February 23, 2019: Day 84 – Micah 1

It is good to lay the foundation for Micah and understand the context in which it was written because it does contain some of the more well known references that we have in the Old Testament.  Micah is thought to be a prophet who spoke around the years 759-687 BC, at least that is the span of years that is spoken of in vs.1 when the kings are mentioned.  If you wanted to read more about Micah and what was happening in the time period you can also turn to II Kings 16-19.  Needless to say Micah, like Isaiah, lived in a very tumultuous time period.  

In the first chapter we find Micah speaking out against Jerusalem and what has happened to the people who no longer worship the Lord as they were supposed to.  As a result the Lord will have to leave his temple and tread upon the high places of the earth.  The high places were the places where the idols would have been placed for the people to worship.  All the temples to the gods that were manufactured would have been placed on high places.  

All of the influences of the surrounding nations had affected Jerusalem to the point that the people had been swept up with the tide and gone along with the worshiping of foreign gods.  This last verse has a sense of finality which is somewhat chilling.  He calls the children of Israel pampered and ends with saying that they will be taken into captivity, far away from their parents, their bald parents.   Ouch,that hurts.