Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.
David: Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Seth, how are you today?
Seth: I'm doing well. I got my cup of hot water. It's getting cold over here in Oklahoma City, and I don't want any more coffee, and so I just get a mug full of hot water.
David: It's one of the most endearing things about you.
Seth: It warms me. Like, it's not as flavorful, but it's Hydrating. Hydrating. It's warm. They say you should be drinking things at a warmer temperature anyway.
David: Oh, because your body is already in 90 degrees, you know, so your body does less work to—
Seth: I don't know. I think it's like some like yoga nonsense. Like, there's like some yogi out there saying like your chakras can only handle a certain temperature, and I've like absorbed that somehow.
David: Anyway, welcome to Micah 3.
Seth: Welcome to Micah 3. Yes. And so just to kind of set us back up where we should be. Okay. There's twin pieces of bad news in the Book of Micah. You have corrupt leaders within Israel who are oppressing Israel, and you have oppressive nations coming to attack Israel.
David: Right.
Seth: And those things are somewhat connected to one another.
David: Is it because the, the, the people, the outside oppressive forces coming to attack Israel because the inside leaders are oppressing their own people?
Seth: Yes. God is punishing Israel or disciplining God is punishing Israel by sending the Assyrians.
David: Yeah.
Seth: To come and attack them for their moral evil.
David: Okay.
Seth: However, the way that it plays out within the story is that Israel is also the architects of their own self-destruction.
David: Mm.
Seth: They are allying themselves with nations like Egypt to betray nations like Assyria. And when Assyria finds out about it, they extract heavier taxes from them. And then to pay off these heavier taxes, Israel starts to rob its people more.
David: Oh, so yeah, it's both God's punishment, but it's also Israel's own self-destruction. I see, the snake is eating its own tail.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: And the solution though, the good news of the book of Micah, is that God is going to replace Israel's corrupt leadership structure with a kind shepherd who not only will deal equitably and not trust in the wrong things anymore, but will also be able to do battle against the oppressive nations that are at Israel and Jerusalem's gates right now.
David: Because like a shepherd, you say shepherd, like a shepherd both guides his sheep like a good ruler should.
Seth: Leads them to clean water. Right. Still pastures. Still pastures, you know.
David: Yeah. Quiet waters and something.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And but also protects his sheep from threats like wolves.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: And each— Micah separated into 3 different cycles or 3 different court cases. And each court case has a reference to this shepherd ruler, this shepherd king, the shepherd. Leader who will do exactly that. He'll like bring justice and peace and calm, but also strike the enemy who has attacking the sheep. Okay.
David: And so you said that— you said there's twin pieces of bad news, and then, uh, and, and there's— what's the solution then?
Seth: The solution is the shepherd king.
David: Okay.
Seth: He will replace Israel's old corrupt leadership, right? And he will lead the nation to attack the enemy and rule the world.
David: Oh, okay. That— okay, that's what solved it for me because I was like, okay, this shepherd king is going to solve the internal problem in Israel by being a good shepherd.
Seth: That's right.
David: But he's also going to solve the external problem of the threats of military attack by actually going out and fighting off the encroaching armies like a shepherd would defend against wolves.
Seth: That's how we ended the podcast last time with like Israel's gathered into Jerusalem and then like a breaker God goes out and destroys 185,000 Assyrians in one night.
David: Okay. So, and then you also said that, Mike, it's like a court case. And it moves in 3 different sections.
Seth: And we're in the middle section, the second cycle.
David: Second one. And each cycle starts with the same word, right?
Seth: Hear.
David: Hear.
Seth: Like, listen. Listen. Yeah, listen. And in each one, they have different, like, a different emphasis. And in this court case, the second court case that goes from chapter 3 to chapter 5 is a court case against Israel's leaders.
David: Okay, great. So, uh, what then in chapter 3, what is the specific thing that this court case is addressing against Israel's leaders?
Seth: Well, the specific thing is— well, um, so he mentions a whole bunch of different types of leaders. He mentions judges, he mentions prophets, he'll mention priests here in a second as well. And then he'll even mention just the nation of Jerusalem. We've already been told that Jerusalem is the reason— is the person who's going to be receiving these judgments. But specifically, the prophets and the rulers were supposed to enact justice and remind one another of justice, and both are failing in their responsibility to do so. Yeah. Um, the king was— Israel's judges— let's just start with the judges. Israel's judges, instead of using their courtrooms for justice, are using them to cannibalize their citizens.
David: So yeah, literally like chapter 3, verse 3, you who eat the flesh of my people and flay their skin from off them and break their bones into pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So when you don't say cannibal, I mean, it's like they probably weren't literally eating each other.
Seth: Probably not, but they were functionally doing so by just stripping them bare of any wealth that they had to pay off these enemies that were surrounding them, or to just prop up their military infrastructure to maybe survive another battle.
David: Right. And these were the people who were supposed to protect the justice and like the poor and create equity. Uh, and, and, and then that was supposed to— the justices that, that, that they enacted inside of Israel was supposed to spill out into the rest of the nations. But instead the opposite is happening. They're cannibalizing their own people, and the nations are and their evil is encroaching upon them.
Seth: Yeah, it might be helpful. I think we mentioned in the last podcast, but Israel as a nation is supposed to be this— a nation based on God's law, where justice, equity, fairness, peace reign. And when they follow God's law, the nations of the world are supposed to come to them and join them in that. Yeah. This is the opposite is happening here, right? The nations are coming to judge them for their evil, not join them in their justice.
David: Okay, so the judges are warping justice instead of like fighting for the case of the little guy. They are stealing and cannibalizing. Yeah, the little guy. And then there's the— there's also the prophets.
Seth: Yep.
David: Verse 5 talks about the prophets. They are going around. I think we talked about this last week, that they're going around and they're saying, oh, peace, you know, everything's fine. Until they're— I love this. In verse 5, it says, like, all the— all the prophets, they say peace when they have something to eat. But then as soon as they have nothing in their mouths, they go declare war against somebody. Yes, they're very fickle prophets.
Seth: They're fickle prophets. Or another way to understand that too is that they're crying peace to all the people that they're robbing. And when those same people they rob can't bribe them off, they declare war against them. Oh, it's another way that they're— the leaders of Israel are cannibalizing the poor of Israel.
David: Either way, it also seems like a possible, like, sarcastic pun or something here that they have nothing the people who put nothing into their mouths, you know, the people who can't afford the bribe.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Is like God putting a word in their mouth is the idea of what a prophet is, right? And now that prophet, instead of depending on God putting a word in their mouth, are depending on the— whatever comes out of the prophet's mouth, their oracle is dependent not upon God, but upon the bribes of the people.
