Premeditated evil is worse than evil done on the spur of the moment, because the will to do evil is more involved. In Micah 2:1, 2, the hand represents power ¹ , and when the evildoer treats his power as his god, the penalty is great. The planning that goes into coveting is a similar thing.

In Micah 2:3-5, the family means the church - the state of spiritual life - as it was in both kingdoms, Israel and Judah. The words here tell that both these parts of the church will be devastated, first one and then the other. Thus, in the end, there will be none left in the land of Canaan, and there will be no choosing of inheritance, as was done with Joshua back when the land was first divided amongst the 12 tribes. (See Joshua 13 through 16). To cast a cord is to use a measuring cord to plot out a piece of land.

Micah 2:6, 7. To drop down means to drop knowledge down to one who does not know, that is, to teach. Those who are in evil are not humble enough to be taught. Only those who “walk uprightly” profit from teaching about the Lord and His Word.

Micah 2:8,9. People who are not humble enough to learn truths become enemies to good people. They will try to argue away the truths from someone who uses them to fight temptations. In these verses, the stolen garment means truths ² . The war means temptations. The gentle love of feeling close to the Lord, and the love of innocence ³ , will be attacked by evil people who will try to destroy them by scoffing and denial.

Micah 2:10, 11. The unteachable people of that dying church will perish. They will only accept teachings from a prophet who promises wine and strong drink. In a good sense, wine in the Word represents truth, as when it's used in the holy supper. But, like all natural things, the meaning can sometimes be used in the opposite way, as here, where it means the falsities of evil. ⁴

Micah 2:12, 13. There will still be a few people who remain good, and true. These will be gathered by the Lord as a flock to its fold. From their speaking they can be judged, and then led on to the new church established by Jehovah.

The takeaways for us, reading this text 2600 years later, could be boiled down to these truths:

- Don't premeditate evil.

- We need to be humble enough to learn truths about the Lord.

- If we walk uprightly, we have a chance to receive truth, and practice it, and benefit from what we learn.

- If we remain good and true, the Lord can lead us.

Fußnoten:

6427. What these three ¹ verses contain in the internal sense is evident from the explanations that have been given. But even so, they inevitably remain obscure unless one knows what the spiritual kingdom is like. This kingdom consists of those who, possessing the truth of faith, make this truth part of their life and thus convert it into good. When a person leads a life in accordance with the truth of faith it is made into good and is called the good of truth; yet essentially it is truth in action. The truth of faith in the Lord's spiritual Church is varying, for in one Church that is said to be the truth which in another is said not to be the truth, the doctrine taught by each Church being what leads to such variation. And in this way particular teachings come to be called truths. These truths are the ones that become linked to good and constitute good in the spiritual Church. Consequently the quality of its good comes to be that of its truth, for truths give good the quality it possesses.

[2] From this one may see that the good of the spiritual Church is impure and that as it is impure spiritual people cannot be admitted into heaven except by Divine means. The most important Divine means consisted in the Lord's coming into the world and making the Human within Himself Divine. By that means spiritual people have been saved; yet because with them good is impure they are inevitably under attack from evils and falsities and so are engaged in conflict. But the Lord sees to it that through those conflicts what is impure with them is gradually made purer; for the Lord fights for them. These considerations are what are meant by 'a daughter marches onto the wall' and by 'they exasperate him and shoot at him and hate him, do the archers; and he will sit in the strength of his bow, and the arms of his hands are made strong by the hands of the powerful Jacob; from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel'.

[3] See what has been stated already about those who belong to the spiritual Church:

They live in obscurity so far as truth and the good resulting from truth are concerned, 2708, 2715, 2718, 2831, 2935, 2937, 3241, 3246, 3833, 6289.

Light is brought to that obscurity from the Lord's Divine Human, 2716. Before the Lord's Coming the spiritual kingdom was not the same as it was after His Coming, 6372.

The Lord came into the world to save those who are spiritual; and they are saved by means of the Lord's Divine Human, 2661, 2716, 2833, 2834, 3969. From these places it is also evident that 'the arms of his hands are made strong by the hands of the powerful Jacob; from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel' means the power that the forces involved in fighting possess, received from the almighty power of the Lord's Divine Human, from which springs all the goodness and truth that the spiritual kingdom possesses, 6424-6426.

Fußnoten: