Micah 3:1 - Meaning and Application

Princes and prophets, when they carry out their office faithfully, should be honored above other people. But when they betray their trust and act against it, they must hear about their faults like everyone else. They also need to know there is a God above them, to whom they must answer. Here the prophet speaks for God and brings them to account.

The princes must hear both their charge and their sentence. The heads of Jacob and the princes of the house of Israel are told to listen to what the prophet says to them (Micah 3:1). God’s word has rebukes even for the greatest people, and God’s servants must apply those rebukes when needed. The prophet could take comfort in this, because whatever the outcome, he had done his duty. He could say, “I said, Hear, O princes,” and know that he had not held back out of fear of people.

He tells them first what should have been true of them: “Is it not for you to know justice?” He means they should practice justice, because knowing it is useless unless they do it. It was their job to judge fairly, without partiality, and to look at the merits of each case. Or the question may mean that rulers should already know the rules of justice better than others, because they have better access to instruction and fewer excuses for ignorance. If so, their breaking of justice is even more serious, because they sin against clear knowledge.

Then he shows how badly they had broken those rules, even though they knew them. Their hearts were wrong: they hated good and loved evil. They hated good in other people, hated any influence of good on themselves, and hated doing good. They loved evil and took delight in wrongdoing. Since their hearts were set this way, their actions followed. They were cruel and harsh to those under their power, and anyone at their mercy found no mercy there.

Instead of protecting the people, they devoured them, like unfaithful shepherds who fleece the flock they should feed. In fact, they did more than take the wool, they fed on the flock itself (Ezekiel 34:2). It is right for one who tends sheep to drink milk from the flock (1 Corinthians 9:7), but that would not satisfy them. They ate the flesh of my people. It is right for them to be clothed with the wool, but even that was not enough. They stripped the skin from them (Micah 3:3).

This was done by crushing the people with heavy taxes, strict demands, fines, and punishments for made-up crimes. In this way they ruined families and estates, took life from some and livelihoods from others, and acted more like wild beasts than shepherds. They broke bones to get at the marrow and chopped the flesh up like meat for the pot. This shows both their greedy luxury and their savage cruelty. They cared nothing for those they impoverished, as long as they could grow rich themselves. Such is the evil that grows from the love of money.

They should expect God to deal with them as they had dealt with his people. The rule is fixed: those who show no mercy will be judged without mercy (Micah 3:4). They will cry to the Lord, but he will not hear them in the day of their distress, just as the poor cried to them in their prosperity and were ignored. The time will come when proud and scornful sinners call on the Lord and beg for the mercy they once despised and refused to imitate. But then it will be too late. God will hide his face from them when they most need his favor and see that they are ruined without it.

At another time they turned their back on God, and then he will turn his back on them, because of their evil deeds. People cannot expect to do evil and still prosper. Often they find, as Adoni-bezek did, that what they did to others is done to them, for God is righteous in taking vengeance. With the crooked, God shows himself crooked in return. He often gives cruel and unmerciful people into the hands of those just like them. This agrees with Proverbs 21:13, “Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry and not be heard.” But merciful people have good reason to hope they will obtain mercy.

The prophets must also hear their charge and their sentence. These were false prophets, and the princes ruled by their means. Their sin was this: they made it their business to flatter and deceive the people. They led God’s people into error, both about what they should do and about what God would do with them. It is a sad thing when the leaders of a people cause them to wander, and those who should guide them become their ruin.

They deceived them by crying, “Peace,” and telling them that all was well, when they were actually walking in sin and only one step from disaster. They cried peace, but they bit with their teeth. This may mean they were holding back words they were ready to speak, biting their lips while pretending calm. Their own hearts contradicted their message, and they were nearly ready to swallow their own words. They were not blind guides, because they could see the pit ahead, yet they still led others into it.

Their real aim was to fill their own bellies and serve themselves, like the deceivers Paul speaks of (Romans 16:18), whose god is their belly (Philippians 3:19). They cried peace to those who gave them good food and gifts. But those who did not keep feeding them, or who did not keep filling their mouths, became their enemies. To those people they did not speak peace. Instead, they threatened them with God’s judgments. Their behavior was like priests in the Roman church, in some places, who make an image smile or frown depending on what the worshiper offers.

It is rightly said that a minister must not be greedy for dishonest gain (Titus 1:3, Titus 1:7). That warning fits here, because greed had helped make these prophets false and unfaithful.

This is the sentence passed on them for this sin, in Micah 3:6-7. They are told that they will be caught up in the same troubles and misery they had promised would never come to the people. Night will come on them, a dark and cold night of disaster. The danger they hid from others will come on their own heads.

It will be darker for them than for others. The sun will go down over the prophets, and it will go down at noon. All comfort will leave them, and every hope they set on a bright future will fail. The day they expected to be full of light will turn dark.

Their trouble will not be only outside them. Their minds will be confused, and they will be driven to despair. Their thoughts will trouble them, and that alone is heavy distress. They kept others in the dark, and now God will put them in the dark.

They will also be silenced, and all their claims to be prophets will be publicly shamed. They never had any true vision. When events prove their message of peace false, it will become clear that they never had God's answer at all. Their whole claim was fake, and they were deceivers and impostors.

Once their name is ruined, their boldness will also fail. Their minds will be shaken and their ability to invent excuses or lies will vanish too. Because of this darkness, both around them and within them, they will not be able to prophesy. They will be ashamed and confused, and they will cover their lips like men who have nothing left to say for themselves.

Those who trick others are only preparing confusion for their own faces.