BLESSING OR CURSING

BLESSING OR CURSING 

"Hear ye peoples, all of you. . . ." Micah 1:2

Micah was a prophet to the people of God, contemporary with Isaiah and Hosea. His messages were concerned with Samaria and Jerusalem, the capitals respectively of the Northern and Southern kingdoms, as being the centers of national thought and action. Their burden was that of authority. He denounced the false, and announced the true. The book contains three discourses, each commencing with the same formula "Hear" (See 1:2; 3:1 and 6:1). The words we have emphasized constitute the introduction to the first of these. Necessarily the message was for the nation to which he spoke, but he couched it in the form of an address to ALL NATIONS; and to the WHOLE EARTH. The burden of the message is that of declaring THE COMING JUDGMENT OF GOD UPON THE CHOSEN NATION ON ACCOUNT OF ITS APOSTASY. The other nations are called upon to listen to this message, and to WITNESS THE DIVINE JUDGMENT. Micah recognized the Divine purpose of the chosen nation. It was to be THE MEDIUM THROUGH which God bore witness concerning Himself to all the other nations of the world. Israel, OBEDIENT to the Divine government, realized the blessings of the Divine government, and revealed its kindness to the world. Israel DISOBEDIENT to that law must be judged and punished as they were to be the blessing giver to the rest of the nations (Gen. 12:3), and thus the RIGHTEOUSNESS of the Divine government would be manifested to all the nations of the earth. Either in blessing or in blasting (Gen. 12:3), Jehovah reveals Himself to the nations by His dealing with His ancient people. This is still so, if men have minds to apprehend. Let the rulers among the nations consider the history of the Hebrew people; let them ponder the reason of their long-continued suffering and scattered condition. God is speaking yet to the nations through the Jewish nation.