End Times Sorcery: Why God Must Destroy Our 'Modern' Security | Micah 5:9-14 & 6:1-3

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? 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