Seth: That's fascinating.
David: Literally buying the word of God.
Seth: Because the judgment for doing that is they will no longer receive divine revelation.
David: Right. It says that you will be without vision, you will be in darkness, you will be without divination.
Seth: So that's super fascinating. They've decided to trust, right, money, money and bribes rather than God. So that's the only— that's their— that's the only God they receive.
David: God gives them what they want in a sense.
Seth: That's exactly right.
David: He's like, they don't want to hear from God anyway. They want to just make up their own rules about what God, quote unquote, is doing. Yes. Based on who's paying them the most.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And so God's like, Great, I'll give you what you want. I'll stop talking to you and you won't hear my voice anymore.
Seth: The only thing you'll hear is the sound of coins clinking, and those will just diminish over time.
David: Yeah. So the sun shall go down on the prophets and the day shall be black over them. The seers shall be disgraced and the diviners put to shame. They shall all cover their lips and there is no answer from God. There's this time that that God is prophesying then of divine silence.
Seth: That's right.
David: Yeah.
David: I mean, that's, that's a really intense thing.
Seth: Yeah. And I was caught off guard by how assumed God's voice was.
David: Right. I was just about to—
Seth: like, there's like all these prophets in this evil version of Israel that are apparently hearing from God in part, in some way, speaking to the kings, doing all this injustice. And God's like, okay, I'm done talking to you.
David: Like, right.
Seth: Wait, you were talking to them at all?
David: Yeah.
Seth: That's what I kept thinking.
David: I know. It's like, because what would be even more offensive is not that were claiming the title prophet and then making stuff up. What's even more offensive is that they actually were prophets and they were hearing from God, but then putting something else in their own mouth. Yeah, they were making up— they were making up the oracles of God, even though they were hearing God's voice all along.
Seth: And I mean, the role of a prophet, more than like telling the future, was to interpret the law, to interpret the Old Testament, and help the leaders and the judges and the kings remind them of the old standards.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so if they know that but are ignoring that in their advice to the king, it's like, okay, then I'm going to take away all revelation from you.
David: Right. Little that you had will be taken from not only the divine voice of God, like in kind of a revelatory sense, but also like understanding the Bible.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: Is like if they were supposed to interpret God's word from the Torah, He's going to— and they were obviously, yeah, warping that completely. Well, oh yeah.
Seth: So we've talked about how this tracks on the story of Hezekiah. This was made during the time of Hezekiah, right? What is lost during the time of Hezekiah and not recovered again until the time of Josiah?
David: The law.
Seth: The law.
David: Yeah.
Seth: The actual scriptures were lost and hidden, buried in the walls of the temple or the palace.
David: Right.
Seth: It wasn't until somebody uncovered it. That they were.
David: And then the voice of God finally returns. Oh, and all it does is condemn Josiah, you know, you know, the kingdom after Josiah.
Seth: I was anticipating to go from here to like the divine darkness of like the time between the last prophet and the coming of Jesus, right? Like there's like this long period of history where we have no— like 400 years of like actual human history where after the book of Chronicles, yeah, there's Micah or Malachi, there's There's no more—
David: yeah, there's no more prophecies in the Protestant Bible, right? Yeah.
Seth: And then until Jesus, right? And that's what I was kind of thinking.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But I forgot that there's this whole period of time in Israel's history where God's not speaking like, yeah, in a prophetic sense. And the law is literally lost. Right.
David: And then also, this could be a reference to exile itself, because if God lives in the temple and that's where his voice comes from, and that temple is destroyed and the people are exiled from the land, they cannot come near God to hear his voice. And so there's also a time of silence in, in God's revelation because they have no access to God because they don't have the temple anymore.
Seth: So interesting.
David: And so then when Jesus comes, let's go, let's go there. There is this, at least from a Protestant standpoint, there is this time of silence between You know, the, the, like the return of Israel from exile coming into the land, like Ezra and Nehemiah at that time. And then all the way there's just silence until Jesus comes. And when Jesus comes, the good news is you think about divine silence, no word from God.
Seth: Yeah.
David: John 1, then the Word comes and becomes flesh in the flesh. And then what? What is he? Well, we had no temple. And then we finally did have a temple, but was it the same? No. And like, we were still waiting on the manifestation of God's presence. So the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. So now we have the Word of God returning in the biggest form of revelation ever in the person of Jesus. But then we also have that Word being the place where God dwells, that we can come and meet him again.
Seth: This is so fascinating. So in Micah, he does all this rebuke of the prophets to set himself up As the true prophet, because I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Who is Jesus but the one filled with divine power?
David: Yes.
Seth: Filled with the Spirit of God, coming in justice and might on behalf of the oppressed to declare to Israel their sin.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And the religious establishment was one of the primary targets of Jesus's ministry. Yeah.
David: Jesus kind of identifies himself even with Micah 3:8 here. When he quotes his— Micah's contemporary, Isaiah, he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, right, to bring justice and do mercy. And like, for— yeah, in Luke 4. And so like, yes, we are right to see Jesus as this person who, after a period of darkness and divine silence, comes as the one who is filled with the Spirit of the Lord to proclaim justice and might. And yeah, that's amazing.
Seth: Okay, well, that's cool.
David: That's very cool.
Seth: I'm kind of just lost there for a second. I was not expecting that turn so quickly.
David: It's amazing. Yeah. Oh, and I mean, we can wrap up the idea about the judges too here. Because I mean, so Jesus then comes with the Spirit of the Lord in him, and he does not corrupt the law. Right? He doesn't do injustice. Right? He perfectly not only teaches the law, but perfectly He perfectly does justice. He doesn't neglect the poor and the widow. He goes to them and heals them and brings restoration to them. He's the kind of judge that Israel longed for in this day.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And he's, he's the good ruler that we so long needed.
Seth: We talked about hope hints.
David: Yeah. Oh, Seth's hope hints.
Seth: This is another one of them that I did not intend to be here, but it's another hope, another hint that The book of Micah isn't just about a political time or a time in Israel's history, but it's actually about the Messiah, about Jesus coming to do fully what Micah only began.
David: Yeah, man, that's amazing.
Seth: Uh, verse 9 kind of continues the same thing we've already been on. Hear this, oh you heads of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and who make crooked that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem on sin. Yeah. And what do you do? They give judgments for a bribe, right? You get guilty or innocent depending on how much you pay the judge, right?
David: You get a prophecy if you pay the bill.
Seth: The priests will make you feel forgiven if you pay them enough money.
David: Sounds like indulgences.
