Micah Historical Background

We start the Book of Micah this morning and the historical background. And I was at first calling it an introduction. But then I saw that you, Roger, labeled it a historical background. So I kind of changed things around. Okay. And we might get into a little of the overview this morning, but maybe not. We'll see how far we get.

But this is the Book of Micah. And so we'll start With an introduction, a historical background, Micah is one of 12 minor prophets. So we'll start at the beginning, the simple stuff. And he's minor in volume only, not in content or not in information.

And what they would do is they would take these 12 little prophetical books, Micah being one of them, Jonah, Nahum, all the Amos, Joel, and they'd roll them up together. So they're all 12 rolled up together. And they called those the 12 instead of the minor prophets back then. So you'd never hear them referring to them as minor prophets. This Feinberg book that I had, Arthur Feinberg, I think his name is, said, Oh, never call it the Minor Prophets, just call it the Twelve. So, and I remembered that Vern Peterman used to tell us that Isaiah was, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel were rolled up in the scroll of Isaiah.

So they were all together as well. So that's a little historical background on that, how they worked carrying these little books around. And it provided that they wouldn't get lost, right? One of the smaller scrolls get lost because they were always rolled up together.

So Micah is from Moresheth Gath. And that's approximately 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. And we'll see that a little later on on the map where that is. So near Jerusalem in the Judaic kingdom. He is also a younger contemporary of Isaiah, who's also from the Judean.

Micah was prophesying at the same time as Hosea and Amos. But Amos and Hosea were on the northern kingdom team, whereas Isaiah and Micah were on the southern kingdom prophet team. But they were contemporaries of each other. Okay, Isaiah's prophecies begin in Isaiah 1-1, and it says that Isaiah started prophesying, received the word of the Lord during the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and those were kings of Judah. So those are the kings, historically, that we're dealing with in the Book of Micah. And then Micah starts out, the book of Micah starts out, he starts in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

And you can see that both Isaiah and Micah, they match up. So you see that Jotham, they both match up. Ahaz matches up. As far as kings go, kings that were reigning when they were doing their prophecies and Hezekiah. The only Uzziah, Micah came along after King Uzziah, but Isaiah covered him. So he started out before Micah.

And that's from Isaiah 1.1 and Micah 1.1.

So the dates that we're dealing with is in the, they call it the 8th century, mid-8th century BC. So Micah was 738 to 698, 40 years, versus Isaiah's 760, so a little in the past, to 673. And I calculated that, and that comes to 87 years. Wow. So, yeah. I don't know if that's... And these are approximate dates. You see dates that differ a little from every... Well, it depends upon who you listen to. I listen to Macaulay. He has one set of dates. I look at my Bible. It's all over the place. I don't know. But I guess the beginnings and endings are a little... a little in question or a little up to interpretation, but the bulk of it, the important midsection probably matches really well.

But Isaiah was a long prophet. Micah's mission and mission of all prophets is to communicate God's Word to Judah, and that's the southern kingdom. And he did this approximately 190 years after Solomon's two sons split the nation of Israel into two, the northern and southern kingdoms. So the two splits were Judah and Benjamin, and that's the southern kingdom, and that's the team Micah is on, versus the northern kingdom, which are the ten tribes up north. So yeah, his mission was to communicate God's Word to these erring peoples down in Judah. And he also addressed Samaria in the Northern Kingdom.

The veracity or the accurateness of Micah is established by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 26, 18 and 19. Because Jeremiah quotes Micah. So they're contemporaries, but Jeremiah quotes him and he says, Jerusalem will become rooms, Zion will be plowed as a field. And he did that, I think, after Micah had left the scene and Isaiah was, or I'm sorry, Jeremiah was, well, Jeremiah was way after Micah. So they were trying, they're going to kill Jeremiah for giving for giving a prophecy that was negative, they were going to kill him. So what he did is he quoted Micah. And he said, you know, during Micah's prophecy and reign, and he was ministering to Hezekiah, he told Hezekiah that Jerusalem will become ruins, Zion will be plowed as a field. And Hezekiah didn't kill Micah, so why are you killing me for giving you the same report? So that's the background on that quote in Jeremiah.

