Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
At the end of our
previous
Micah lesson, we had just begun to look
at chapter 5, verse 9.
And that's where we'll start now.
Before we read more in Micah, however,
I'll I'll set the context
that chapter 5
verses 9 through 14 that that ends this
chapter
is a unit that needs to be taken as a
whole.
And importantly, we also need to see
this unit
as a balance
to the first verses of the previous
chapter,
chapter 4.
So, let's open our Bibles and look first
to chapter 5. Then we'll compare it to
chapter 4.
So, open your Bibles to Micah chapter 5
and we'll start reading at verse 9.
When that day comes, says Adonai,
"I will cut off your horses from among
you and destroy your chariots.
I will cut off the cities of your land
and lay waste your strongholds.
I will cut off sorceries from your land,
you will no longer have soothsayers.
I will cut off your carved images
and standing stones among you.
No longer will you worship what your own
hands have made.
I will pull up your sacred poles from
among you and destroy your enemies.
I will wreak vengeance and anger and
fury on the nations because they would
not listen."
Chapters
4 and 5, taken together, as they always
ought to be,
are regularly called the book of visions
or something similar to that.
These verses we just read
are
given as a vision
of a time
when Israel will be both avenged
and for what the nations have done for
them,
and they will be purified and cleansed
from their sins and transgressions
against Yahweh.
So, let's now recall what Micah 4:1-5
had to say that provides that balance I
spoke of.
Starting at Micah 4:1, "But in the
acharit hayyamim, that's latter days, it
will come about that the mountain of
Yahweh's house will be established as
the most important mountain.
It will be regarded more highly than the
other hills. Peoples will stream there.
Many Gentiles will go and say, 'Come,
let's go up to the mountain of Yahweh to
the house of the God of Ya'akov.
He will teach us about his ways and we
will walk in his paths.
For out of Zion will go forth Torah,
the word of Yahweh from Yerushalayim.
He will judge between many peoples and
arbitrate for many nations far away.
Then they will hammer their swords into
plow blades and their spears into
pruning knives, and nations will not
raise swords at each other, and they
will no longer learn war.
Instead, each person will sit under his
vine and fig tree with no one to upset
him, for the mouth of Yahweh Tzevaot has
spoken.
For all the peoples will walk each in
the name of its God, but we will walk in
the name of Yahweh our God forever and
ever."
>> [clears throat]
>> These passages from chapters 4 and 5
each present their own end-time
scenario.
The balance between them is
that the message from the chapter 4
verses
has to do with the end-time treatment
and response of Gentiles and their
nations,
while chapter 5 has to do with the
end-time treatment and response of the
Israelites
and their nation,
Israel.
These things will more or less
happen concurrently.
Now, what's striking
about these
final six verses of chapter 5
is that they are essentially a list of
things that God will cut off
from Israel. Cut off, karet
in Hebrew, is nearly always used in a
negative sense,
the result of some grievous sin.
Karet implies
destruction and punishment.
So, for one example, for one to be karet
from his people means to have one's
identity destroyed.
And as a punishment to be separated from
his community.
Here, however, the things God is going
to karet
from Israel
will nearly certainly feel like some
type of punishment from God to the
Israelites who will be battling for
their existence,
but in fact,
it is a positive precursor to God doing
something great,
something miraculous,
for the benefit and blessing of Israel.
So, the list is prefaced in this way in
verse 9, verse 10 in some Bibles.
"When that day comes, says Yahweh, I
will cut off your horses from among you
and destroy your chariots."
Now, there's an interesting background
to this action Yahweh is taking, and we
need to grasp it in order to better
understand what's being prophesied.
First,
to the ancient Hebrews in the era of the
kings and then forward, and I said I
used the term Hebrews and Israelites
interchangeably even though there's a
small nuance in the difference between
the technical meaning of the two.
When they envisioned prophetic
fulfillments of the latter days or the
end times, again, two terms that are
mostly interchangeable, but do have
small nuances that when you technically
make them slightly different,
they saw it as a return to the golden
era
of Israel's existence.
How so?
Israel was at its greatest wealth,
influence, independence, and power
after David took over the throne from
the first king of Israel, Saul.