Seth: Yeah, that does sound like indulgences. Yet they lean on the Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us? There's this— they are presuming upon, right? There—
David: no disaster is going to come upon us because God's with us, right?
Seth: Yeah. Yeah, we're God's chosen people, which is exactly what the Pharisees say. And then Jesus responds with, I can raise a son of Abraham from these stones.
David: All right. That's John the Baptist.
Seth: Oh, John the Baptist.
David: Yeah. John the Baptist speaking to the Pharisees says, don't presume to have Abraham as your father. Don't you know that God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones?
Seth: The Pharisees and the prophets and leaders in Micah's day were assuming because they were Israelites, because they were God's chosen people, no disaster could ever come to them. God would never so fully judge them. To send their nation into exile.
David: Right. And think— I mean, and like, put it more positively. You could put this more positively. You could say God is a, is a God of loving kindness and faithfulness. He is true to his word. He never lies. And he promised that he would live in Zion, like that Jerusalem would be his home, that he would dwell in his temple, that he brought us into here. He rescued us from, from Egypt. He parted the Jordan to let us into the land and rooted out the the other, the other nations. He gave us this land.
Seth: Yeah.
David: He's not going to decimate his own home.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: He wouldn't do that.
Seth: Right, right.
David: I mean, that's not who our God is, you know?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And then this Micah just takes that presumption and just literally flattens it in verse 12. He says, therefore, because of you, those people who are believing those kinds of things, Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height. Like, he's going to completely flatten the Mount of Jerusalem. Yeah, that's, that's, there's no way around that, right, kind of prophecy. Yeah. And anyway, I just, and I'm reminded of Jesus's own words here, when he too comes to talk about how he is going to turn the temple into a heap of ruins again.
Seth: That's right.
David: Not one stone will be left on the other. Jesus says he's going to repeat this work of judgment against the house of God.
Seth: That's right after he's turning over the tables in the temple where people are unjustly robbing from people in order to make sacrifices. And then right before he goes to the fig tree and says, this thing is going to burn.
David: Right. And we— and everybody listening, keep that in your mind, that story of Jesus clearing the temple, of him wanting to tear it down, of all that, because Jesus is going to continue to fulfill the storyline of, of Micah in the next chapter.
Seth: That's right.
David: Which is really exciting.
Seth: So God has just prophesied through Micah that Jerusalem will be leveled for its corruption and for its presumption. Yes, that's, that's the prophecy, right?
David: The, the mountain is going to be made flat.
Seth: And then the next verse: But it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it. So we just remember the imagery. The mountain of God was flattened into a heap of ruins, and now it's being raised up to be the highest of mountains in all the world. And now instead of nations coming to it to destroy it, they're going to come to it to look for justice.
David: Right.
David: It's amazing. Okay. I know this is kind of out of our typical order. Yes. But I cannot help But think about this. It's just kind of funny. So, you know, Jesus talked about how he was going to destroy the temple and then raise it up in 3 days.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And then the people bring an accusation against him. They're like, it took us years to build this temple, right? Do you presume to build it again in 3 days? I just can't imagine how, like, even more exacerbated that imagery becomes when it's a mountain. It's like, you know, like, take whatever view you want of, of how mountains are formed. Yeah, but it's just like It either took God— God had to call this mountain up out of nothing, you know, or it took all this erosion and tectonic plate shifting and everything to form a mountain. And you're going to level it and then you can just do that again in— right. In Latter-day Saints, like, you can't just reform mountains once they're decimated.
Seth: That doesn't happen.
David: It doesn't happen.
Seth: Or does it?
David: Or does it? It just— it just like heightens that for me. It's supposed to.
Seth: Right?
David: It's supposed to feel like an impossibility once again, just because, like, remember, the name Micah means who is like our God. Yeah, it's meant to be like, who can flatten them out and then raise it back up again? Who can destroy a city and then build it back better than it was? God.
Seth: God can.
David: Anyway, that's really cool. Okay, so all the nations will stream to it now, looking for justice.
Seth: Yeah. And they'll say this. And then Micah says, this is what the nations of the earth will say. Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. That he may teach us his ways and walk in his path. Think about how radically different this is from the Jerusalem we know based on what Micah has already said. Yeah, the one that are cannibalizing their own. They're making treaty after treaty, increasing the national debt, and then robbing their own people to pay for it.
David: Right.
Seth: This is the justice of Israel. Yeah.
David: I mean, they're on trial.
Seth: They're on trial.
David: They're cannibals on trial. I mean, imagine, like, imagine a court case. Where a convicted cannibal is on trial for eating hundreds of his own people. And then like a little bit later, someone comes in and be like, you see that guy up there on trial? Pretty soon he's going to teach the whole world how to live justly.
Seth: You'd be like, no, you maniac, what is happening here? And I think there's an important lesson there too. It's like, I don't know if it's the same person. I think Micah imagines the fall of Israel's leadership and the raising up of a remnant from within Israel, which is language that he'll use later. But that's a helpful way. It's like the same nation, same nation that was implied, like implicitly involved with these corrupt leaders.
David: Right.
Seth: But it's also when somebody has suffered injustice and that person is placed in power, he rules as if he knows what that's like. I'm reminded of Jesus. He sympathizes with us on our weaknesses, which uniquely makes him able to be our priest. If you have a remnant that has a history of injustice now given leadership, that leader should create a world of justice where all oppressed throughout the world will come to knowing they can find it.
David: Right. Yeah, totally.
Seth: So, oh, Micah is prophesying a day when that will be true. And from out of Zion shall go forth the law, God's law, and the word of the Lord will come from Jerusalem, the city that was just raised to the ground.
David: Yes.
Seth: And he— who he?
David: We don't know yet—
Seth: shall judge between many peoples, and he shall decide disputes for strong nations far away. The idea is that you have all these nations throughout the world warring with one another. You don't know who's right. There's injustice been done on both sides, and they will come to Israel to settle disputes and come at peace.
David: Yeah, it's like, I mean, imagine just— I mean, put this in our own, in our own world for a second. And it's like, imagine there being such a perfectly just leader who just gets it so well and leads so well and understands how to speak to people so well that, um, is the leaders from the Israeli and Pakistani conflict are like, we got to go talk to him because he'd be able to help us figure this out. You know, like, yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, it's like, uh, America and Afghanistan. Would be able to like go to this leader and be like, how do we finally untangle this mess? Now the Taliban's in Afghanistan again. How do we fix this? He was like, oh, I've got it. It's like, oh, thank you. You know what, now that you've done this— and I'm gonna skip ahead— now that you've done this, you know, all the Israeli and Pakistani soldiers, all the American armories and military bases, all the AK-47s that the Taliban have, you know what, we're just gonna get rid of those because we don't need them anymore. Because you've, you've fixed everything. We don't have to fight anymore because you've settled all our disputes, which is what it gets to when he says they're going to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. They're going to take weapons of war and transform them into weapons of agriculture.
