In the last decades of the eighth century BCE, a prophet named Micah came to Jerusalem. He was from Moresheth, a small village located some twenty-five miles southwest of the capital, Jerusalem. He was a contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem, and like Isaiah, he addressed the people of Judah and its leaders.
The times were tumultuous; military threats from the Assyrians poisoned the air. The southern kingdom of Judah was attacked. King Hezekiah was in a panic. The attacking army was merciless, and forty-six villages surrounding Jerusalem were destroyed. Thousands of people were terrorized and killed. The land was ravaged, the crops destroyed. The capital city, Jerusalem, was besieged.
In the midst of this difficult situation, Micah (whose name is a shortened form of Micaiah, which means "Who is like the Lord?") came to Jerusalem with the "word of the LORD." He delivered a number of oracles of judgment and deliverance, some of which form the core of this book. From a note a century later, we learn that Micah, while not "popular," was at least "tolerated" (see Jer. 26:18). The actual impact of his words in his own time, however, so far as changing the attitude or behavior of large numbers of his people, was apparently minimal. Yet, the religious tradition remembered and treasured the difficult words of this small-town prophet.
This one-session study examines the context, the structure, and the message of Micah for his world and ours.