Book of Micah and Micah, the Person

1 Book of Micah
Summary of the Book of Micah

2 Book of MicahThe book of Micah is a Prophetic Oracle. The prophet Micah wrote it 742-686 B.C. shortly before the Northern Kingdom’s fall in 722 B.C.

Key personalities are all the people of Samaria and Jerusalem.

The purpose of the book of Micah was to proclaim warning and judgment to both the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms. His message was similar to that of Isaiah and was written at about the same time. Micah described the impending judgment that would eventually exile the nation.

Chapters 1-5 –the judgment for the wicked nations specifically explained:

Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley and I will discover the foundations thereof (1:6).

In chapter five Micah tells of the birthplace of the Jesus and that He is an infinite Savior forever:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting  (5:2).

Chapters 6-7 – Micah declares what God requires of men:

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? (6:8).

Micah then proclaims God’s restoration and salvation to His people:

Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?  He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy (7:18).

Micah

3 Engraving of the Prophet Micah by Gustave Doré.
Micah the Moreshite Prophet Preaching to the Israelites, 1865-1866 – by Gustave Dor

Micah lived about 2750 years ago, in about 750 B.C., during the time of Isaiah. He lived in a small town (Moresheth) south of Jerusalem. He was a contemporary of Isaiah, but it is not known if the two had ever met.

Micah predicted the downfall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, which were fulfilled by the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in about 586 B.C. and again by the Romans in 70 A.D.

The Temple has not been rebuilt since that destruction. Jerusalem was destroyed a second time by the Romans in about 135 A.D.

Micah has a handful of famous prophecies including the coming of the Messiah (5:2-4), and that the humble little town of Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, would be the birthplace of the Him.

Micah, means “Who is like Yah?” implying “there is none like Yah”.

Micah was the first prophet to foresee Jerusalem’s destruction as a punishment for the city’s sins against the Lord.

Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest (Micah 3:12).

The Bible’s book of Micah is the sixth of the book of the twelve Minor Prophets.

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