Also, Christ himself, and this is what really establishes Micah's veracity, he quoted Micah 7.6, which is, For sons treat fathers contemptuously, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law rises up against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the men of his own household."

And you can, can you think of what Christ, what Christ was saying there? In Christ's words, do you remember that? Yeah, it's about if you, if you, if you know the Lord and you're sharing that with them, that it's God's, I mean, that Christ's death on the cross is a divider of men. Yeah. And he says, I didn't come to make peace, but I came to stir things up. Sons will rise against fathers.

So that's in Matthew 10. I didn't put it down there, but that's how he quotes Micah there. So Micah is established by Christ. So the book of Micah is in a three-point are three sermon division. Macaulay calls it three sermons. And they begin at Micah 1, 2. The second sermon or second message begins at 3, 1. And the third message of Micah, it begins at 6, 1. And each new section begins with hear or hear ye in each division.

And so, and The structure of it is always a rebuke of sin, always comes first, and then announcement of judgment, always second. And then always a promise of future blessing. And that's how it is. It's a rebuke of sin, announcement of judgment, and promise of future blessing. And that's really the case with all the prophets, right? There's always sin to rebuke. and then always judgment coming.

So, here is... Can you see that pretty well? Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, okay. This is from... And I can use this because it's... If you look at the bottom in the right-hand corner... I recognize some names there. It says, maybe reproduced for classroom use only. Okay. As long as I don't sell it to you guys. See me after class and we'll... I'll slip you a fiber, right? Right, right. So this is from this Rose Publishing book, which is... I copied it when I did Jonah, but I didn't use it. But it comes out pretty good here.

So historically, what we're at, let's start at the top, where you see Saul, King Saul, David, And Solomon, you see those three kings at the top. And you see Samuel. And David is about 1000 BC. And then you have the kingdoms dividing up. Sorry, I have a dog in here. She's not liking this lesson or something.

So the kings of Israel are on the left side, and the kings of Judah are on the right side. And you see the two sons here. The first two sons of Solomon, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, they split the kingdom there. And so what we're dealing with is the right side, and you see down, you see Micah's ears down at Jotham.

Ahaz and Hezekiah, and you see Isaiah down at the right-hand bottom, which are the kings that are outlined in Micah 1.1. So you see that? So this whole study, we're going to need to keep the northern, southern tribes in VM. But put your pointer on Micah at the bottom. That's Micah. You have Isaiah goes longer, right? To the left. Okay, Gilquan. Yeah, and I'll continue on. It'll be clear. Isaiah starts before Micah and then Micah comes in before. Yeah, see how Isaiah comes in way before Micah? During Uzziah, right?

And that was established in Isaiah 1.1. I want to point you to the left side, to the northern kingdoms. You see Jeroboam II. Yeah. But then you see Zechariah, Shalom, and Pekiah. And you probably can't read it, but Zechariah reigned six months. Oh my goodness. Shalom reigned one month. And Pekiah reigned two years. But it's so short there because I was reading First Kings and what was going they were killing each other. They were murdering each other and then they got the throne.

Yeah. And that's why it's so short for those guys on the on the northern kingdom side. Very kind of interesting. Interesting sidebar there. Yeah. Okay, so here is, let me get to the second part of it. Oh, here it is. Here's the continuation. So this is the next page.

You see Micah up at the top, Isaiah. And then you see the three kings that were dealing with Micah, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and you have to go back up for the other guy, which was Jotham, right? So you can see that Micah was a contemporary of Hosea, and then you see down on this on the Judah side, the right side, when they go into captivity, right? During Yehoshin. Why don't you use your pointer when you're talking? I can't tell what you're saying. Does my pointer work? Yeah, we see your pointer.

Okay, thank you. Oh yeah, right there. Okay. It's right here, the temple is destroyed. So this is in the time of Daniel here. Okay. So that's, it's just a good visual of all the prophets. And there's Jeremiah down below Micah. And he quote, as we discussed, he quoted Micah to save his own life, right? Right.

So, and then what I have here is the same chart. This is the chart that I produced for the Jonah study. And it might be a little clear. I don't know. I just included it. Okay. That it's clear. There's the two kingdoms, left and right. This one I don't, I didn't really deal with the southern kingdoms. I didn't put the kings in there because we are dealing with Jonah and you see Jonah here. Right.

