Micah - Who is Like the Lord? - Pt 3

 

Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says the LORD: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster. In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.” Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the LORD. (Micah 2:1–5 ESV).

 

The prophet now outlines a stark contrast between human plans of wickedness and God’s plans of judgment. In this passage, the prophet Micah steps away from the broad national indictment of idolatry in chapter 1 and shifts his focus toward specific systemic sins: the greed, corruption, and premeditated oppression perpetrated by wealthy landowners against the poor.

 

The writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once observed, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” A righteous society doesn’t just happen. It requires planning and effort by those in charge. Oddly enough, an unrighteous society happens the same way. The powerful fail to love their neighbors because they never intended to do so. Instead, as Micah observed, they planned their sinful actions, even while lying in their beds (v. 1).

 

In Micah’s time and place, the powerful were taking advantage of others for their own gain. Rather than protect the powerless—typically identified in the Old Testament as the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed—the powerful in Micah’s day trampled them even further underfoot. What’s worse, these wicked people didn’t simply stumble upon taking advantage of others, they stayed up late figuring out ways to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

 

Micah has strong words for these people—the Lord is “planning disaster...from which you cannot save yourselves” (v. 3), which ends with the once-powerful, once-wealthy elite being homeless. The Lord’s punishment will match the crime when He enacts justice on behalf of His people.

 

There are some things we must learn from these warnings. First, God’s fierce judgment warns us to steward well the power and wealth He has given us. Second, this part of Micah’s prophecy encourages the oppressed. Like God assured Moses long before Micah, He hears, He sees, He knows, and He remembers (cf. Exodus 2:23–25). God does not turn away from oppression in this world. His eyes are open, and one day He will make all things right. Even though it seems like the powerful have free reign over the powerless, they do not.

 

It is important to consider where we stand on these issues. Do we love our neighbors well? If we put ourselves first and worry only about our own needs, we are not following Christ’s example.