Seth: Yeah. For growth, new life, new life instead of death.
David: Yes. Yeah.
Seth: Oh, it's— and I think this is a little bit different picture than I normally think of, like the kingdom of God, like the city on a hill. Yeah. I mean, that's the language he uses here of like The church is the new Israel, however you want to talk about it, is supposed to be such a paragon of justice that those watching run to it in order to receive justice for themselves and learn how to be at peace. Yeah. That's, that's like, I don't normally think about like that as like the way the kingdom of God works or even like whenever I think about like the final kingdom of God, when God comes, it's like, well, all the enemies are gone. So it's just good people left.
David: Oh, right.
Seth: But like, there's this interesting sense that like God imagines a city established where people look at the justice and the goodness and the peace within it, and they want more of it.
David: Yeah. I mean, think about it, like lean into that with like the, the new heavens and new earth, because doing it here and now makes it— is a whole thing, which we can talk about it. But like the new heavens and new earth, let's imagine Jesus comes. He's the new ruler, right? He is this new ruler who decides disputes among the nations. And I think you're right. I think, I think about it like, well, there's no bad people anymore. So all the disputes are flipped on a switch, turned off. Yeah. And, and it's just like magic, it's gone. It's like, no, it doesn't have to be magic, right? It doesn't have to be that all of a sudden people just stop doing wrong things.
Seth: Okay.
David: But the presence of the ruler, the presence of this king, is so good and so different that it stops the disputes. That like nation— like, I mean, just imagine, suspend all of your preconceived notions about what heaven's going to be and just imagine for a second that it is the new heavens, the new earth, and heaven comes down to earth just the way it is right now.
Seth: Okay.
David: And yeah, sure, only Christians are here, but we're kind of still the same-ish as we are. I'm bending categories. Okay.
Seth: Okay.
David: But like, imagine that happens. And yet you still have— you still have Christian Jews and Christian Palestinians and you still have Christian Afghans and Christian Americans. And there's all these right, all these divisions, divisions that still exist. But when the ruler comes, we actually do get to inhabit that moment where it's like, Jesus will know how to fix this. And the reason why there's peace is not necessarily magic, right? But there's a good ruler.
Seth: I mean, that's, that's a picture of the church, right?
David: Yes.
Seth: Shouldn't there be able to be Christian Israelis and Christian Palestinians worshiping in the same building?
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yes.
David: Right.
Seth: And there are. And there are.
David: Yes, there are.
Seth: They're like, this happens in churches all across the world.
David: Yes.
Seth: All the time.
David: People from traditionally divided warring groups are worshiping together.
Seth: And the fact that we at all— Christian, I mean Gentiles, people that are not Jewish that are worshiping at all— is based on the fact that we have— we saw the ruler Jesus. Yeah. We ran to that city. And we are grafted into an ancient Israeli Jewish faith.
David: I mean, I'm thinking even about just like the current political climate here in America where it's just like there's Republicans and Democrats, you know, and it's just like super divided. And there's, there's, you know, the vaccinated and the anti-maskers and all this stuff. And it's like even in my own home church, there are both those parties and both of them are loud. Yeah, but like we come together and we put all that down.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And we worship and we're in community group together and we love each other and like, you know, it's like, that's kind of amazing with how fractured and angry everyone is right now. I'm like, I think it'd be much easier to have this conversation about how the church isn't doing this.
Seth: Right.
David: But it's also like, it is.
Seth: It is happening. Yeah, it is happening.
David: So I'm encouraged by that.
Seth: Well, Micah continues this prophecy. So the nations are flooding into Jerusalem to receive justice and goodness. People are flooding to the church to receive justice and goodness.
David: Yes.
Seth: But they, referring to the people running in, shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
David: Yeah.
Seth: For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of their god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.
David: Two big things here.
Seth: Two big things.
David: Okay, so the first is this: every man shall sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree. On a really meta level. And we talked about this a lot, I think last week, the, the everybody having their own plot of land is what he's talking about. You get a vineyard and a tree, like it's, it's you get your 40 acres and a mule, you know, you've got your plot of land. And that is a reference to the equitable division of land that God gave his people when they entered Canaan. It's a reference to how things were supposed to be in the Garden of Eden, how they were supposed to be under King Solomon, all of whom are referencing figs the whole time.
Seth: The very first time this actually actual phrase was used is in, uh, 2 Kings— or sorry, 1 Kings 4, when Solomon finally establishes a reign of peace. That's when the first time this— every vine, every fig tree. It's like God's king has set up God's kingdom with God's temple, and everybody is what? Back at the garden, right? Everyone's got their own vine, it's producing grapes, we got their own figs, they're eating sweet things.
David: We had the land we were assigned to have, which is markedly different than what's going on right now. Because right now the, you know, the rulers have 900 fig trees and vines and the poor have zero.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And they have moved boundary markers and taken land and seized properties. And now— and God's talking about a time when he will redistribute that land.
Seth: Yeah.
David: To the people.
Seth: All the earth will be a Garden of Eden and all of us will own A piece of Eden.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And we will feel like it's fair and enough and generous and we won't be at war anymore and we won't be afraid anymore.
David: Yeah. We won't be afraid anymore.
Seth: Which is, I think, I mean, the other interesting thing here is that these words, so they were descriptive of the Garden of Eden in one sense, descriptive of like the Conquest of Canaan.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Descriptive of Solomon. But King Sennacherib, the Assyrian general who arrayed 185,000 troops against Israel.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Outside— against Jerusalem specifically.
David: Right.
Seth: Lined his troops up outside their gate.
David: The people of Israel were shut in Jerusalem like a sheep pen. We talked about this last week.
Seth: He quotes this description of Solomon's kingdom.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And he says, you won't find that with your God, but you will find it with me if you just surrender, I will give you your own vine and your own fig tree. And besides, all the other gods of all the other nations, they've bowed before me. And he lists all these other gods.
David: Right.
Seth: And so when Micah comes here living at the same time of that battle, he's saying Sennacherib is wrong. Right. The vine and fig tree are found in the name of our God alone. Yeah. Yes. All those other gods fell. Of course they did. There is only one God and it's with ours.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so, and what do the people do? They trust in that one God and the Assyrians are destroyed. Yeah, it's a picture of what's happening around here, man.