Those are Jonah's dates. So, and you see Micah here. So, It's just a little more clear. And here you see in the Northern Kingdom, you see where it ended. Right here, right? Right. And that was the end of the Northern Kingdom when they went into captivity in Syria in 722 BC. And hold on, let me take a one minute 15-second break here, too.

We want to see the dog. We want to meet the dog. Okay, I want to meet the dog. You want to meet the dog? Maybe if you guys are good at the end. So, yeah, I don't know what her... She's usually quiet. So let's see. You can see that Micah is a contemporary of Hosea and Amos, right? And here's Micah's years. Another set, these are a little different. So they're always going to be a little different.

And then you can see that Micah This is very important, the fall of Lakish, you see here, in 701 BC. That's going to be very important for this study of Micah. And then down here you have the Babylonian captivity and the prophets that dealt with that, you know, down here, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. So that I don't know which This might be a clear chart for you or the other one, but it's it's good to see it twice Just so we I find it really Good to get the visual down right right of the years Yeah, and this 701 BC the fall of Lakish and Judah's fall to Sennacherib, that's very important.

And I have a little message about that coming up here. This map is helpful because it shows exactly where the northern kingdom is, or the kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah. So you see that Jerusalem is here, in the Southern Kingdom. And we're dealing with this area here. There's the Dead Sea. So Northern and Southern Kingdom. It's just good to see that, to get that into our minds. Same map, but this is a modern map of Israel.

And this is Moresheth Gath. The hometown of Micah is about right here. I placed this as best I could, but that's about where it is. Southwest of Jerusalem, about 25 miles. And here's Gaza. And we're dealing with this area here because Bob Wolford, you saw this that he sent out. So this area, and these are all the towns in the Southern Kingdom that Micah mentions. And it's this area right here.

Okay. And he highlighted them. I think he did this work, it's pretty cool, and he underlined them. And I compared them, and in Micah, all these towns, Gath, Mersheth Gath, Abdullam, Marishah, Danon, Lakish, Saphir, those are all mentioned by Micah in the book of Micah. So this is really helpful.

Jerusalem, of course, and there's our scale, there's 25 miles. There's Morshath Gath, the hometown of Micah. And there's Lakish, the first town to introduce Judea to idolatry, actually. And that fell, that city fell, way before, you know, the whole southern kingdom was carried off into Babylonian captivity. Interesting that Maroth means bitter town. That's what it translates as. And then the Akzib, you see that down here, it translates out to lie.

Isn't that interesting? Well, I just happened to listen to J. Verne McGee on this and I think he calls Weeptown Because they were weeping. I guess we're going to see that down the road. Oh yeah, yeah. Gath means some, yeah, some sort of weeping. Weeping or moaning or whatever it is. Yeah, and Bob Wolfert didn't have Bethlehem highlighted. Okay. Highlighted in blue here. Okay. Obviously, we know that Bethlehem is mentioned in Micah, right? Yeah, we do.

Micah 5.2. He didn't highlight that. Because there wasn't any woes to Bethlehem, right? It was in the positive column, not the negative column as these other towns. So there's all the towns we're dealing with.

And here's a chart, this is kind of an interesting chart of all the prophets and major prophets in the Bible. So you have the major prophets up top, Elijah, Elisha, or Elijah again, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Then the minor prophets, we're not supposed to call the minors, but there they are at the bottom. And there's 12 of them. And it gives them their approximate dates of when they prophesied, their hometown, and where they, their audience, so who they prophesied to. So you see some to Israel, and then you see some prophets prophesying to Judah. Ezekiel prophesied to the exiles, the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

And we know that, where is Jonah? Here's Jonah. Of course, he prophesied to Nineveh, right? And we learned in the book of Jonah that he was a little upset about that, wasn't he? That he had to prophesy to Nineveh. And, you know, we'll see why in the study that he didn't get to write a nice book of poetry like...

Like Micah did right now. Right. He just gave us life's story and all the bad things that happened to him. And he was upset that he didn't get to write an opus, right, like the other guys. But his prophecy is nonetheless very important. So here's the homework for next week.

