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Micah 5-6
We are in the Exile Stream reading from the New International Readers Version.
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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis
Lord God, we have need of a Savior since leaving Eden. Thank you for sending what we need and reaching out to us and loving us first. Amen.
Remember Micah is prophesying during ca. the 740’s B.C. to the 720’s. He was speaking up through Hezekiah’s reign. He saw the northern kingdom fall to Assyria. He witnessed Assyria proceed on south and trounce through Judah nearly wiping them out also. His theme and tone fluctuate without warning from ruinous desolation -to- glory and the good days that are coming for the Hebrews as a Savior arrives. Some skeptics reference matters like this in the Bible to talk about God being inconsistent and ‘bi-polar’ so to speak. Not the issue at all. God is working his loving plan in an endless effort to encounter and redeem inconsistent, ‘morally bi-polar’ people whom He loves though they have turned away and embraced darkness in most of their behavior.
5 – Micah gives one of the famous descriptions of: a baby, born in an obscure setting, who would rule – though born in Bethlehem 700 years from that time. He had just finished telling, in the prior chapter that we read last week, of the glorious future of Zion, then the miserable exile, then of the Assyrians raiding prior to that, then he goes forward to the wonderful future … this is Micah. Just stay with him. Micah has good news to tell amid the worst of times. The city of Jerusalem had recently experienced the harrowing delivery from the Assyrian army when 185,000 were struck dead at night from the angel of the Lord; [II Chron. 32:21 & II Kings 19:35]. Micah prophesies of the future delivering king against this overwhelming scenario of delivery. The Hebrew people would also be spread throughout the world. At the time of it’s writing the prophecies here are intriguing and mysterious. In time, the meaning of them come clearer and clearer. Micah is spot on in all the prophecies he gives for us to follow through the centuries. This is the only place in the Old Testament where the location of The Savior’s birth is told. It’s the same Savior Isaiah 9 tells about who is “Wonderful, Mighty, Everlasting…”
6 – We return now to Israel getting read “the riot act” against them for centuries of disobedience and phony religious behavior. They have been completely ungrateful to God, dishonest, liars and tricksters, idolatrous to the core and punishment is what is due them. Israel; the north will be left hungry, they will be robbed, they will be over-run [by Assyria].