David unified all 12 tribes into a
confederation
ruled by a single king.
And in the process, expanded the extent
of Israelite territory and controlled to
the greatest it ever held.
David's son, Solomon,
followed him and brought in an era of
relative peace and tremendous prosperity
that made Israel the envy of the known
world.
By the time he died,
Israel was large, wealthy, powerful,
respected, at peace,
had a huge and well-armed military.
Now, for Israel,
this was the Israel that they felt was
ideal.
However,
it is that final aspect
of Solomon's Israel, their military,
that God found most unacceptable.
And therefore, Solomon's Israel was
certainly not God's ideal
of Israel.
Solomon had introduced and accumulated
the most powerful and frightening
military weapons of his time,
chariots and horses.
However, this is something
that God had specifically prohibited.
Deuteronomy 17:14-16,
"When you have entered the land Yahweh
your God is giving you
and you have taken possession of it and
are living there, you may say,
'I want to have a king over me like all
the other nations around me.' In that
event, you must appoint as king the one
whom Yahweh your God will choose.
He must be one of your kinsmen, this
king you appoint over you. Are forbidden
to appoint a foreigner over you who's
not your kinsman. However, he is not to
acquire many horses for himself
or have the people return to Egypt to
obtain more horses,
inasmuch as Yahweh told you you were to
never go back that way again."
Now, Egypt
was the earlier and chief developer
of chariots for warfare, going back to
the
time before Moses.
Chariots relied on horses to power them.
So, Egypt became famous
for their breeding and training of
horses for military use.
Solomon was at heart a lover, not a
fighter.
He was a diplomat.
He married literally scores and scores
of wives, not on account of romance,
but rather each representing the
formation of an official alliance
with a foreign dignitary or a national
leader.
So, he made a similar alliance with
Egypt.
And he used it for the purpose of
purchasing lots of horses and chariots
to build up Israel's military might.
On the one hand, made a lot of sense
in that era.
Just as today it makes a lot of sense
for the free nations of the the world to
have strong defenses
to discourage or counteract
the militaries of tyrants
who have empire-building and world
dominance in mind. On the other hand,
this did not represent the ideal Israel
that God intended.
And what Solomon did wrongly
was based on a direct Torah law
violation.
Now, just as God did not intend for
Israel to have human kings, he also did
not intend for Israel to have a
powerful, professional, standing
military. They were to rely on militias
to be called up as needed should they
ever be attacked.
They were to rely on Yahweh as their
sovereign king and protector
against aggressors and on the law of
Moses
as their civil and moral law code.
And even though Israel felt blessed by
God due to their prosperity and might,
by the end of Solomon's reign, they had
veered far away
from all these
divine intentions and commands. It all
led, century by century,
to an ever-increasing man-made version
of Israel
run by politicians
for the benefit of the royalty and the
wealthy elite
and dependent upon a
powerful military leadership who were
good at warfare.
Thus, returning to Micah 5:9-14,
God is telling his people through Micah
that he is resetting this entire
paradigm that Israel had built for
itself,
including the new modern Israel that
came to life in 1948.
As Micah and other prophets tell us,
step one
for Yahweh is to incite the nations to
attack Israel.
Step two
is for Israel to try to defend itself
from
massive invasion
using their powerful military.
But, God intervening to deprive Israel
of the technically superior battle
battlefield well weapons that they've
developed. This is what the
horses and chariots symbolize.
Why?
So, God can step in
and decisively destroy the nations'
militaries in such a way
that not only Israel, but the world will
see that Yahweh controls all,
is above all,
he favors Israel,
and no one can defeat him.
The result will be so obvious
that both Gentiles and Israel will fall
down in awe
before God, give him all the glory,
and turn to him as the king of the
world.
Step three
is to purify Israel and restore them
from their many centuries of rebelling
against him.
Now, since God's first action
is to deny
Israel their use of powerful
military weapons, we find his next
action
in verse 10. I will cut off the cities
of your land and lay waste your
strongholds.
Now, this verse is most difficult to
apprehend its sense.
Since what God is doing is not punishing
Israel,
not intending to be negative towards
them,
then why this polemic against Israel's
cities and strongholds?
Now, I can only speculate
based on everything we've learned from
Micah thus far.
