Micah 7:14 - Meaning and Application

The prophet first prays that God would care for his own people and defend their cause in (Micah 7:14). When God is about to save his people, he stirs up their friends to pray for them and pours out a spirit of grace and prayer (Zechariah 12:10). And when we see God moving toward us in mercy, we should meet him with prayer.

This is a prayer that also works like a promise. What God led his prophet to ask, he surely meant to give. Israel is called the flock of his heritage, because they are the sheep under his care, his small flock in the world, and also his special possession. Jacob is the portion of his inheritance.

This flock lives alone in the woods, or in a forest, in the middle of Carmel, which was a high mountain. Israel was a people set apart, living apart from the nations, like sheep in a wooded place. They were now a ruined people (Micah 7:13), in captivity like sheep in a forest, in danger of being lost or attacked by wild animals. They were scattered on the mountains like sheep without a shepherd.

The prayer is that God would feed them there with his rod. That means he would care for them in captivity, protect them, and provide for them, acting as a good shepherd. Let your rod and staff comfort them even in that dark valley, and let them lack nothing good. Let them be ruled by your rod, not by the rod of their enemies, because they are your people.

He also prays that God would bring them back in time to feed in the plains of Bashan and Gilead, no longer in forests and on mountains. Let them graze again in their own land, as in the old days. Some take this in a spiritual way, as either the prophet's prayer to Christ, or the Father's charge to Christ, to care for his church as the great Shepherd of the sheep. In this world, the church is like sheep in a wood, and Christ leads them so they may find pasture like Bashan and Gilead.

God answers this prayer with a promise, and we should treat God's promises as true answers to faith-filled prayer. With him, saying and doing are not two separate things. The prophet asked that God would feed them and do kind things for them, but God says he will show them marvelous things (Micah 7:15). He will do more than they can ask or imagine, beyond their hopes and expectations, and show them his marvelous lovingkindness (Psalm 17:7).

He will do for them a work like the wonders of old, according to the days when they came out of Egypt. Their rescue from Babylon would be a work of wonder and grace, not less than their rescue from Egypt, and in some ways it would even surpass it (Jeremiah 16:14-15). Even more, this points ahead to the work of redemption by Christ. God’s former kindnesses to his church are patterns for future kindnesses, copied again when the need arises.

He will also do something that will amaze the people of that time, in (Micah 7:16-17). The nations around them will notice it, and people will say among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them” (Psalm 126:2). The Jews’ deliverance from Babylon would make a strong impression on the surrounding nations, and that would bring honor both to God and to his church.

Those who had mocked God’s people in their trouble, and boasted that they would keep them down once they had them down, will be ashamed when they see them rise so unexpectedly. They will be confounded by the strength the captives show, which they had thought was gone forever. They will put their hands over their mouths, too ashamed to keep speaking triumphantly against Israel. Their ears will be deaf too, so ashamed will they be at the great deliverance that they will not want to hear any more about the wonders God has done for that people they despised.

Those who had boldly opposed God himself will be struck with fear of him and, at least outwardly, be brought to submit to him. They will lick the dust like a serpent, so humbled that they seem to bear the same curse laid on the serpent, “You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust” (Genesis 3:14). They will be brought to the lowest point, and so crushed that they will submit without resistance. His enemies shall lick the dust (Psalm 72:9), even the dust of the church’s feet (Isaiah 49:23).

Proud oppressors will then see how small they really are before the great God. With trembling and deep submission, they will creep out of their hiding places (Isaiah 2:21), like the weak creatures they are, ashamed and afraid to show themselves. So low will they be brought, and such helpless people they will become, when God humbles them. When God did wonders for his church, many in the land became Jews because fear of the Jews, and of their God, fell on them (Esther 8:17). That is what is promised here: they will fear the Lord our God and be afraid because of you, O Israel.

Forced submission is often only pretend submission, yet even that can still bring glory to God and to his church, though it brings no true benefit to the pretenders themselves. The prophet then gives thanks for God’s mercy in the name of the church and leans on his promise, in (Micah 7:18-20). We are taught here to give God the honor for his pardoning mercy. God had promised to bring back his people from captivity, and the prophet sees that this rested on pardon. Their sin brought them into bondage, and God’s forgiving that sin brought them out of it (Psalm 85:1-2; Isaiah 33:24; Isaiah 38:17; Isaiah 60:1-2). Forgiveness of sin is the base of every other promise in the covenant (Hebrews 8:12). The prophet marvels at this, while the nations around him marvel only at the outward rescues that came from it.

