Micah 2:6 - Meaning and Application

Here are two sins charged against the people of Israel, and two judgments announced for them, each one fitting the sin exactly. They were persecuting God’s prophets and oppressing God’s poor. Persecuting God’s prophets, by silencing and shutting them up, is a sin that stirs God’s anger more than many others. It insults his authority over us, and it rejects the mercy he shows by sending prophets to us.

First, notice how they resisted God’s prophets. They said to those who prophesied, “Do not prophesy” (Isaiah 30:10). They said to the seers, “Do not see,” meaning, “Do not trouble us with what you have seen, and do not bring us any fearful messages.” They wanted either no prophecy at all or only pleasant prophecy. The word used for prophesying here means “dropping,” because the prophets’ words fell from heaven like dew.

Those who hate being corrected also hate being reproved, and they do all they can to silence faithful ministers. Amos was told not to prophesy (Amos 7:10). That is why persecutors try to stop their breath, since they have no other way to stop their mouths. If these servants live, they will preach and trouble those who live on the earth, as the two witnesses did (Revelation 11:10).

Some understand the words this way: “Do not prophesy. Let these others prophesy.” In other words, they did not want ministers who exposed their faults and warned them. They wanted ministers who would flatter them in their sins and promise peace. They did not mean that they wanted no ministers at all. They wanted only those who would say exactly what they wished and then leave them alone.

This is what they are charged with in Micah 2:11. When they silenced and looked down on true prophets, they encouraged false ones. They supported pretenders and gave them influence against God’s faithful messengers. If a man walks in a false spirit, pretending to have the Spirit of God when he really has a spirit of error and deception, and if he says, “I will prophesy to you about wine and strong drink,” then he is the prophet they want. He is the one who tells them they will always have plenty of pleasures, and that they need not fear the judgments of war and famine the other prophets warned about. He also tells them it is lawful to drink as much as they want and not be troubled by drunkenness.

Such a prophet is a man after their own heart. He tells them there is no sin and no danger in the wicked life they are living. He becomes their chosen prophet, not only joining their feasting and reveling, but giving their sensual life a false religious stamp through his prophecies. That hardens them in their careless and sinful way of life. It is no surprise when people who are corrupt want ministers who are just like them, because they want to believe God is like that too (Psalm 50:21).

It is a shameful thing when holy matters are used for such low purposes. Prophecy itself is then forced into the service of a wicked and profane crowd. In that way, the servant who said, “My master is delayed” ended up striking his fellow servants and eating and drinking with the drunken.

Second, the prophet reasons with them about this in Micah 2:7. “O you who are called the house of Jacob,” he says, “is it right for you to act like this? Will you silence those who prophesy and forbid them to speak in God’s name?” It is an honor and privilege to be called of the house of Jacob. “You are called a Jew” (Romans 2:17). But when people who bear that honored name turn from God, they often become the worst of men and the fiercest enemies of God’s prophets. The Jews, who were called the house of Jacob, later became some of the most violent persecutors of the first gospel preachers.

The prophet then shows them what they were doing wrong. First, they were insulting God, the God of the holy prophets. “Is the Lord’s Spirit limited?” he asks. By silencing the Lord’s prophets, they were doing all they could to silence his Spirit too. But could they really do that? Could they make the Spirit of God their prisoner and servant? Could they tell him what he must say, and forbid him to say what they did not like? Even if they silenced the prophets, could not the Spirit of the Lord reach their consciences in other ways? Could their unbelief make God’s plans fail?

Second, it was a disgrace to their claim of being Jews, the house of Jacob. They bore a noble name, but were these the deeds that matched it? Were these the works of their father Jacob? Were they following his steps? No. If they were truly his children, they would do his works. Instead, they were trying to kill and silence a man who told them the truth in God’s name. Abraham did not do this (John 8:39, John 8:40), and Jacob did not do this either.

Or the question may mean, “Are these God’s works? Are these the deeds that please him? Are these the actions of his people?” No, they know they are not, even if some are so blinded and stubborn that they kill God’s ministers and think they are serving God by doing it (John 16:2).

Third, they should think about how unreasonable and foolish this is. “Do not my words do good to those who walk uprightly?” Yes, they certainly do. This appeal goes to the experience of the upright. Ask any of them, and they will agree that the word of God does good to those who live honestly and faithfully. Why oppose what does so much good, as faithful preaching does?

In doing this, they wrong God, who owns the prophets’ words as his own, “my words,” and who uses them to do good to people (Psalm 119:68). Would they stop the great Benefactor from doing good? Would they put the light of the world under a basket? They might as well tell the sun not to shine as tell the seers not to see. They also wrong people’s souls, because they take away the benefit God meant for them through his word.