David: I just, I was not expecting to be reminded of this, but I just am like in the same context where Jesus is talking about himself as the vine in John. That's whenever he says that like that he is the way and truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through him. It's just like we walk in the name of one God, Jesus.
Seth: Right.
David: And not only does he promise to give us our vine and our fig tree, like he is the vine. I don't know. I was just like reminded of that.
Seth: That's good.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Anyway. Yeah, we were talking like this anyway.
David: There's a, there's a huge, there's like, there might be a bigger theme of fig leaves. And figs throughout the Bible and vines and weeds.
Seth: Yeah.
David: I don't know if we're ready to talk about it.
Seth: We're not ready to talk about it, but if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're curious, think about the first time figs were mentioned in Bible.
David: Hmm.
Seth: In, at, in the garden when Adam and Eve cover their shame. And then one of the solutions to that shame is having a garden kingdom with figs. Right. And that shame is reversed and you're given the thing that we once tried to hide with. Right.
David: And you were using the fig leaf to cover your shame. Your body was going under under the fig leaf. And now he's saying you will dwell under a fig tree, right, to hide yourself from the sun, to be shaded from— you know, it's like there's something here.
Seth: Just, just think about it. Just go think of it. We haven't developed our thoughts fully yet, but we're going down that line. Yeah, that's the video that will never be released.
David: That's right.
Seth: But we just had fun talking about it for a couple minutes. Okay. Um, Micah goes on. He just keeps going.
David: He just keeps going.
Seth: He says, in that day, declares the Lord, He describes the type of people that will come into this new city. The lame. I will gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted. And the lame I will make the remnant, and those who are cast off a strong nation. And the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.
David: Yes. Okay. So remember that little piece of information I told everyone to keep in their heads? Yes, about, about Jesus clearing out the temple and, and saying that he was going to destroy it and all this stuff. Here's where Jesus then picks up the rest of that story, because after he drove out the money changers, symbolically stopping the sacrificial system of the temple and pushing pause on it for a second, making it, you know,
Seth: prophesying its destruction,
David: a quote unquote heap of ruins for a moment. Yeah, prophesying its destruction. What— who comes to him in the temple at that, at that point? Who is going to come? The lame
Seth: and the blind
David: and the blind.
David: The people that Micah says are going to come in. Jesus is reenacting the prophecy of Micah in the temple, which is no wonder why the religious leaders get so mad, is because they see that he is embodying the prophecy of Micah, not against the old Israel that was destroyed, but against them.
Seth: Right.
David: And now they're the new, like, religious elites, the corrupt leaders that are going to be judged.
Seth: Oh, oh, I did not pick up on that. That's amazing.
David: Cool.
Seth: That's so cool.
David: Jesus knew his Bible.
Seth: The Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion, on Jerusalem's hill, at the place where he is right now, from this time forth and forevermore.
David: Oh, it's so cool.
Seth: That's really cool.
David: Yeah. So Jesus did this.
Seth: And he said, and to you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, for to you it shall come the former dominion, meaning like the dominion of King David, the dominion of Solomon, the dominion with God.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.
David: Wow.
Seth: It's like God's people will have a king.
David: Yeah.
Seth: In the moment when the lame and the blind come to the new place of justice after he overturns the corrupt religion of the Pharisees.
David: Okay, I want to go back to something you said at the very beginning of the episode because it really starts to come into play here. You talked about how there are these these external threats of these armies coming against Jerusalem to judge their rulers. So you have two problems: the external threat of an army, the internal threat of bad rulers.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And you said that there is going to be one solution to both of those problems. And here we're going to see what that solution is. And it's so clever that Micah literally has to tell us that we don't get it.
Seth: Yeah, it's really funny.
David: It's really funny.
Seth: I also— yeah, what I also love about this is it subverts like a classic Christmas thing. Oh, well, I mean, there's a very famous prophecy in Isaiah that calls Jesus our Prince of Peace, our wonderful, wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And like, that's like a classic thing that we use. Classic, classic thing. And when I always think about the word counselor, yes, I always think about like a therapist, like some, or a, like, um, an older, wiser person.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Giving me some sage advice. Yeah.
David: I think about like a, like a, like a, yeah, like an old, like an old wise sage coming to a king and being like, my Lord, do not be rash in your decisions.
Seth: Something like that. But the better translation of the word counselor in both Isaiah and here has nothing to do with therapy or like sage advice.
David: Right.
Seth: It's about like military strategy. Yeah. It's like a tactician, a tactician.
David: And so when you turn this noun into a verb, it becomes the word like to plan, to like strategize, strategize.
Seth: So what's interesting in this next paragraph, we get God described as an expert, a wonderful tactician, extraordinary strategist.
David: Yeah. And we're talking about, we're talking about armies and Babylon. So he's a war— yeah, Babylon is in Is in chapter 10.
Seth: Oh, he is. Yeah, he is right there.
David: Yeah. And so he's like a war strategist, right? Just like a cool, fun way to start.
Seth: So just to start to seed your imagination with God is a good advice teller. He is a sage man with advice for you, but also add to your depiction of God as a gifted military tactician in a war room.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And here is what's happening. So we've just got all these prophecies. About a leader who is coming to save Israel, to gather the lame. But right now Israel is almost in ruins, right?
David: Yeah. I mean, to put it bluntly, it's like we've got— you almost have like a contradiction here. He's like, you're going to be destroyed. I'm going to flatten your mountain and you will be saved and live on a big mountain.
Seth: You're like, you'll be raised up.
David: You're talking out of both sides of your mouth, Micah. How is this possible? Yes. Well, you need a wise war tactician to figure that one out.
Seth: And so what he was— so what Micah says is that it's actually through your exile that the strategist is planning your liberation.
David: Yep.
Seth: Your counselor has not perished. And then he says this: your pain is like labor pain, and it actually prophesies the birth of something new, right? So what he's saying is he's saying your exile into Babylon, your exile into Assyria, the coming prophesied destruction of Jerusalem for its evil is going to happen.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: But you don't need to cry and wail because God is using that to bring about your ultimate liberation and the birth of a coming ruler.
David: Right. In the same way that you can't have a new child, like a baby born without labor. You know, you, you, you, Israel cannot be raised up the way I want to raise you up unless you first go in exile.
Seth: There you shall be rescued. In Babylon you shall be rescued. Right there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
David: Yeah. It's like, here's why he's a war tactician, is like, this is a behind enemy lines strategy. Yeah. You know, he's like, okay, here's the deal. I'm going to sneak you in behind enemy lines.
Seth: They're going to think they're winning.
David: Yeah. And then it's there that we're going to unleash our surprise.
Seth: Like the Trojan horse.
David: Yeah, it's a Trojan horse.