I think these cities were probably the
ones in which idolatry,
religious corruption, social injustice
were at their peak.
In other words, this divine action is
part of the cleansing process
of Israel that's occurring.
The idea of laying waste
to Israel's strongholds seems that it
must be the places where their
militaries are stationed, especially
where their horses and chariots are
stabled.
In fact, there is a short list of cities
in the era of the kings
that were literally called chariot
cities,
of which Lachish was one of the more
famous.
Might even include the large walled
cities that relied on those walls to
keep the enemy out.
If it's not this, and I acknowledge it
might not be,
I'm at a loss.
Verse 11, I will cut sorceries from your
land, you will no longer have
soothsayers.
So, as part of the purifying process,
seers and sorcerers of all kinds will be
banished from Israel. In fact, in the
Torah, we read this in Deuteronomy 18
starting at verse 10.
There must not be found among you anyone
who makes his son or daughter pass
through fire, a diviner, a soothsayer,
an enchanter, a sorcerer, a spell
caster, a consulter of ghosts or
spirits, or a necromancer, for whoever
does these things is detestable to
Yahweh.
And because of these abominations,
Yahweh your God is driving them out
ahead of you.
So,
none of these professional mystics
were supposed to be operating in in
Israel. But, sadly, there was never a
time
when they weren't.
Because
it was customary, usual practice for
Middle Easterners to employ such people
to re to uh
routinely rely on them
for information.
And you know, as I I think about the
future and what this might look like
when it comes about,
I can't help but wonder about
how this is going to manifest itself
in the end times.
These people listed here
aren't really used any longer
except by a few individuals who go to
palm readers and the like, and as far as
I know, certainly not as intelligence
resources
the militaries and governments use to
make decisions.
So, I assume
this could be speaking of the disruption
of all the digital and virtual
information information systems and
sources of knowledge that are used in
our modern era.
Might it be that satellites, data banks,
AI, cloud services, and so on will be
what's cut off?
Or,
on the other extreme, might it be
talking about the matter from a
spiritual perspective?
And therefore, it's about cutting off
people in Israel
that prayed to a a god or a saint or to
an angel or to someone other than
Yahweh.
For the Israelites, such people were
regularly thought to be empowered to do
what they do by Satan
and some other
spiritual entity.
Other Israelites were so deceived,
they thought some of these folks indeed
were communicating with the God of
Israel. Either way,
these mystics were all fakes,
abominations in God's eyes, and were
direct violation of his covenants with
the Hebrews. They had no place
in a restored and divinely ideal Israel.
Micah 5:12,
I will cut off your carved images and
standing stones from among you, no no
longer will you worship what your own
hands have made.
If one goes to Israel today,
you're going to be a little startled
at what you see.
Many symbols of Judaism, especially of
Kabbalah,
Jewish mysticism,
will confront you.
Go to the tombs of some of the most
famous rabbis of centuries ago located
in Beit Shearim,
and you'll find sarcophagi
decorated with decidedly pagan symbols.
Then there are the Islamic symbols
everywhere.
Not to mention
such Christian places as the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem that is decadent to a
fault.
It uses all kinds of icons and symbols
that are against what the is Torah
prescribed. I mean, I could go on for a
few more minutes here,
but you get the picture.
Ancient Israel never gave up its
idolatrous use of pagan symbols.
They just holyfied and repurposed them.
Catholicism is quite industrious
about using statues and pictures of
people that have been anointed by their
leadership as holy,
along with using all kinds of icons and
implements
that
have been given a more visible presence
in their faith.
Christianity mixes their pagan things
with what the Catholics and Judaism
adherents do.
But have decided they can just consider
these formerly pagan objects and
practices as baptized by Jesus
into Christmas
Christian use.
I've spoken before that the key to
understanding the problem that God is
addressing
is the idea that human hands
were involved in the creation
of sacred objects.
How holy can something be if it took
human hands
to make it?
God commanded an altar to be built for
sacrificing to him and yet
it was to be of natural stones
without any use of tools
to make the stones more refined.
God will was always reluctant
to have a temple built,
but he allowed it.
