April 11, 2022: Day 77 – Micah 1-7

We don’t often find ourselves sitting down and reading an entire book of the Bible.  Congratulations, you did it!  Let’s set the stage a bit because it is a confusing if you just hear the words and don’t understand what is happening to put them in context.  After King Solomon, that would be King David’s son, dies almost immediately Israel is split into two kingdoms, the north and the south.  The north is called Israel (I know, confusing) and the south is called Judah.  The capital of the north where their religious center was located was in Samaria and the capital for the south where their religious center is located is Jerusalem.  That makes sense, because that is where the temple is.

The people of the north almost immediately turn on God and start to worship other gods.  The people of the south have the temple in their midst and so tend to be a bit less conflicted and unfaithful and so remain somewhat loyal to God.  Micah is a prophet who speaks out against this separation and specifically against the northern kingdom and tells them that they will be taken into captivity into Babylon, which eventually happens.

There are some key memory verses that are crucial to hear in Micah which ought to have caught your attention: Micah 4:3 which was often used as a peace narrative.  In fact, this song came from this verse:

We also have the prophecy of Bethlehem being the city where the Savior, the Messiah would be born, which is where Herod told the wise men he would be born, you see this in Micah 5:2

You also have a very popular verse which describes what it is that the Lord ultimately demands of us, which is found in Micah 6:8