Micah 6:1-8
It is a strange turn, God setting the mountains and the hills in judgement against his people. And what is the case against them? Moses. Oh, and Aaron and Miriam, and Balaam. What is the defense of the people? Sacrifices?
I'll be honest, if I'm listening to Micah, I am not immediately going, 'oh, okay, yes I am all down with this.' I can imagine a few schools of thought (and to be clear I am just using my extrabiblical imagination here, in ways that I would be pretty likely to respond):
- Look, everyone around here knows God brought us out of Egypt. But so much since then has been awful! The Assyrians are literally tearing through the countryside now. I mean, I get that Egypt was bad, but that was 500 years ago. I don't know those people, I don't know anyone who ever knew those people, and it's my heritage but it really just feels like an unimaginably long time ago. As an American am I grateful for the founding of Roanoke in the 1500s - I suppose so? But half a millennium seems so very far removed from my reality, and if some King of Britain stopped by and asked me about it I am not exactly likely to kowtow.
- You're going to knock the sacrifices now? Right, beautiful sentiment, act justly and love mercy, that and a couple bucks will get you a cup of coffee. Look, it's a messed-up world, and God set up the system of sacrifices because God is smart and knows that humans aren't perfect. That thing goes back to Abraham, even Cain and Abel - maybe before Abel! You're telling me that God was pleased with Abel's sacrifices, but now he's upset about ours? We are following the law, the law that was handed down to your pal Moses for whom you are so grateful by the way, and we are doing a really good job of it. We have this whole thing down to a science. Anyway look - those evil people around us? Those Assyrians carrying us off? They don't even try, they're just going around killing and stealing and whatnot, and you are harassing us about - what - weights and measures? Interest-bearing loans? Look, we're pretty much all right, and when we aren't we do what we're supposed to do to get forgiveness. So what is your problem?
- God, need I remind you, is the majestic ruler, the one true God who is over all. Just judge, powerful ally, God of David and Solomon, literal wisdom. What do these mountains have to do with anything? The temple is the footstool of God, these mountains are just little pebbles. God, the real God, could judge us directly - why should we bother pleading our case to some nonsensical third party Earth god? Isn't God always casting down the high places? Set the mountains in judgement of us, God's own people, indeed.
Okay so that's not me walking humbly, but I can definitely imagine the indignation when I read this passage not quite 3 millennia on. Is it any wonder that Jerusalem stoned the prophets? I take it on faith that Micah was, in fact, a prophet - as do actual Hebrew and Christian scholars, to be clear - so I'm just going to gloss over my own weakness in discernment and play with these thoughts for a while.
What is special about Moses? Well, everything; nothing. Moses started out as a nobody, destined for nothing until he was saved by the God-fearing work of several women. In the end, Moses was a man God used to free Israel from its captivity, both in Egypt and in its service to other gods. But in the middle he was scared, tired, petulant, overworked, underappreciated. His brother and sister helped him, guarded him, but ultimately Moses was the one who met God on the mountain. Moses brought down the law. Moses brought the new order, the communication of the one true God to the chosen people. Moses opened up the promised land. Moses, Moses.
But Micah doesn't just call out Moses. Aaron and Miriam! Look, I could see Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob and Rachel. Or, let's go modern - how about Joshua? Rahab? David? Solomon? Samson? Elijah and Elisha were almost modern, at this point. But no, Micah sticks with the exodus - Moses, Aaron, Miriam. Balak bribing Balaam, that true but faithless prophet. It's a hall of heroes a mile wide and Micah's grabbing onto a tiny sliver. Why?
Well, let me speculate for a minute. The thing that was special about Israel and Judah was that they were brought out of Egypt - together. They were chosen by God - together. They came through the desert - together. The miracle of togetherness, of the entire nation being saved all at once, in a power that we still discuss today, that was the miracle that Micah uses to remind the people that God is for them all. Many families were scattered, many were disheartened, many had lost parents and children and homes and land - but the God who was able to redeem them from Egypt as one, giant, disorganized body could surely reunite them even in the midst of their current desperation. So yes - obviously God was working for the intervening few centuries, and of course there are plenty of stories to tell from that time, but Egypt was the time the whole nation was united to one purpose, and rescued most completely.
As a Christian it would be really easy for me to take this as a Christ prophecy, and that indeed Christ came to be the complete rescuer of the Hebrew people just as God used Moses to rescue them before, and leave it at that. But I don't think Micah intended it to be just that, and I am sure his scared and frustrated were not thinking that far into the future - at least, I am not so holy that I can ignore my own circumstances and think about what might happen in a few centuries.
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