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.

Notas de rodapé:

3637. In relation to man the Grand Man is the whole of the Lord's heaven, but in the highest sense the Grand Man is the Lord Himself; for it is from Him that heaven has its being, and to Him everything there corresponds. Since the human race had become utterly corrupted on account of a life of evil and consequent false persuasions, and since at that time the lower things with man were beginning to take control over the higher, that is, natural things were taking control over spiritual, and as a result Jehovah or the Lord was no longer able to flow in by way of the Grand Man, that is, by way of heaven, and bring those things back into proper order, it was consequently necessary for the Lord to come into the world. It was necessary because in so doing He assumed a human and made this Divine. Then by means of that human made Divine He restored order so that the whole of heaven might have reference to Himself as the one and only Man and might correspond to Him alone, once those who were under the influence of evil and so of falsity had been trodden down and so cast outside the Grand Man. This explains why people in heaven are said to be 'in the Lord', indeed in His body; for the Lord is the All of heaven, and being in Him every single angel there is assigned to a particular province and function.