Micah 6:1-7:20 Third series of prophecies: God forgives the remnant of his sinful people

The Indictment of the Lord

Micah 6:1 Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has an indictment against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.

3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

What Does the Lord Require?

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with [1] thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, [2]
and to walk humbly with your God?

Listen (plural), addressed to the book’s audience, introduces the third section of the book. What the Lord says invests the section with heavenly authority. For the coherence of this section in the light of the book as a whole see the Introduction.

6:1-8 Israel accused of breaking covenant
This oracle against Israel develops as a complex legal suit. God, the plaintiff, summons Micah, his messenger, to call the mountains as witnesses to the trial (1), and Micah obeys (2a). The rest of the lawsuit unfolds dramatically in the form of a dialogue by use of the keyword what (cf. vs 3, 6, 8).
    1-2 The command stand up (singular), gives Micah authority and stresses the urgency of the message. The Hebrew word behind plead case means ‘to make accusation’. Since it is God’s case, not Micah’s (see v 2b), we should read ‘my’ in v 1, not your. As Jacob and Laban erected a stone pillar to serve as a witness to their covenant (Gn. 31:43-47), and the eastern tribes erected a stone altar as witness to their covenant with God (Jos. 22:21-28), so God summoned ‘the heavens and earth’ as a cosmic forum of witnesses to his covenant with Israel (cf. Dt. 4:26). Now, about 700 years later, he summons the mountains (1-2) and the everlasting foundations of the earth (2) as a forum of witnesses to the truthfulness of his case and charge against his people, Israel. Incidentally, the appeal to these silent witnesses could have carried conviction only if the parties assumed that the treaty had been handed down unchanged from generation to generation.    
3-5 The plaintiff seizes the initiative.
3 He has not burdened his people, as they implicitly complain, but had dealt so graciously with them at their founding that their only reasonable response should have been a heartfelt commitment to him. After they fall silent to his invitation to answer him (cf. Rom. 3:19), he develops his own accusation in two parts, each introduced wooingly by my people (3-5).
4 The first presents his saving acts at the beginning of their history, namely, God brought [them] up out of Egypt and redeemed (‘liberated’) them from the land of slavery. He also gave them supernatural, godly leadership in the persons of Moses, the founder, Aaron, the high priest, and Miriam, a prophetess and poet (Ex. 15:20-21). Israel’s later lack of leadership is not due to God’s lack of grace and power but Israel’s stubborn heart.
5 The second part presents God’s mighty acts at the end of their formative period, namely, their protection from the demonic political and religious leaders, Balak king of Moab and Balaam son of Beor respectively, and their miraculous journey from Shittim in Transjordan through the swollen Jordan to Gilgal, their first camp in the promised land. These opposites signify all of God’s initial righteous (‘saving’) acts. If God miraculously saved Israel from the affliction of Egypt and Moab, can he not unshackle their descendants from the tyranny of Satan in whatever guise he takes? And can he not do similar deeds for his servants down the ages?
    6-7 Perhaps one of Israel’s kings, to judge from the magnificence of his gifts, responded in such a way as to condemn himself. Instead of repenting of his ingratitude and unfaithfulness he tried to gain access to God’s exalted presence through his own good works and ritual, transforming the spiritual covenant (cf. Dt. 6:4-5) into a commercial contract.
6 He hoped to come before the LORD through costly gifts. This unbelieving approach to God’s grace can never satisfy the conscience, and so he escalated the quality and/or quantity of the gift ever higher: burnt offerings, calves a year old (representing the best), thousands of rams (cf. 1 Ki. 3:4; 8:63), ten thousand rivers of [olive] oil, which is otherwise measured in fractions of a litre. He even offered to sacrifice my firstborn, an obscene pagan custom (Lv. 18:21).
8 What God requires is faithfulness to the covenant, which is based on faith in him and expresses itself fundamentally in right living and only secondarily in ritual (see Ex. 20-24; 1 Sa. 15:22; Mt. 5:24). The king’s ignorance of what pleases God is inexcusable, for in the covenant God has shown humankind what is good, a term that summarizes the law’s requirements: to act justly (see ch. 3) and to love mercy (i.e. from the heart, to protect the weak), and to walk humbly (or ‘to walk [p. 830] thoughtfully’ in the light of the covenant’s requirements) with your God.