Seth: Yes.
David: For the gospel.
Seth: Yes.
David: Okay.
Seth: And now many nations are assembled against you. So that's like the future hope, like the future bad news, but the future strategic surprise. But now many nations are assembled against you. And that many nations is a nod to the Assyrian army and all the mercenaries they paid off. And again, the 185,000 people around Jerusalem. That's probably the best image to have in your mind for the whole book of Micah. And they're saying, let her be defiled and let our eyes gaze upon Zion. But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord. The enemy nations do not know the thoughts of the Lord. They don't understand his plan, his strategy. He has gathered them. They think they're gathering to exploit your weakness, military weakness, Israel. But God has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor for them to be harvested.
David: Dang.
Seth: They don't get it. God is going to use the invasion to defeat the enemies.
David: Yeah, he set a trap.
Seth: You set a trap.
David: Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. God is a war tactician, both using this battle to judge the enemies of Israel and save Israel through their exile. Yeah. Okay.
Seth: And then he's described like an armorer. An armorer.
David: An armorer.
Seth: He says, arise and thresh. So they're like sheaves that need to be harvested. So arise and thresh. Which you would normally do with an oxen, and I will make your horns of iron. So he like, imagine like the horns of an oxen being gilded with iron by God. I'll make your hooves into bronze and you will beat in pieces many people. It gets violent, but, and shall devote their gain to the Lord and the wealth to the whole Lord of the earth. Israel's oppressors will be destroyed.
David: Yeah. He's going to turn Israel's oppressors into grain and Israel into a golden ox. Yeah, that's a cool image. Yeah, man, I just can't— I just can't stop thinking about Jesus, like God through Jesus performing the ultimate trap of a wise war tactician. You know, that it's like the cross was the ultimate trap for the enemy. He thought that they were killing the Son of God, but in crucifying Jesus, the enemies of God actually brought about their own demise.
Seth: Yeah, it's 1 Corinthians 2:8. None of the rulers of this age understood it, which would be the—
David: not, not people probably, but like the—
Seth: yeah. Oh man, I should read more of this context because this is actually really interesting. He says this: we speak about the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, the mysterious hidden strategy and wisdom of God.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Which he destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
David: Yeah, man. Yeah, they didn't get— I mean, verse 12, this is, this is chapter 4, verse 12 of Micah. They didn't get his thoughts. They didn't know his thoughts. They didn't understand his plan. If they had, they would not have let Jesus go to the cross because they would have known that that would have meant their destruction in the same way that the flattening of the mountain of Zion actually brought about its ascendance. So did the flattening of Jesus on the cross bring about his resurrection and resurrection life for all people. I mean, it's amazing. The cross is the ultimate trap of the, of the tactician God. Yeah, that's so— yeah, Satan, the devil, the world, Rome, everybody, everybody thought that killing Jesus would be the best way to win.
Seth: It would solve their— the Pharisees thought we kill Jesus, our problems are solved. The Romans thought we get rid of a political— everyone thought their problems—
David: Satan thought Kill, kill, kill.
Seth: Yeah, the people of God will be killed when Jesus was dead. Opposite, opposite. God traps them in their own plans.
David: Right. Which is like another major theme in Micah is just like an ironic justice for everything, which I think we'll get to here in a second.
Seth: Yeah.
David: That God always ends up using our sin to, to be its own punishment, to trap us in it.
Seth: Yeah. Which is, which is even the judgment of a military power coming to judge Israel first.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Is an ironic judgment because they trusted in military might and power.
David: That's right.
Seth: But then to use another military to like another type of army to lead them back out is a double irony in the fact that you wouldn't expect God to save in the same way that you sinned.
David: Yeah, I love— I also love this idea of God as this wise tactician weaving together all these different threads, because sometimes when I've sat down with friends to read the Bible, and I'll— and like some of this stuff will come out, you know, and we'll start weaving together these crazy threads throughout the whole Bible. And they'll ask like, okay, so was this actually like intended or are you just like putting all this together?
Seth: Like when we talk about this type of—
David: yeah, are you seeing something that's not there?
Seth: Right.
David: And I'm like, God is a wise tactician making crazy plans and ironic reversals to prove that He is who he says he is. Like, I mean, 2 Corinthians, that part you just quoted— was it 2 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians, sorry, uh, that you quoted— like, proves the point that it's like he's had a plan from eternity past, like, that, that stumped all the evil rulers, both physical and spiritual.
Seth: Yeah, and it's, it's interesting, in 1 Corinthians 1, um, Paul continues to riff on that same idea about about how the wisdom of God, the hidden wisdom of God, is in death. Yeah, it's foolishness to the gent— to the Gentiles, it's foolishness to the Jews, the stumbling block for the Jews. But it's actually in death and then resurrection after death, that's the wisdom of God, that's the tactic of God. And then he even does this with like things in the world. Like, don't seeds have to die before new life is grown?
David: Same book, 1 Corinthians 15.
Seth: Doesn't— yeah, winter have to come before the spring?
David: Yeah.
Seth: Hasn't God ordained the universe in a series of many deaths and resurrections? Isn't this the hidden wisdom of God in plain sight?
David: Right? Don't you know when you put a seed in the ground, something completely different pops up? And don't you know this kind of thing has to die before life comes? Like, he's— yeah, he's woven that hidden nature into the world and we fight it. Like, I mean, to, to put it in like a more moral way, like, we fight it so hard that the kingdom of God doesn't make sense to us when he says, like, if you want to be the greatest, Be the least. If you want to live, die. If you want to follow me into eternal life, take up your cross. Yeah. It's like the way God's thoughts are so far above our thoughts, his plans are above our plans, that we get to life through death.
Seth: And think about Israel, who presumed that nothing bad could happen to them. They had this presumption that they would be, like God said, the nation that would bless the world. Right. But how do they pursue that? Through military power, trying to be great themselves by trying to be great themselves. And God humbles them for it. Yeah, but when they— when they are totally humbled and dead, they rise up as the highest of the mountains and the nations flow to it.
David: Yep. I mean, that's the gospel.
Seth: That's the gospel.
David: Jesus, the highest of all high powers, humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross. And because he did, God exalted him to his throne. So that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.
Seth: Well, we've already kind of talked about one Christmas verse with wonderful counselor. Yes, we get to talk about another great Christmas verse here in chapter 5.
David: Man, we are just It's the season.
Seth: It's the— 'Tis the season. The only time of the year I say 'tis is the season.
David: Oh, man.
Seth: 'Tis it.
David: Did you just say 'tis it? I say, man, 'tis almost Halloween. I've never done that. 'Tis a bright morning.