Even so, only an essence of himself that
became present in it, the glory,
could cleanse it sufficiently enough to
endow it with legitimacy and purity, and
even then primarily only the inner
sanctuary.
The extermination
of every kind
of heathen idolatry was needed. And only
God could do it because Israel couldn't
even make the distinction between the
truly holy and the fake holy any longer.
And I have no doubt
that when the day of the Lord arrives,
such inability
of both Israel and the religious
religious Gentile institutions to
discern
between the holy and the profane will be
even greater.
Micah 5:13
I will pull up your sacred poles from
among you and destroy your enemies.
Now, these sacred poles of verse 13 are
incorrectly translated by the Complete
Jewish Bible. However, modern people
don't understand their significance
and the more modern-day equivalents of
them anyway. I mean, the correct
translation is Asherah.
These were small fir trees, sometimes
fir poles, that were
then decorated. They were placed next to
pagan altars, which were standard sacred
objects used at just about every
pagan religious gathering, sometimes
even for private or family use.
They were first and foremost fertility
symbols.
And Israel used them, too,
especially in the more ancient times.
Now, many centuries later,
Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, they all use some
form of ancient fertility symbols,
such as Easter bunnies, decorated eggs,
Christmas trees and Yule logs,
the Hamsa of Islam, and there's others.
Look, God has never allowed a repurpose
of what was and remains pagan in order
to worship him.
God saying he will destroy
Israel's enemies is quite a mouthful.
Hence, said very succinctly,
God is going to destroy all those
attacking enemy nations
and will do so using Israel
with but a minimum
of people, materials, and weapons.
It will be kind of a Gideon and the 300
scenario.
It will be a combination
of the cosmically
miraculous
plus Israel's human remnant fighting
with courage and skill, but empowered by
God
to be so much greater than humanly
possible.
Verse 14 sums up God's purpose for
cutting off this short list of things
from Israel that he found offensive. He
says, "I will wreak vengeance
and anger and fury on the nations
because they would not listen."
Why is God wreaking wrath on the
nations?
Because they would not listen.
Listen to what?
Listen to God's word.
Listen to God telling the world that
Israel is his especially chosen people
and especially chosen land.
Listen to God telling the world he is
the divine creator and sovereign, not
just of Israel and of heaven,
but it also of earth and the universe. I
mean, how do you suppose
God feels that Christendom says
they have replaced Israel as God's
chosen?
That they have chosen to write their own
laws and commands,
refuse to listen to his by declaring
that God's commands are abolished.
And that Christendom in large measure
measure is anti-Semitic top to bottom.
Israel does not need superior weapons or
walled cities to take on the nations in
the end times. God will do it himself
for his own reasons.
Israel doesn't need magicians and
sorcerers,
pagan cult images and idols, or the
feeble and wrong attempts of
Israeli religion to use such things as
means to approach or communicate with
God. Rather, as God said to in verse 13
to begin 13 to begin verse 14, he
himself will inflict grave damage to all
these Gentile nations.
Israel
Israel had put all their trust in
everything but God.
The perversion of trusting things
man-made from weapons systems
to strong buildings and walls to
invented worship objects,
to consulting tarot cards or using a
human intelligence device,
clever plans. This is demeaning to God.
Since these are his own set-apart people
that are doing it.
All these things create a false or at
least overblown
sense of security for Israel. Then, of
course,
we have the greatest perversion
of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and now
especially the 21st century, a worship
of one's self
as the greatest intellect and power in
the universe,
along with the denial of the influence
or even the existence of God.
It began
with the intellectual elite of the
European Enlightenment.
It has grown into several forms of
secular humanism, especially in the
West. Our trust is placed firmly in
ourselves,
in our wealth,
our education,
in science,
and in our governments.
This is idolatry.
It of course has infected Israel, and
this secular humanism will
prove futile
when the end times arrive and the
nations seek to crush Israel. Yet
instead, the nations of the world are
crushed
under the overwhelming weight of God's
anger.
Only then will the survivors turn to
God.
And the first thing he demands
is for all to go to Jerusalem
and learn the Torah
in order to walk in his ways.
It is the end
of both secularism and religion,
Jewish and Gentile.
Chapter 5 ends with miracles.
