Micah 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD calls the mountains and the foundations of the earth to hear his case against Israel, and asks what he has done to wear his people out, pointing back to the exodus, to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and to Balak and Balaam. A voice asks what offering could be brought before God, even a firstborn child, and the answer is that what the LORD requires is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. The LORD then names the city's stolen wealth, short measures, false weights, violence and lies, and announces the punishment: eating without being filled, sowing without reaping, ruin and scorn, because the people follow the ways of Omri and the house of Ahab.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • The audience is commanded to hear what the LORD says.
   • The LORD commands the addressee to arise and argue his case before the mountains.
   • The LORD commands that the hills hear the addressee's voice.
2. 6:2
   • The mountains are commanded to hear the LORD's legal dispute.
   • The enduring foundations of the earth are commanded to hear as well.
   • The LORD has a legal dispute with his people.
   • The LORD will argue his case against Israel.
3. 6:3
   • The LORD addresses Israel as his people.
   • The LORD asks what he has done to them.
   • The LORD asks in what way he has wearied them.
   • The LORD tells them to answer him.
4. 6:4
   • The LORD brought them up out of the land of Egypt.
   • The LORD redeemed them out of the house of slaves.
   • The LORD sent Moses before them.
   • The LORD sent Aaron before them.
   • The LORD sent Miriam before them.
5. 6:5
   • The LORD again addresses Israel as his people.
   • The LORD tells them to remember what Balak king of Moab planned.
   • Balak was king of Moab.
   • The LORD tells them to remember what Balaam son of Beor answered Balak.
   • Balaam was the son of Beor.
   • The remembering extends from Shittim to Gilgal.
   • The purpose is that they may know the righteous acts of the LORD.
6. 6:6
   • A speaker asks with what he should come before the LORD.
   • The speaker asks with what he should bow himself before the God on high.
   • The speaker asks whether he should come before him with burnt offerings.
   • The speaker asks whether he should come with calves a year old.
7. 6:7
   • The speaker asks whether the LORD will be pleased with thousands of rams.
   • The speaker asks whether the LORD will be pleased with ten thousands of streams of oil.
   • The speaker asks whether he should give his firstborn for his transgression.
   • The speaker asks whether he should give the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul.
8. 6:8
   • He has told the man what is good.
   • The addressee is called O man.
   • The LORD requires of him to do justice.
   • The LORD requires of him to love steadfast kindness.
   • The LORD requires of him to walk humbly with his God.
9. 6:9
   • The voice of the LORD calls out to the city.
   • It is said that sound wisdom sees the LORD's name, though the text is ambiguous whether wisdom itself or a man of wisdom is meant.
   • A command is given to hear the rod, the word being ambiguous between a rod and a tribe.
   • A command is given to hear the one who appointed it.
10. 6:10
    • A question is asked whether there are still treasures gained by wickedness in the house of the wicked.
    • A question is asked whether there is still a short measure.
    • The short measure is accursed.
11. 6:11
    • A question is asked whether he can be counted pure while using scales of wickedness.
    • A question is asked whether he can be counted pure while using a bag of deceitful weights.
12. 6:12
    • The rich men of the city are full of violence.
    • The inhabitants of the city have spoken lies.
    • Their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13. 6:13
    • The LORD says he will strike the addressee grievously, the wording being ambiguous between making the blow severe and beginning to strike.
    • The LORD will make the addressee desolate.
    • The reason for the striking is the addressee's sins.
14. 6:14
    • The addressee will eat but not be satisfied.
    • Emptiness will remain within the addressee.
    • The addressee will take hold of things but not preserve them.
    • What the addressee does preserve the LORD will give to the sword.
15. 6:15
    • The addressee will sow but not reap.
    • The addressee will tread olives but not anoint himself with oil.
    • The addressee will tread new wine but not drink wine.
16. 6:16
    • The statutes of Omri are kept.
    • All the works of the house of Ahab are kept.
    • The addressees have walked in their counsels.
    • The result is that the LORD will make the addressee a desolation.
    • The result is that the LORD will make her inhabitants an object of hissing.
    • The addressees will bear the reproach of the LORD's people.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

The chapter is staged as a courtroom scene, a form prophets often used. God is the wronged party bringing suit against Israel, and the mountains and hills are summoned as witnesses: they are the oldest things in the land and were present for everything that has happened in it.