Seth: Okay.
Seth: Anyway, in knowledge of the fact that God is going to give Israel the nation, the lame are going to flood to Israel and they're going to be— they're going to judge the nations and rule well. Micah calls Israel to gather her troops together, gather together, because Assyria is about to attack them, which is interesting. Yeah, I'm like, I'm so off in the distant future to be pulled back down to the siege that Assyria, right, comes in with against Israel. I was not prepared for, but I think that's what's happening.
David: Yeah, it is strange. I mean, if he's saying like, you must go into exile and be defeated in order to come home and be liberated, mm-hmm, he's saying, so just get ready for it, get your troops together because you're going into a losing battle. Yeah, it's really weird. You know, it's like, it's like, hey, you're gonna bet you're about to go into a lot of pain whenever you go into labor, right? So You're not going to be able to avoid it. There's a baby on the other side. Yeah, you have to go through labor. So go and get your go bag ready. Yeah. Get the car gassed up. Get ready to go to the hospital.
Seth: I think that might be the vibe for this verse. And with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. So there's like, there's justice coming against the oppressive leaders. Like, it's unavoidable. And but I also just love that phrase, like striking the judge of Israel on the cheek.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I'm just like, I just think cheeks and then the other cheek from Jesus. I don't know if this is a connection to make, but like, when Jesus turns the other cheek, he dies to resurrect, right? And so Israel here, they've been struck on one cheek. They go into battle, they'll be struck again down to the bottom, but they will be raised again, right?
David: And it is also interesting, these— like, they will strike the judge of Israel on the cheek, but— and then it talks about the Messiah. Yes, the other cheek is the Messiah.
Seth: But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, which means fruitful.
David: Oh. Like the figs.
Seth: Like the figs. Like the— it's all connected.
David: It's all connected. This is probably only funny to us because we've been having fig conversations off air all day about figs. Um, but yes, this is the Christmas part.
Seth: This is the Christmas part.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But to you, oh Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be named among the clans of Judah. And too little is probably more like insignificant.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Bethlehem was never mentioned in Joshua's census.
David: Right.
Seth: Bethlehem wasn't mentioned, one of the military cities at the beginning. It's not one of the tribes. It's not like— yeah, it's like it's this tiny, insignificant, humble place.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. There's a whole bunch of like allusions here to King David.
David: Yes.
Seth: So one, Bethlehem, Bethlehem, where David was born. Right. But when we're first introduced to David as a soldier in 1 Samuel 17:12, We're told that he's from the town of Bethlehem. His father is Ephraimite and he comes from the clan of Judah.
David: Whoa.
Seth: And then when Samuel anoints David, God tells Samuel to anoint a leader for me.
David: Ah, so it's like that anointing ceremony.
Seth: So there is a new coming son of David from Bethlehem who will be God's anointed to bring Israel back into justice.
David: And I just can't get over the end of verse 2 there. That says that this leader's coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. And I'm like, is this David? Like, is that only David or is he reaching back even farther?
Seth: I think David, most certainly.
David: At the very least, it's David.
Seth: Most certainly from David. My commentator like goes a little in detail on this and I didn't read it closely enough, but he said it could mean from eternity past.
David: Right. The ancient of days, but it most certainly means right from David. Either way, either way, God has a plan from the insignificant Jesse.
Seth: Yeah, insignificant Bethlehem, which again is the same point he's been making.
David: You want life? Go to the insignificance of the grave. You want a mighty king? Go to your most insignificant town. It's how God's kingdom works.
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's no wonder that Jesus so often in his parables and in his teaching, when he talked about the kingdom, talked about it this way, that the greatest shall be the least. It's always how God works. It's so interesting.
Seth: Yep.
David: Okay.
Seth: And then, um, and he, verse 4, shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. That's the image of a shepherd again. This shepherd from the line of David.
David: Yeah.
Seth: David was a shepherd. He was a shepherd who will come in the strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And he will— and they, Israel, Jerusalem, shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he, this new coming ruler, will be their peace.
David: Oh, I love that too, that it's he will be their peace, not he'll bring peace or win peace or fight for peace, but that their peace will be in him. It's kind of like what we talked about with all the divided rulers and nations. It's not that this king just came and just decimated everyone and is now like creating peace through a dictatorship.
Seth: Right.
David: It's that his presence brings peace because like, let's just go talk to him because I think he's got it figured out. Yeah, it's just amazing.
Seth: The next, the next part of this verse brings us back to the, to Assyria.
David: Okay.
Seth: So we probably should mention this. We've mentioned a couple of times obliquely, but it's like important to name. Micah is prophesying during a very specific reign in Israel's history.
David: Right.
Seth: And so a lot of these prophecies have double fulfillment. Right. We jump to Jesus really quick because we get excited about that.
David: Yes.
Seth: But we've mentioned the Assyrian siege from 1 Kings 18.
David: We mentioned Josiah.
Seth: We mentioned Josiah. And here again, when the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise up against him with 7 shepherds and 8 princes of men, and they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword in the land of Nimrod at its entrances. And he shall deliver us from the Assyrian. When he comes into our land and treads within our border. So we have another like political thing. And this, I think, is referring to Babylon when they raise in power and overthrow Assyria.
David: Right.
Seth: So Assyria comes and overthrows the northern kingdom of Israel.
David: Almost, almost overthrows the southern kingdom.
Seth: Right. They're pushed back by God's hand. But then Babylon raises in power and overthrows them.
David: Right.
Seth: So like, I think that's what he's talking about here.
David: Makes sense to me.
Seth: God is in control of the nations, shepherding his people into peace at all times. Yeah, that's what's happening.
David: Amazing. And so that happens. And then, I mean, if you, if you were going to keep reading this historically, then verse 7 would be like, and then the remnant of Jacob, right? It's like those people left over when Babylon comes, but probably not the right way to read it, but maybe.
Seth: Well, and the remnant shall be in the midst of many peoples.
David: Oh, right. So yeah, he's talking about when Israel goes into exile, they're going to be taken out into exile. And, you know, some clans will be taken over to Babylon, some will go to Assyria. We'll read about in Esther how some are in Persia. They're, they're just all spread out everywhere. And like you get into the New Testament and there are Jewish synagogues all over the place.
Seth: Ethiopia, everywhere. Yeah.
David: Why? Because of the exile.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Which is really interesting. It's, it's almost like another Tower of Babel. Oh, because you have a large structure, right, that it was ending up being some kind of religious affront to God.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so God decimates and scatters the people into the nations. Then it was as a curse, and even now it's as a curse for Israel. But it will be through this exile that God will bless the nations. And like, God, like, put his people behind enemy lines all over the world so that when the message of the gospel through the apostles started going around the Roman Empire and beyond it, God's church was able to be raised up as a multiethnic, multinational community as it was intended to be, reversing the Tower of Babel. It's amazing. Yeah.