Without a doubt, the most impressive one
is that Israel is once again it repents,
comes to God in the fullest and most
sincere measure of trust they have ever
displayed.
Let's move on to chapter 6, but
goodness, huh, the suffering and carnage
and deprivation it has taken to get
there
when it never had to be this way.
Open your Bibles to Micah chapter 6.
So, listen now to what Adonai says,
"Stand up and state your case to the
mountains. Let the hills hear what you
have to say. Listen, mountains, to
Adonai's case.
Also, you enduring rocks that support
the earth.
Adonai has a case against his people. He
was to argue it out with Israel.
My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me.
I brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from the life of slavery.
I sent Moshe, Aaron, Miriam to lead you.
My people, just remember what Balak and
the king of Moab had planned. When
Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him,
and what happened between Shittim and
Gilgal, so that you will understand the
saving deeds of Adonai.
Well, with what can I come before Adonai
to bow down before the God Most High?
Should I come before him with burnt
offerings, with calves in their first
year? Would Adonai take delight in
thousands of rams with 10,000 rivers of
olive oil?
Could I give my firstborn to pay for my
crimes, the fruit of my body for the sin
of my soul?
Human being, you've already been told
what's good.
What Adonai demands of you? No more
than to act justly, love grace, and walk
in purity with your God.
The voice of Adonai, he calls to the
city.
It is wisdom to fear your name. Listen
to the rod and to him who commissioned
it.
Are there still ill-gotten gains in the
house of the wicked?
Still the detestable short ephah
measure?
Should I declare innocent wicked scales
and a bag of fraudulent weights?
The rich men there are full of violence.
The inhabitants tell lies with tongues
of deceit in their mouths. Therefore,
I'm starting to strike you down,
to destroy you because of your sins. You
will eat, but you'll not be satisfied,
with hunger gnawing inside of you.
You will conceive but not give birth.
And if you do give birth, I'll give him
sword.
You will sow, but you will not reap. You
will press olives, but not rub yourself
with oil. Likewise, you will press
grapes, but not drink the wine.
For you keep the regulations of Omri,
all the practices of the house of Ahab,
modeling yourselves on their advice.
Therefore, I'll make you an object of
horror.
The inhabitants of this city, a cause
for contempt.
You will suffer insults aimed at my
people.
Now, the final
two chapters
are sometimes called the book of
contention and conciliation or something
similar. It has much to do with what the
Lord requires of us.
It's presented in the form of a
controversy
between God and his rebellious people.
Now, usually, scholars say that we are
reading something structured like a
trial.
It's true to large degree, but it misses
a a critical point.
This is all about a covenant dispute
called a reev
in Hebrew.
When the accusations revolve around
God's covenants,
then we must turn to those covenants to
see if the accusation holds true.
And if a con- conviction occurs,
then we also see if the punishment
is just and proper because each
violation of Torah law has a specific
consequence assigned.
Consider what this means in
applications.
When Christianity questions if we ought
to be obeying God's covenant, that's a
reev.
Should we celebrate the seventh-day
Shabbat?
That's a dispute over God's covenants.
Should we observe the biblically
appointed times and festivals or is it
okay to create new man-made ones? That's
a dispute over God's covenants.
Or as
generally practiced by the church since
its inception in the fourth century,
should we obey any
of the law of Moses and instead declare
it defunct?
That's a dispute over God's covenants.
This is what we witness in chapter 6.
This is also what Constantinian
Christianity has been doing for 1,600
years.
This is important
because no one
who claims to worship the God of Israel
has any standing to do so outside of
God's covenants.
These covenants set down the terms and
conditions for any and every human
who wants a relationship with God.
When we attempt
to approach that hoped-for or claimed
relationship with him on some other
basis, we do so on self-definition
and self-reliance.
Or most often today,
we attempt to establish that
relationship based on the Christian
definitions set down by bishops and
pastors
or on Judaism definitions set down by
rabbis.
Thus, too often,
God and man just talk right by each
other
when we dispute.
We attempt to talk to God
and dispute with him based on our
religious dogma,
while he speaks to us, hears us, judges
us based on the covenants
he set down with the Hebrews.
