The prophet Micah lived in the days of Hezekiah, the King of Judah, and the kings that preceded him. In 722 BC, in the fourth year of Hezekiah's reign, Shalmaneser, the King of Assyria, conquered the kingdom of Israel. This was the northern kingdom that had begun with Jeroboam, after Solomon's death, based around Samaria. The Assyrians led away its people, as described in 2 Kings 18:9.

Perhaps the Assyrian victory and the dispersal of the 10 lost tribes are related to Micah's prophecy, but - as in the other books of prophecy - at heart Micah is predicting broader spiritual events, especially the Lord's advent.

In Micah 1:1, 2, Micah starts out by proclaiming that the Lord is coming down as a witness against the people of the earth. Here the earth, internally, means the church - the Lord’s church which forms a connection between God and man. ¹

Micah 1:3 says that Jehovah Himself will come down and restructure the church (meant by the earth) and will form a new heaven for that church. ²

In Micah 1:4-7 shows us an internal picture of the judgment on the Israelitish and Jewish churches. Mountains, valleys, fire, and water are all mentioned; all are representations of spiritual realities. When people of the church remember what those realities are, they will come to mind when they worship on a mountain, or treat the fire on the altar as holy. But when the spiritual meanings are forgotten, the representative things are done away with. This was true of both Samaria and Judah (Micah 1:5). ³

Verses 6 and 7 show the wickedness of Samaria, and what will happen to the idols there. ⁴ From its inception, the northern kingdom of Israel never had a good king. It had, as idols, the two golden calves that Jeroboam set up. All this will be destroyed.

Micah 1:8, 9 tell of the mourning of the people who love what is good, as far as Judah and even Jerusalem, which represents heaven.

However, in Micah 1:10-11, there's a mourning over the punishment as witnessed in some cities, which mean those doctrines that are used to try to justify the idolatry. But the anger is misdirected: people are angry with Jehovah, and not with the sins of idolatry that cause the punishment.

Micah 1:12 describes the mourning about the devastation of the church, which extends through all the heavens, even up to the highest.

In Micah 1:13-15, he's saying that the sins that were widespread in Israel, or Samaria, have also spread to the kingdom of Judah. To come to Adullam means to turn oneself towards evil.

Finally, in Micah 1:16, baldness means a lack of truths. Delightful sons are truths from God. Making yourself bald by shearing off your hair means you are spiritually denying the truths from God, i.e. that you are exiling yourself from your delightful sons. Consequently, everyone suffers deprivation. ⁵

To apply this to our lives... here's what it looks like:

1. We should turn away from evil and actively seek spiritual truths.

2. We shouldn't set up false gods in our lives, e.g things that we "worship" that really aren't useful.

3. We should try to look for the Lord in the Word, and to connect with Him.

Poznámky pod čarou:

885. That 'a leaf' means truth is clear from various places in the Word, where man is compared to or actually called a tree. 'Fruit' in those contexts means the good that stems from charity, and 'leaf' the truth deriving from this, for these are indeed like fruit and leaves, as in Ezekiel,

Beside the river there is rising up upon its bank, on this side and on that, every tree for food, whose leaf does not fall, nor its fruit fail, but is reborn monthly, for its waters flow out from the Sanctuary, and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for medicine. Ezekiel 47:11; Revelation 22:1.

Here 'tree' stands for the member of the Church who has the Lord's kingdom within him, 'fruit' stands for the good that stems from love and charity, 'leaf' for truths deriving from that good which serve to instruct the human race and to regenerate it. And because truths do this the leaf is said to be 'for medicine'. In the same prophet,

Will He not pull up its roots and cut off its fruit so that it withers? And all the plucked off (leaves) from its off-shoot will wither. Ezekiel 17:9.

The subject here is the vine, which is the Church, when it has been vastated, whose good, which is 'the fruit', and its truth, which is that 'plucked off from its off-shoot', thus wither away.

[2] In Jeremiah,

Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah. He will be like a tree planted beside the waters. His leaf will be green, and in the year of scarcity he will not be anxious. Nor will he cease to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8.

'Green leaf' stands for the truth of faith, and so for faith itself which derives from charity. The same applies in David, Psalms 1:3. In the same prophet,

There will be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and its leaf has fallen. Jeremiah 8:13.

'Grapes on the vine' stands for spiritual good, 'figs on the fig tree' for natural good, 'leaf' for truth, which has accordingly fallen. Likewise in Isaiah 34:4. Similar things were meant by 'the fig tree' that Jesus saw, which was made to wither away when He found nothing but leaves on it, Matthew 21:20; Mark 11:13-14. The Jewish Church in particular was what 'the fig tree' was used to mean on that occasion. With this Church no natural good existed any longer, only that preserved with them which was meant by 'a leaf', namely doctrine, or truth, concerning faith. A Church that has been vastated is one that knows truth but has no wish to understand it. They are like people who say they know the truth, or matters of faith, but who possess no good at all that stems from charity. They are merely 'fig leaves', and they wither away.