Those are enemies not only of God, but also of the world and their own country, who silence good ministers and block the means of knowledge and grace. It is surely for the public good of nations and kingdoms that religion be encouraged. God’s words do good to those who walk uprightly. Good people are marked by walking uprightly (Psalm 15:2), and their comfort is that God’s words are good and do them good. They find comfort in them. God’s words are good words to good people, and they speak comfort to them.

But those who opposed God’s word and silenced the prophets tried to defend themselves by saying God’s words were useless and unpleasant to them. They claimed his messages did them no good and never spoke anything good about them, only trouble, just as Ahab complained about Micaiah. The prophet’s answer is that this was their own fault, and they had only themselves to blame. If they were willing to use the word well, it would do them good, because if they walked uprightly and made themselves fit for comfort, God’s word would speak comfort to them. Do what is good, and you will receive praise for it.

The next threat is what God will do because of this sin. He will choose their delusions. First, they will lose the blessing of faithful ministry. Since they said, “Do not prophesy,” God will take them at their word, and no longer send prophets to them. Their sin will become their punishment. If people silence God’s ministers, it is right for God to silence them, as he did with Ezekiel, and stop sending rebukes and warnings. A doctor should not keep treating a patient who refuses to be healed, because he will not listen. Then they will not be put to shame, either. It is part of the work of magistrates and ministers to shame people when they do wrong (Judges 18:7), so that shame may keep them from repeating their folly. But when God gives people up to shameless sin, he tells his prophets, “They are joined to idols; leave them alone.”

Second, they will be given over to false ministry, which will blindly lead them. Micah 2:11 can be read as a threat: if a man walks in the spirit of falsehood, with the same lying spirit that was in Ahab’s prophets, and he strengthens people in their wicked ways, he will be the prophet for this people. In other words, God will leave them to listen to such a man. Since they want to be deceived, let them be deceived. Since they will not receive the truth in love, God will send them strong delusion so that they believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11). They will have prophets who prophesy for wine and strong drink, as some read it, men who will shape their message to please people for a bottle of wine or a jug of ale. They will comfort sinners in their sins if only those sinners feed their lusts. To have such prophets, and to be led by them, is a terrible judgment, and a sure sign that ruin is near.

The prophet then turns to another sin, oppressing God’s poor, as he had already done before (Micah 2:1-2). This is a sin doubly hateful and provoking to God. The sin is described in Micah 2:8-9. When they despised God’s prophets and resisted them, they broke out into every other kind of evil. What can restrain those who have no respect for God’s word? Those who had once risen up against the nation’s enemies to defend their country, and had shown courage in doing so, had now become enemies of the nation themselves. Instead of defending it, they destroyed it and did it more harm, as such snakes in a nation’s body usually do, than a foreign enemy could.

They preyed on men, women, and children. They attacked men who were traveling safely on the road, men far from war and going quietly about lawful business. They treated them as if they were dangerous enemies, and stripped them of everything, taking both outer and inner garments. They robbed the harmless, who were trusting and unafraid, and so easy to exploit. They also preyed on women, who should have been protected by their sex (Micah 2:9). They drove the women of my people out of their pleasant homes. They devoured widows’ houses (Matthew 23:14), and forced them out because the homes were pleasant and wanted by these oppressors. This was cruel enough, but it was worse because these were the women of God’s people, under his protection. They also preyed on children, whose age calls for tender treatment. From their children you have taken away my glory forever. The glory of Israel’s children was that they were free, but these oppressors enslaved them. The children were born in God’s house and had a right to its blessings, but they were sold to strangers and sent into idol-worshiping lands, where that glory was lost forever, or at least that was what the oppressors intended. The righteous God will surely call to account those who wrong widows and fatherless children, since they are helpless and have no one else to defend them.

The sentence against them is given in Micah 2:10. “Arise and depart,” meaning, get ready to leave the land, because you will be forced out of it, just as you forced the women and children of my people out of their homes. It is not, and will not be, your rest, just as Canaan was meant to be a place of rest for God’s people (Psalm 95:11). You will find neither peace nor lasting life in it, because your wickedness has polluted it. Sin defiles a land, and sinners cannot expect to stay settled in a land they have polluted. The land will vomit them out, just as it once vomited out the Canaanites when they polluted it with their sins (Leviticus 18:27-28). In fact, you will not only be forced out of the land, but it will destroy you with a painful destruction. You will either be driven from it, or, which comes to the same thing, ruined in it.

We may apply this to our life in this present world. The world is polluted, and there is much corruption in it because of sinful desire. So we should rise up and depart from its corruption, keep our distance from what is unclean, and keep ourselves unspotted from it. This world is not our rest. It was never meant to be our rest. It was made for our journey, not our lasting home, a place to stay for a while, not our final dwelling. Here we have no lasting city. So let us arise and depart, hold this world loosely, live above it, think about leaving it, and seek the lasting city above.