And until we can submit to that basic
principle,
all of God's disputing with us and us
with him, all of his reasons for calling
some of our behavior sin, others
righteous,
we will be completely confused and
misunderstood.
And I can easily recall
several times
in my younger years sitting in a
denominational church,
hearing a pastor say that what we
practice when we come to his church is
not a religion,
in something negative,
but rather a relationship.
Oh, that sounds good.
But what he failed to say was that in
his eyes,
that relationship is not based on holy
scripture, God's word, but rather on
ancient and modern church doctrines.
In fact, histor- history emphatically
proves
that the church is nothing more nor less
than a man-made Gentile religion ordered
into being by a Roman politician,
Emperor Constantine. How do I know that?
Because God's words tells us over and
over again that we may only operate a
relationship with God within the
confines and boundaries of his covenants
and nothing else.
All else is human hubris and folly,
which well represents Constantine's
church that abolished all of God's
relationship criteria, replacing it with
their own.
Yeshua changed none of that cuz that's
not what he came to do.
Nor what he attempted to do, nor what he
did.
John the Baptist, who came before him to
pave the way, told Israel to repent.
Repent from what?
Well, sure not to repent from obeying
God's covenants,
but rather to repent from disobeying
them.
Yeshua came not to abolish those
covenants,
but rather to pay the price due from his
people for disobeying and disregarding
them.
Just as Christians and Jews have done
today, so did ancient Israel attempt to
form their relationships with God on
their own terms,
consisting of ambivalence,
subjectivity, and newly created and
evolving dogmatic doctrines.
Here in chapter 6,
God is calling Israel to come forward
and state their case against him in this
dispute.
He will respond with his case against
them, the reev,
the covenant dispute, begins with God's
call for witnesses.
So, we can mentally divide this chapter
for the sake of study in this way.
Verses 1 through 8 contain no formal
indictment
against Israel.
Now, uniquely for prophetic speech,
Yahweh asks about his own conduct,
inviting Israel to state their
complaints against him
in verses 1 through 5, with Israel
responding to him in verses 6 and 7.
Verses 9 through 12 shift its tone and
its content to a list of charges
against Israel, and in 13-16,
bring on the appropriate threats of
punishment. Naturally, because this is a
covenant dispute, it's not a civil court
of law,
then the punishments are rightly called
curses
because curses are covenant language
for the justice that comes from covenant
violations.
Micah 6:1.
So now So, listen now to what Yahweh
says. Stand up, state your case to the
mountains, let the hills hear what you
have to say.
What do mountains and hills got to do
with anything?
What role can they play
in figuratively speaking of them as
witnesses in this case?
Listen to what God says in his Torah.
Deuteronomy 30:19. I call on heaven and
earth
to witness against you today that I have
presented with you with life and death,
the blessing and the curse. Therefore,
choose life so that you will live,
you and your descendants.
The mountains and the hills represent
earth.
The thing to take notice of is that
historically and biblically,
for virtually every ancient society in
the known world,
mountains and hills were considered as
visible,
present,
cosmic foundations and primordial
witnesses because they never got die or
do they ever forget.
That would always
they would always be there to act as
witnesses to what one God or another
said.
And for what a king
or even his commoners did.
See, it's important that we understand
that mythological speech such as this is
often present in the Bible.
Without meaning that God is in some way
validating those belief, it it is just
simply cultural expression.
About things that the ancient world
didn't understand and so for them it was
all mysterious.
All God can ever do to effectively
communicate with us
is to do so in our current cultural ways
and vocabulary because otherwise we
can't possibly understand what he's
saying.
The Israelites understood the common
symbolism throughout nearly all peoples
of mountains and hills being earthly
cosmic witnesses.
And the heavens
as the universe's somewhat mystical
cosmic witnesses
to the speech of God.
As an aside
the reason you won't find things like
stepped pyramids in Israel
because they had high hills and
mountains.
Pyramids of all kinds, whether they're
built upon the sands of Egypt
the ziggurats of Mesopotamia or in the
jungles of Central and South America are
viewed as nothing more than artificial
mountains
that embody the same sort of concept
that I'm explaining to you.
Cosmic significance was attached to both
these
man-made mountains and to the natural
mountains by the ancients.
