Micah

Read the whole book aloud jointly (takes about 20 minutes and will give a feel for the whole message of the book)

• Judgment: The Assyrian and Babylonian empires will take Israel as captives into exile
  • Why?
• Faithfulness towards God:
  • What does it mean? [Not religious ritual or sacrifice, but love, justice and mercy]
  • Where will it come from? [A new David, arising from Bethlehem as a Shepherd King].
• Hope: In what?
  • Even the nations will come to worship the Lord: To what end? [unity not by military conquest, but by God’s conquest of man’s heart]
  • The steadfast love of God thus will triumph over….?

2) In the read-through, did you notice a pattern how Micah structured his message?

• Are recurring themes examined repeatedly, or does the book proceed ‘linearly’ from A to Z?
• Three cycles, each proclaiming first judgment, then hope of deliverance and salvation. All begin with the word ‘Hear…’:

Mi 1:2-2:13Mi 3:1-5:15Mi 6:1-7:20

• What recurring image is used in each cycle to describe how God’s people will be delivered from judgment?
  • Mi 2:12; 4:8; 5:4; 7:14 [Shepherding]
  • How does that differ from ‘French revolution’ style deliverance? [Hope in God, not in man’s own strength: God will save by sending his Shepherd-King to shepherd his people, for only God himself can make straight what is crooked (cf Ecc 1:13-15; Heb 7:11) or what man has made crooked (Mi 3:9)].

3) What do we learn about Micah in chapter 1?

• v1 Moresheth: A rural town 35 km southwest of Jerusalem; mentioned also in v14 as a town under the thumb of the people from Lachish, one of the affluent towns denounced in vv10-16 for their idolatry
• What do we know of the period he lived in? cf also Wikipedia, Micahv1: Jotham 750-735 BC, Ahaz 735-715BC, Hezekiah 715-687BC => Micah’s period of ministry: 750-687BC => a contemporary of Isaiah and possibly Hosea.
• What was the state of affairs at the time in Israel? [2 separate kingdoms: Israel/Samaria, Judah/Jerusalem. A wealthy upper class developed, marred by corruption, oppression, fraud, injustice and idolatry. People lived out these sins whilst going through the motions of religious observance & respectability]
  • What empire dominated this period? [A brutal Assyrian empire]
• Micah was probably the first to predict the destruction of Jerusalem, Mi 3:12, and to see this as a foreshadowing of yet another invasion by Assyria at the end of times that will fail, unlike the first, Mi 5:4-5)
  • Was Micah’s message accepted, or did he waste his breath? Read Jer 26:16-19  [At least King Hezekiah listened to Micah]
  • How did Micah explain why he was able to stand up against the tide and make such a huge difference? cf Mi 3:8 [Spirit-filled => not afraid to stand up against injustice of the powerful against the oppressed, not as a violent revolutionary, but as a faithful messenger who did not compromise on the word that God had laid on his heart]

4) The name Micah means ‘Who is like Yahweh?’ What does this name say about Micah?

• vv18-20: Of all the things where God is in a class of his own – being all-powerful, all-sovereign, all-holy God, all-righteous in his judgment, what did Micah single out as being unique about the God of Israel? Mi 7:18