God’s people, the remnant of his heritage, are still guilty of many sins. Even though they are only a remnant, a very small number, they are not therefore all good. God’s children have their faults, and they often offend their Father. Yet the gracious God is ready to pass over and forgive the sin and guilt of his people when they repent and turn back to him. God’s people are a pardoned people, and to that they owe everything. When God forgives sin, he passes it by, does not punish it as justice could require, and does not deal with the sinner according to what the sin deserves.

Even if God, for a time, shows signs of displeasure toward his own people, he will not keep his anger forever. Though he may bring grief, he will also show compassion. He is not unforgiving. But toward those who are outside the remnant of his heritage, those who remain unpardoned, he will keep his anger forever.

The reasons God pardons sin and does not keep anger forever come from within himself. It is because he delights in mercy, and he takes pleasure in saving sinners, not in their death and ruin. The glory of God in forgiving sin is unmatched, as it is in all his works. No God is like him in this. No ruler, and no ordinary person, forgives the way God does. In this matter, his thoughts and ways are far above ours. In this, he shows that he is God and not man.

All who have experienced forgiving mercy cannot help but admire it. If we truly know what it means, it is something that should leave us amazed. Has God forgiven our sins? Then we can rightly ask, Who is a God like you? Our holy wonder at pardoning mercy is a good sign that we belong to it.

We should also take comfort in that mercy, along with all the grace and truth that come with it. God’s people look back with thankfulness at the forgiveness of their sins, and they also look ahead with confidence to what he will yet do for them. His mercy lasts forever, so as he has shown mercy, he will continue to do so (Micah 7:19, Micah 7:20).

He will renew his kindness to us. He will turn again and have compassion. That means he will once more show pity to us, as he did before. His compassions are new every morning. He may seem to be turning away from us in anger, but he will return and pity us. He will turn us back to himself, and then he will turn toward us and show mercy.

He will also renew us, so that we are ready for his favor. He will subdue our sins. When he removes the guilt of sin so it cannot destroy us, he will also break sin’s power so it cannot rule over us. Then we will not live in fear of sin, and we will not be dragged around as its captives. Sin is an enemy that fights against us, a tyrant that crushes us. Nothing less than almighty grace can conquer it, since it has such power in fallen human nature and has held its place so long.

If God forgives the sin we have committed, he will also subdue the sin that still lives in us. In that, there is no one like him. All whose sins are pardoned earnestly desire and hope for their corrupt habits to be weakened and their sins brought under control. They take comfort in that hope. If we are left to ourselves, our sins will be too strong for us. But we trust that God’s grace will be enough to subdue them, so that they will not rule us, and then they will not ruin us.

He will also make sure this good work stands firm, so that his gracious act will never be undone. He will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea, just as he once brought Israel out of Egypt and overthrew Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the sea, which he seems to have in mind here (Micah 7:15). This shows that when God forgives sin, he remembers it no more, and he makes sure it will never again be held against the sinner. Their transgressions will not be mentioned to them (Ezekiel 18:22). They are erased like a cloud that vanishes and never appears again. He casts them into the sea, not near the shore where they might show up again at low tide, but into the depths, where they will never rise again. All their sins are cast there, without exception, because when God forgives, he forgives all.

He will also complete what concerns us, and with this good work he will do everything our situation calls for and everything he has promised (Micah 7:20). Then you will fulfill your truth to Jacob and your mercy to Abraham. Our sins are forgiven and our sinful desires are weakened because of the covenant. All these blessings flow from that source, and through it he will freely give us all things. The promise is called mercy to Abraham because, when it was first made to him, it was pure mercy, mercy that went before, considering the condition in which it found him. But it is called truth to Jacob because God’s faithfulness was pledged to keep his promise to Jacob and his descendants, as heirs of Abraham, in everything he had graciously promised to Abraham.

Notice, first, how solemnly the covenant of grace was confirmed to us. It was not only spoken, written, and sealed, but, which is the strongest confirmation, it was sworn to our fathers. It is not a new idea, but one confirmed by age as well. It was sworn from long ago. It is an ancient charter.

Notice, second, how confidently we may apply it to ourselves and rely on it. We may say with full assurance, You will fulfill the truth and mercy. Not one small part of it will fail. He who promised is faithful, and he will do it.