This is the first of three messages that compose the Book of Micah (cf. chs. 3-5; 6-7). In each one, promises of restoration follow predictions of ruin.
This opening pericope sets the tone and forms the backdrop for the rest of the book. All people were to hear God's indictment against His people (v. 2). Punishment was coming (vv. 3-4) that would be both reasonable (v. 5) and certain (vv. 6-7).
1:2 Micah cried, "Hear ye, hear ye!"to the people of the earth, as a clerk summons a courtroom jury to pay attention to the testimony that will follow. Sovereign Yahweh was about to give His witness against His people ("you,"Micah's audience; cf. Deut. 31:19-21, 26). This appeal assumes that those called on to listen will agree with the testimony to be given. The Lord would come out of His temple to give His testimony. This appears to be a reference to His heavenly temple in view of the following verses (cf. Ps. 11:4; Isa. 3:13-14; Hab. 2:20).
1:3-4 The Lord was about to intervene in the affairs of His people. He is not only transcendent above all but immanent in the world, one of the most basic concepts in Old Testament theology. When He came, all the earth would melt, split, and quake before His awesome power (cf. Judg. 5:4-5). Since He could affect the physical creation so drastically, His people needed to fear Him. Treading on the high places of the land, where the Israelites worshipped in idolatry (cf. 2 Chron. 33:17), probably also implies that He would crush pagan worship.8
1:5 The Lord's intervention was due to the Israelites' sins and rebellion against their sovereign lord. Samaria personified the rebellion of the Israelites, and Jerusalem had become a high place for idolatry rather than for holy worship. These capital cities had become leaders in wickedness rather than in holiness.
Micah liked to use "Jacob"as a title for all Israel (2:7, 12; 3:1, 8, 9; 4:2; 5:7, 8), though he also used it to describe the Northern Kingdom (here) and the patriarch Jacob (7:20). This name recalls the rebelliousness that marked the patriarch for most of his early life and that had subsequently marked his descendants.
1:6 Israel's capital, Samaria, stood atop a mountain, but Yahweh said He would make it a pile of ruins in a field. That is, He would both destroy and humiliate it. It would become a rural rather than an urban place, suitable for planting vineyards. He would topple the stones of its buildings into the valley below and expose their foundations by destroying their superstructures. The fulfillment came with the Assyrian overthrow of Samaria in 722 B.C. Even today the foundations of Samaria's buildings lie exposed.
1:7 God would smash Samaria's idols proving them incapable of defending themselves much less helping others. He would burn the luxurious ornaments that the people offered as temple gifts in the conflagration that would accompany Samaria's overthrow. All the pagan images that the people had made would perish. The Lord viewed these physical treasures as the earnings of harlot Israel who had been unfaithful to Him. The Israelites had committed adultery with temple prostitutes, but the Assyrians would destroy the gifts that they had brought into their temples and use them for their own idolatrous worship.
"The reference is probably to the gold and silver plating on the images, melted down from the dirty money handed over for the use of religious brothels. Invading soldiers are to tear it off as loot and spend it as currency for further prostitution, as soldiers will."9
Micah identified the sins of the people of Judah, all of which violated the Mosaic Covenant. In view of these transgressions, divine punishment was just.
In chapter 1 the sins of the people of both Northern and Southern Kingdoms seem to be in view, but now Micah's audience, the people of Judah, appear to be the main subjects of his prophecy, in view of what he said. We should not draw this line too boldly, however, since the same sins that marked the people of Judah also stained the citizens of Israel.
The message of the false prophets was not completely wrong; it just presented the positive aspects of God's promises to Israel but omitted the negative. Micah's message had been mainly negative; the people needed to repent or they would experience divine chastening. Now Micah reminded his hearers that there were positive blessings ahead for Israel, but they would come later.
2:12 The Lord Himself would assemble the scattered remnant of all the Israelites (Jacob and Israel; cf. 1:5) following His dispersion of them in exile.18The remnant refers to the part of them that would remain following their dispersion. Yahweh would assemble them as a shepherd gathers sheep in a fold in the midst of a pasture (cf. 5:4; 7:14). This pictures the regathering of the Israelites in the Promised Land, which is similar to an island in the world. This pen would be full of noise and people because it would be a time and place of great rejoicing, like the city of Jerusalem was during one of Israel's annual feasts.
"That long-awaited time of blessing will come about for the nation of Israel in the Millennium. Some interpreters claim that this promise of blessing is being fulfilled now in the church, rather than in the future for Israel [i.e., covenant theologians]. However, if Micah 2:12 refers to spiritual blessing for the church, then Israel has been misled all these centuries since Abraham to think that she will inherit the land forever."19
2:13 As a shepherd breaks through obstacles and barriers to lead his sheep into pleasant pastures, so Israel's Good Shepherd will clear the way for His sheep to return to the land (cf. Ps. 78:52-53; 80:1). They will break out of their former habitations, pass through the way He opens for them, and leave all parts of the world to return to the Promised Land.
Yahweh would not only function as their Shepherd but also as their (Davidic) King (cf. Isa. 6:5). He will lead them as a mighty conqueror and ruler (cf. Isa. 33:22; Zeph. 3:15; Zech. 14:9).
"If studied in isolation from the total context of the prophecy, the passage may be understood simply as a prediction of the return from the Captivity. But this is inadequate in view of the broader background of Micah's concept of the future."20
