RESPONSIBILITY

Micah 3.

RESPONSIBILITY

A new section of the Prophecy begins at the third chapter; and Micah's attention is now turned to the leaders of the people. He addresses himself first to their civil rulers, the princes of the house of Israel, and then to their spiritual guides, the prophets. In each case the same note is struck: privilege involves obligation, and obligation involves responsibility. The failure of the rulers to fulfil their obligations rendered them responsible for the corruption of the people.

1. The Princes and Rulers.

What was the obligation which rested upon the civil leaders? It was to know judgment. This does not mean that they had to be experts in legal technicalities. Such knowledge and experience might have been expected in the judges of the people, but it is not in view in this phrase, to know judgment. Nor does it mean that they were expected to understand the broad principles of justice, though this was certainly a necessary condition of their office. The word know is used here in the sense of heart-knowledge. It implies a special interest in, sympathy with, devotion to the object so known; it practically amounts to love.1 Again, the word judgment here means more than verdict, decision, law: it carries with it the idea of right verdict, correct decision, just law. The whole phrase to know judgment signifies to love justice, to see that law is fairly administered. This was the obligation which was involved in the position, knowledge, and privilege of the civil heads of Israel; but it was unfulfilled. They set the example of oppression, injustice, and violence: the condition of the people was but the reflection of the character of their leaders.

And what was the punishment which would be meted out to them? In their hour of need they would cry unto the Lord, but He would not hear them: they would turn to Him for help and deliverance, but He would hide His face from them. Their own conduct was to determine the nature of their punishment. The same law would apply to the rulers as to the people generally. The people had oppressed the weak among them, and had laid violent hands upon their possessions: their punishment would be that they themselves would be violently dispossessed of their ill-gotten gains.2 Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest, was the cry of expulsion which would reach their ears. Similarly the rulers who had often turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the oppressed, and had hid their faces from those who cried to them for justice, would now find that in their own hour of need their entreating of the Lord would be of no avail, and that He would hide His face from them.

But there is more in the Prophet's denunciation of the rulers than a statement of correspondence between their sin and the punishment which was to ensue: it throws light upon the condition of effectual prayer. Sin separates man from God, and, when persisted in, disqualifies a man for access to the throne of grace. It is the prayer of the righteous man that availeth much. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. . . . The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.3 Under the New Covenant it is prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus to which the promises are given; and prayer in the name of Jesus means that the man who so prays shows the character of Jesus, accepts the standpoint of Jesus, adopts His outlook upon life and the world, and in heart and will is in general sympathy with Him. There is no promise of answer to the mere offering of petition. And yet how many there are who neglect God until the hour of affliction comes, and then cry to Him for deliverance, and blaspheme because no relief is granted. Such men must be told that there are conditions of effectual prayer which can only be fulfilled by those who are sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

2. The Priests and the Prophets.

The ecclesiastical and religious leaders of the people were in no better case than the civil rulers: they used their influence and position for the purpose of leading the people astray. They were sinners against the light. They were not good-intentioned men who had unwittingly followed error and led others after them. They were not pioneers paying the penalty of experimental work in the early stages of thought and practice. They had nothing of the nobility of aim and courage of conviction which went so far to counterbalance the errors of many leaders of thought in the Christian Church, whom we are accustomed to regard as heretics. These prophets of Judah belonged to a totally different category. Their God was their belly. If men fed them, they were prepared to live at peace with them, and to encourage them in any line of action which they wished to follow: if men refused to give them what they wanted, they set up intrigue against them, they sanctified war against them (ver. 5, R.V.mg.), they cast a cloak of sacred duty over organised attack upon them.

And what was their punishment to be? Once again we can perceive a principle of correspondence. As they had chosen not to see the light, so now the possibility of seeing would be removed. As they had chosen to live by bread alone, so now there was to be a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. It shall be night unto you that ye shall have no vision; and it shall he dark unto you that ye shall not divine.... And the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their lip: for there is no answer of God.4 Just as sin had caused a separation between the rulers and God in respect of their petitions being answered, so the sin of the prophets had caused a separation between God and them in respect of vision and message.

3. The True Prophet.

Following immediately upon the description of the blindness and spiritual bankruptcy of the false prophets, there comes, in striking contrast, a picture of the prophet of the Lord (vers. 8-12). His is a voice with authority, the authority which is born of the consciousness of a will surrendered to God and of a personality energised by the Spirit of the Lord. Micah is full of power, judgment, and might for the purpose of his ministry. The claim reminds us of the boldness of St. Paul: God has given to us the spirit of power and love and discipline.5 There is nothing presumptuous in such a claim. It is the response of faith to Divine promise, the answer of a good conscience to Divine revelation, the confidence which comes through the experience of Divine power. No man can be the prophet of the Lord unless he be conscious of Divinely given power and judgment for the purpose of his ministry. It is an axiom of ministerial work that God's calling is God's enabling.

And what was the purpose for which Micah had received power? It was to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin (ver. 8). The sense in which the words are to be taken is evident from the message which follows them. It was the proclamation of the responsibility of the leaders for the judgment which was about to fall. The time for repentance had passed: the prophet's work now was to interpret the impending catastrophe. All were wallowing in the mire of covetousness. Princes, priests, prophets were all alike tarred with the same brush. Reward, hire, money were the only things for which they lived, and they supplied the only incentives to their activity. And with it all there was a deadly self-deception: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us (ver. 11). They ignored the law of human co-operation, the principle of correspondence. Promises which were intended to be the ground of confidence for a people who truly served the Lord were interpreted as guarantees of an absolute inviolability and an unconditional immunity from trouble. The ceremonial and institutional bond between the Lord and the people was accepted as a substitute for the moral and spiritual union. And now they were to learn through punishment the lesson of their responsibility. For their sake, that is to say, because they had sinned and in order that they might be purified through the fire of chastisement, Zion, the city of their God, the inviolable city, was to be ploughed as a field, Jerusalem was to become heaps, and the mountain of the house was to be as the high places of a forest (ver. 12).

What a warning for God's people for all time! The glory of the Lord is in our hands as truly as are our own welfare and salvation. The promise given to the Christian Church of permanence and ultimate victory over the gates of Hell is entirely compatible with the overthrow of any particular church or the downfall of any particular empire. God's word will not return to Him void, but His method of fulfilling it allows for the co-operation of man. For man's sake He may at any time allow His glory to suffer eclipse: indeed, it may be that the only means whereby He can ultimately accomplish His purpose is that He shall for a time deliver His glory into the enemy's hand.

1 For this use of know, cf. Deut. ii. 7; Hos. xiii. 5; Amos iii. 2; Nah. i. 7; 2 Tim. ii. 19.

2 Ch. ii. 4 f., 10.

3 Ps. xxxiv. 15 ff.

4 Vers. 5-7; cf. Amos viii. 11.

5 2 Tim. i. 7.