, that you may know
the righteousness 📖 of the LORD”.
Acting justly, loving mercy
6 📚With what shall I come before
the LORD and bow down
before the God on high?
Shall I come before him with
burnt offerings, with calves
a year old?
7 📚Will the LORD be pleased with
thousands of rams,
or with ten thousand rivers
of oil? Shall I give my firstborn
for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin
of my soul?
6:6-7 It seems here that Israel speaks and the only defense the people can offer is a series of questions. They appear to be expressing ignorance of what God really wants. And the last question in v 7 is not a proper question at all. God never asked Israel to do any such thing.⚜
8 📚He has showed you 📖, O man,
what is good.
6:8 Micah speaks for God to every individual in the nation.⚜
And what does the LORD require of you,
but to behave justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?
God’s indictment continued
9 📚The LORD’s voice cries out
to the city 📖, and the man of
wisdom will see your name.
“Heed the rod 📖, and the one who
has appointed it.
10 📚Are there yet storehouses of wickedness
in the house of the wicked 📖,
and the short measure 📖,
which is an abomination?
11 📚Shall I acquit those with
wicked balances,
and with a bag of false weights?
12 📚For her rich men are full of violence 📖,
and her inhabitants speak lies,
and the tongue in their mouth
is deceitful 📖.
13 📚Therefore 📖 I will also make
you sick by striking you,
by making you desolate
because of your sins.
14 📚You will eat, but not be satisfied,
and you will be cast down
in the midst of you 📖.
And you will take hold,
but will not deliver,
and what you do deliver
I will give to the sword.
15 📚You will sow, but you will not reap.
You will trample the olives,
but you will not anoint yourselves
with oil, and make sweet wine,
but will not drink wine.
16 📚“For the statutes of Omri are kept,
and all the deeds of the house
of Ahab 📖,
and you walk in their counsels.
So I will make you a desolation,
and her inhabitants an object of
hissing 📖.
Therefore you will bear the reproach
of my people”.