Seth: And he describes this, uh, people of God as like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass. Uh, like those are signs of blessing. Dew, showers. Like, you're in Babylon, you're in Assyria, you're in Persia, but God's people will be a blessing to the nations, even in exile. Um, but then a remnant of Jacob shall be called— shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples, but they shall also be not just a blessing, but like a lion among the beasts of the forest.
David: The king of the jungle.
Seth: The king of the jungle. He— they're not just victims, right? They're ruling from exile, which— I mean, the story of Esther, the story of Daniel, right? You have people within scripture who rule from exile despite what should be the case.
Seth: Yeah.
Seth: You have lions protecting the flock of God in the middle of the wolf pack.
David: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Seth: Interesting.
David: Super cool.
Seth: And your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries and all your enemies shall be cut off. God's people will be protected even in exile.
David: Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, same point being made again and again and again.
Seth: Yeah.
David: That it's in death death, in exile, in subjugation, that God will win victory. Yeah, yeah. We just hearken back to the cross and the defeat of the grave over and over and over again.
Seth: That— I mean, so, and then Micah 5 ends. So generally the pattern ends with the promise of a shepherd. It's here, this court case is real, and then it ends with a promise of a shepherd king. Yes, that's happened here already.
David: And you would expect his oracle to end and move on to the third court case.
Seth: He— but he kind of doubles down on judgment again for Israel. You have a lot of hope in exile, in death. It's all good. It's like God's in control still. But in that day, declares the Lord, when you are carted off into exile, I will cut off your horses from among you, the same horses you trusted. I will destroy your chariots. I will cut off your cities and I will throw down your strongholds. I will cut off your sorceries. You will have no more tellers of fortunes. I will cut up your idols and all your pillars, and you will bow down to them no more. To the works of your hands you will bow down to no more.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Everything in Israel that caused them to stray, their military, the idols, their idols, witchcraft will be cut out. Yeah, God is sending them into Israel, into exile, as a remedial thing. It's not like that— God is pruning. There's a reckoning for Israel to cleanse Israel, to make her into the remnant that can lead with justice. Yeah, as they can. If they, if they still go all in on the military when they get back in the land, they go all in on witchcraft, they go all in on idols again, they will not be the nation of justice that that blesses the world, that people stream and flock to, to turn their weapons of war into farming equipment.
David: It's a, it's a severe mercy that God is acting against them. He's like, I'm going to exile you to cut you off from your addictions. Yeah. Like you're addicted to idols. You're addicted to false witches and sorcerers. Like you're addicted to your military and your dependence on chariots and, you know, weapons of war. I'm just going to cut you off. You're going to go cold turkey. I'm going to put you in a place where you have no power, where you can't get to your religious cultish environments anymore, and you're going to have to learn to depend on me.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And from there, I'm going to bring you back as a remnant. Man, that's, that's amazing. It also made me think about like how we've been talking about how the reign of the Kingdom of God, the reason it brings peace is not because it's magic, but because it's practical. Like, and one of the practical ways that God will free us from all the evil in the world when we enter into the new heavens and new earth is that we will be cut off from all the evil things that are around us. Like, we won't have access to them anymore, which is like really good news. I want to be— I want to be cut off from the things that I want. I don't want there to be billboards anymore.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know, like, yeah, there are just things in the world that I'm ready to be gone.
Seth: I think one way to think about this is what the Holy Spirit does. Yeah, the Holy Spirit does what the prophets and the judges were supposed to do but failed to do.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: He writes the law on our hearts and helps us interpret the law for a new generation in a new place, right? He cuts out all the old sin that used to define our motivations. Yeah, and trains us and brings us closer and closer what God's will is. Like, this is the Holy Spirit, right? To like, he's God has come and cutting these things out from us, pruning us, reckoning us to our sin, isolating ourselves by— like, I mean, we've talked about Peter, how Peter— we're exiles, we're chosen by God to be exiles, we're taken out of the world to be pruned from the things of the world to become God's people and lead in the world.
David: Yeah, I mean, I'm— I think of Acts as well, where this, this stuff actually happened because the Holy Spirit came.
Seth: That's right.
David: Communities.
Seth: That's right.
David: You had the Holy Spirit coming onto a community and they burned all their spellbooks like they were witches and they burned their spellbooks. You know, this actually happened. Like, you had, you had a community giving up all their idols, you know, and like dashing them to pieces. So much so that the local idol maker ended up doing violence against Paul. Because he was being run out of business. Yeah. Like when the Holy Spirit comes, our dependence upon the things of this world and its wicked things goes away. And like, we start to throw away our TVs, you know, like we— yeah, we start canceling Netflix, you know, we start doing these things and it disrupts the idols of our, of our day. Whenever the Holy Spirit starts to do his work on us.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: That's cool.
Seth: This is like an aside. Yeah. But I think our best analog for witchcraft is technology.
David: Yes, it's like when I can't hear the voice of God, where do I go?
Seth: And witchcraft too, like, I think if any, if any Wiccans are listening, they'd probably correct me on my understanding of witchcraft. However, like, I think like part of it is a desire to manipulate the forces of nature for our own benefit or knowledge, right? So what does Google do but but promise me omnipotence.
David: Like, I can know everything.
Seth: I can know everything. I can be anywhere. I feel like it's like the technology and witchcraft are— I can manipulate the forces of the world to satisfy me through the internet.
David: Yeah, you can. Yeah, totally.
Seth: And so what God is promising to do is to free us from those— the way that those things trap us.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And that happens when a leader from Bethlehem is raised up and is crowned King, not just of Israel but of the universe, and sends himself and his Spirit into all his new citizenry, his new citizen, like citizens of his kingdom, right?
David: Sheep in his flock.
Seth: Sheep in his flock get that type of heart injustice embedded in them so that as they live in a world full of technology and witchcraft and injustice and whatever else, they become beacons, cities on hills —right—lifted up above all the other cities. The people, when they see it, are asking questions. How are you like this? How does your— how does this impact me? And we become cities on the hill. We become the image of the kingdom of God, right? Micah imagines. David: That's so good, man. That's, that, that's great. Okay, well, that's the second court case of Micah. Micah chapter 3 through 5. Uh, next week we'll wrap up Micah with the third and final court case. In chapters 6 to 7, right?
Seth: That's right.
David: All right,
Seth: so see you next week.
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