So
as Micah chapter 6 opens
we are hearing the words of Yahweh as
recorded by Micah
as opposed to hearing Micah speak.
And since this entire matter
is about a holy covenant dispute
then it would be right to call verse 1
an invocation.
Okay, this this opening, what follows is
based on an immutable governing factor
that can't be set aside.
It is this.
Clearly, the relationship between God
and Israel is based on the covenants and
they are still intact
and in operation although Israel is no
longer in harmony
with its terms and conditions and
therefore therefore no longer in harmony
with God.
How critical it is that we get this.
Even though the covenants require much
rectification on Israel's part, in no
way
had they been changed, displaced or
terminated.
Because we are continuing Micah's
somewhat unique style of Hebrew poetry
then there is this kind of built-in
tension
between this dispute that uses both
covenant and judicial vocabulary over
and against the highly emotionally
charged wording that's used to describe
it all.
Well, now that all parties are necessary
necessarily present as called for in
verse 1, verse 2 moves us along to God
issuing instructions to the mountain
witnesses.
He says, "Listen, mountains
to Yahweh's case. Also you enduring
rocks that support the earth.
Yahweh has a case against his people. He
wants to argue it out with Israel."
Now using a typical Hebrew poetic
couplet
God also calls the mountains rocks
with rocks being just another word for
mountains.
And invoking the typical ancient
understanding of cosmic matters, he
calls them enduring.
And that these mountains are what
supports earth.
In the end, because of the symmetry
of Hebrew poem then the entirety of
verse 1 and 2 form a couplet that is
two things said slightly differently but
essentially meaning the same thing.
In verse 3
God asked Israel a question.
"My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you?
Answer me."
Okay, here's a confirmation for what I
said earlier.
God addresses Israel as my people.
Thus proving
that the relationship between them is
still intact
despite Israel's repeated violations to
the covenant terms of that relationship.
I think in modern Western English terms
I'd like to modify this to say
"Why have you grown tired of me?"
To me, what happens when we grow tired
of something?
We distance ourselves from the thing
that has become unimportant. Even boring
to us and adopt something new and more
interesting. So God is asking
what about their relationship with him
seems now to be lacking.
No longer relevant to their lives.
Israel's pulled away
from Yahweh and from the terms of the
covenants he has with them. Why?
Was it something he did?
Well, of course not. This is essentially
rhetorical.
His God has not changed his covenant
terms and conditions nor done something
that violates them.
I'm not going to spend much longer with
this.
But I want to emphasize that most
commentators and Bible teachers will
rightly say Israel broke the covenant.
However
incorrectly the conclusion is this means
the covenant has been terminated and
thrown away as a result much the same
way if you break a a water glass, you
sweep up the pieces, throw it into the
trash, the glass essentially no longer
existed.
This thought process
of Israel breaking the covenant meaning
it's the end of it is fundamental to
Christendom.
And therein lies
the fundamental flaw in Christendom.
It is built
nearly entirely on a false premise.
With all their doctrines based upon
flowing back to that false premise.
A premise that the Bible disputes over
and over again.
Just like here in Micah 6.
After answering the semi-rhetorical
question of his supposed wrongdoing
against Israel, God demands, "Answer
me."
The Hebrew says that what he said was an
AV
which more means testify against me.
A wording more appropriate to the
setting since testimonies are the center
of the proceedings.
Now the implication behind all that
we're reading
is that these proceedings are happening
because in so many words
it is Israel that wants this
confrontation.
It is Israel that has a laundry list of
complaints against Yahweh. So the tone
of God's response is that they need to
substantiate those charges against him
as their reasons for walking away from
him.
One of the things we have seen
throughout our study of the minor
prophets
is that no matter how many times God
tells Israel they are behaving wickedly
or they are not being faithful towards
him, their response is, "No, that's not
so."
Denial.
Only when disaster strikes
do they begin to confess their
wrongdoing.
Such is the way of humanity
that has not been enlightened by the
Holy Spirit. And even then it remains a
struggle.
We'll pick up next time verse 4.
Okay?
For more teachings of real Bible study
and to rediscover God's word with Tom
Bradford, visit Torah Class today on the
web, streaming TV or download the Torah
Class mobile app.