Will the church go belly up and become extinct? No, Micah says, for three reasons, which we find in his book in 7.8-17. I include my own translation from the Hebrew.
Within 7.8-17 there are three sections: verses 8-10, 11-13 and 14-17. Leslie Allen calls the first a psalm of confidence, the second an oracle of salvation and the third a prayer of supplication. Preferred dates and historical setting for this material run the gamut; I think it likely that Micah is anticipating the scourge of Judah under Babylon and beyond (he was aware of that according to 4.9-10).
Why does it all matter? What is the concern that underlies the text? We have heard the accusation against Judah followed by judgment mapped out in chapter 6. Then we have read of the desperate straits of the remnant of God’s people in, for example, 7.2. What, we might think, will we hear next? Will chapter 7 close with a prophecy about entering an age of pure paganism? Will the church go belly up? Was the intention of having a faithful people in this nasty world a really fine idea, but a bit much for even God to hope for? Micah will have none of it.
God’s anger passes
‘Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise again; when I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me. I will bear Yahweh’s rage, for Ii have sinned against him, until he takes up my case and brings about justice for me; he will bring me forth to the light; I will look on his righteousness. And may my enemy see and may shame cover her — the one who keeps saying to me “Where is he, Yahweh your God?” My eyes will see her — now she will become something to be trampled like street mud’ (7.8-10).
These verses are a warning to the enemies of God’s people. The church will not go belly up first, because God’s anger is passing (7.8-10). In the darkness, there is light and consolation (7.8), and after the darkness, restoration and vindication (7.9-10). Yahweh’s rage, though just, doesn’t go on and on. We have no indication here why his rage turns away; we are only told that it will. No wonder we have hope even in the ‘darkness’ (cf. Lamentations 3.31-32; Psalm 103.9-10; Isaiah 54.7-8). You may know acutely how you need such a God: you make a wreck of your life, a right royal mess of things, and it’s clearly your own fault; you turned your back on, and shut your ears to, all godly counsel from others, silenced the voice of your own conscience, and now simply have to endure the ravages of your own rebelliousness and his chastisement. You have to say, ‘I will bear Yahweh’s rage — for I have sinned against him’ (7.9). But if you come to say that, you find, strangely, that you can also say, ‘When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me’ (7.8).
God’s people multiplied
‘A day for the building of your walls! On that day the boundary will be far off. On that day to you they will come from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt all the way to the river, from sea to sea and mountain to mountain. And the earth shall become a waste because of its residents, because of the fruit of their deeds’ (7.11-13).
Here Micah speaks of the light beyond the darkness.
The remnant will also not go extinct because God’s people will be multiplied (7.11-13). John Tyler, tenth US president, had an embattled presidency but an extensive progeny. He had eight children by his first wife Letitia; after she died, he married Julia, 30 years younger than he was, by whom he fathered seven more. Tyler himself was born when George Washington was president and his youngest daughter, born when Tyler was 70, died during Harry Truman’s tenure. Just the immediate family covered 30 presidents and over 150 years. Then think of all the descendants. How could such a brood go extinct? There were so many! That is the ‘argument’ of verses 11-12. Yahweh will begin by restoring his battered people (7.11) and will also enlarge the circle of the redeemed by drawing in those from enemy nations (7.12). Even those with Assyrian and Egyptian passports will be coming to Yahweh (see Isaiah 19.16-25). The programme of Genesis 12.3 will kick in on a grand scale. We see that saving scheme at work throughout the Scriptures, not least in the conversion of Cornelius, for example, in Acts 10 and in the work of the Antioch evangelists in Acts 11.20-21. But, whether with vast numbers or by intermittent trickles, people are being added to the Zion remnant. And how can such a people go belly up when God keeps adding to their numbers?
God’s power promised
‘Shepherd your people with your rod, the flock you possess, dwelling by themselves in a forest, in the middle of a garden land. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in days of long ago. ‘As in the days when you came out from the land of Egypt I will show him wonders.’ Let nations see and let them be ashamed of all their might. Let them put hand over mouth, let their ears be deaf; let them lick dust like the serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; let them come shaking from their fortifications. To Yahweh our God let them come in dread and let them be afraid of you’ (7.14-17).
There’s a third reason why God’s remnant will not go down the drain: because God’s power is promised (7.14-17, but especially verse 15). The church cannot be eradicated because, when the time comes, Yahweh will use his ‘Egyptian methods’, his bare-arm approach. Then his way will no longer be gradual or partial or incremental; rather he will work in a clearly almighty, public, visible, ‘ooh-and-ah’ kind of way. The time will come when he will switch to the ‘without doubt’ supernatural proofs of his power (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17; 2 Thessalonians 1.7-10): parousia, resurrection, judgment. It will be a time, not for another anaemic UN pronouncement, but for the flexing of the muscles and sinews in Jesus’s almighty arm. ‘I will show him wonders’ — overwhelming omnipotence will be the order of the day.
Not much has changed since Micah’s day. Vast numbers despise the church and would love to see her wiped away. And God’s people themselves are so prone to faithlessness that, left to themselves, they would disappear down a black hole of history. But Micah knows the reasons why that won’t happen. Just imagine — what if Micah had lived 700 years later? What if he had heard what Jesus said in Matthew 16.18? ‘I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it’ (RSV). Micah would turn to us and say, ‘See? That’s what I have been trying to tell you.’
This article is an edited version of a chapter from Micah (an EP Study Commentary) by Dale Ralph Davis, recently published by Evangelical Press (ISBN 978-0-85234-717-1, price £12.99, available from their website http://www.epbooks.org), and is used with permission.