6:2

"Controversy" in 1611 English meant a lawsuit or formal legal complaint, not a difference of opinion. "Plead with Israel" likewise means to argue a case against Israel, not to beg.

6:4

The exodus: Israel's escape from slavery in Egypt under Moses, with his brother Aaron and sister Miriam. "Redeemed" translates a Hebrew word from commerce and family law, to buy something back, especially to purchase a relative or slave out of bondage. "House of servants" is a literal rendering of a phrase meaning "the slave-house," i.e. the place of slavery.

6:5

Balak, king of Moab, hired the seer Balaam to put a curse on Israel as they passed through his territory; each time Balaam opened his mouth a blessing came out instead (Numbers 22–24). Shittim was Israel's last camp east of the Jordan; Gilgal was their first camp after crossing into Canaan. Naming the two places is a way of saying "the whole crossing over," the end of the journey out of Egypt.

6:6

A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar, with no part kept back for the worshiper to eat, the most costly and complete of the sacrifices. A calf a year old was a prime animal, past the risk of dying young and not yet put to work: an expensive gift.

6:7

The speaker is bidding upward, each offer more extravagant than the last. Olive oil accompanied grain offerings; "ten thousand rivers" of it is a deliberate absurdity. The final offer, a firstborn child, refers to child sacrifice, practiced by some of Israel's neighbors and occasionally in Israel itself, and forbidden in Israel's law.

6:8

The three Hebrew words behind this line are wider than their English equivalents. "Justly" is mishpat, the right verdict and the fair dealing that goes with it. "Mercy" is chesed, loyal committed kindness of the sort owed between family members or partners to an agreement, not simply pity. The word behind "humbly" is rare and its exact sense is debated, something like carefully, modestly, or attentively.

6:9

The middle line is difficult in Hebrew and the ancient copies differ; renderings range from "the wise will fear your name" to "it is wisdom to fear your name." A rod was a stick, used both as a ruler's staff of office and as the instrument for beating an offender; here it stands for the punishment coming, and "who hath appointed it" points to the one sending it.

6:10

The Hebrew names a specific measure, the ephah, a dry measure of roughly a bushel, about twenty-two liters, used for grain. A trader who kept a short ephah gave less than he charged for. Israel's law required honest measures, and a false one is here called something detestable.

6:11

Goods were weighed on balance scales against stone weights that the merchant carried in a pouch. A dishonest dealer kept two sets, a heavy stone for buying and a light one for selling, so the fraud was invisible to the customer.

6:13

"Make thee sick in smiting thee" does not mean God sends a particular disease. It means the blow will leave the nation weakened and wasting, the way a long illness wears a body down.

6:14

The middle phrase is obscure in Hebrew and translators differ: it has been read as a gnawing emptiness left inside a person, or as the enemy's siege closing in around them. The last lines describe storing up goods that are then carried off in war, "the sword" is a standard way of saying invasion.

6:15

Rubbing olive oil into the skin was ordinary daily grooming in a hot dry climate, like lotion, not a religious act. The curse is that the farmer does all the work and never enjoys any of the product, a standard list of futility curses attached to broken agreements in the ancient Near East.

6:16

Omri and his son Ahab were kings of the northern kingdom of Israel a century or so earlier, remembered for importing the worship of Baal and, in Ahab's reign, for a judicial murder to seize a neighbor's vineyard. "The statutes of Omri" means the way of running a kingdom that his dynasty established. Hissing, a sharp whistle through the teeth, was the customary noise people made at the sight of a ruined city, a sound of shock and contempt. The final phrase is uncertain: the Hebrew reads "the reproach of my people," while some ancient versions read "peoples," meaning the scorn of the surrounding nations.