Okay. Oh, yeah. This guy is good. Yeah. And I think you saw this, Roger, when we're doing the Jonah study. Yeah, I came across this guy. He's pretty good. But I want everyone to read it or watch it again for next week. Okay. Because it's really... I did it for... I watched it because I just wanted to learn about Nineveh, right, for the Jonah study. But then it goes on and on into other kings, and I was like, oh, this doesn't deal with Jonah so much.

But this video, it's about maybe 15 minutes long, maybe 20 minutes long. What it does is it's exactly our time in the Book of Micah. And specifically, it's the fall of Lakish. Yeah, he does a great job on that. I remember that. Yeah, and it's really amazing.

So it's called, there it is, there's the, if you can cut and paste that, that address, but on YouTube, for the benefit of people who are listening and don't have access to the the website address that I give here. His website is... At the top, Bible Evidence. Yeah, Bible Evidence. Yeah, I think you should type that in. Google that and you'll find him. Yeah, and his ministry, though, is called additions, or I think it's expeditions. Expeditions. Yeah. Yeah, Bob here.

Why don't you send this out with your handout? We can copy it then and paste it. Oh, yeah. Yes, it'll be in the it'll be in the handout in the PDF. And so it'll be Oh, well, if you PDF, if you convert it to PDF, it'll be a lot smaller, too. Yeah. But what I'll do is I'll have the address in the body of the email.

So it's OK. That's right. It's really cool. So, you know, in this class, we don't get any homework like the other class. But once a video, too much to ask for. So that's why we're in this class. Right. We just we just come in. The whole grade is showing up, you're right. Yes. Is this the guy that did the proof of when the exodus happened? No, that's a different guy. Actually, what's her name? I'm sorry, who's online here now. Marla. Marla actually got us onto that. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Another whole set of series on the timeline and how the archaeologists, they fudge and they will not accept the biblical timeline. They won't accept the Bible period. That's true. They make their own timeline. They make their own timeline. Yeah, they won't change it. As always, Egypt rules. Whatever Egypt is, it's got to follow that timeline. They don't care about what the Bible says.

But if you realign it, it's just amazing. That guy is great. Verne gave us the link to that. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, this guy does a lot of interesting stuff. He goes a lot of he does a lot of theology and it's all interesting on his end. His name is Lakish, as I pronounce it, is really good. Yeah, right. So a little more, let's, oh, let's just touch on the structure and get into the structure of Micah. This, you know, the three-division structure.

So the first division, of course, begins with, hear all, O peoples, all of you, listen, O earth and all it contains. That's in verse one, verse two of chapter one. So that's the first section. So He's addressing all people, the Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom, the cities of Jerusalem and Samaria. And Bob Wolford sent out a Sheet on from John Martin a summer sheet from John a Martin and he says the theme of the Section one is judgment will come which makes sense. It's all about judgment the second division or the second sermon is as Chester Macaulay would call it begins at chapter 3 verse 1 and it's here now heads of Jacob and rulers of of the House of Israel. Here he's, in the second section, he's addressing the heads and the rulers. So the political top. And he's going to dress those guys down. And that's the audience that he gives.

Both on the Jacob side, the Israel side, and and the southern kingdom side. And you can see I say 10 tribes to the north. That's actually Israel, and that's the heads of Jacob. So he's actually scratched what I said before. It's all addressed to the north there.

So Martin gives the theme as blessing will follow judgment. And that lasts from chapters three through five. And part of Micah, of course, too, is descriptions about the future millennial kingdom. So section three, hear now what the Lord is saying, arise and plead your case before the mountains and let the hills hear your voice. That occurs in chapter six of verse one. That's the third sermon or the third section. And that's a little harder to get a theme on. He's addressing my people in general, so all of Israel, north, south. And you see that in chapter 6, verses 2 and 3.

It's all people, or my people. And then the theme, according to Feinberg, is the controversy. So God's outlaying the controversy between him and his erring people. And he contrasts the fitness and justice of God's requirements versus the ingratitude and the superstition of the nation of Israel and how they, you know, their superstitions, how they're following, they're going after foreign gods and things like that. And this is a courtroom scene is basically what this is in the third section. So John A. Martin says that the theme is an indictment of sin and a promise of future blessing, chapters six and seven. I'll save that for next week, that second thematic session, I'll just save that. Okay. And just end it there because that's a good place to end it with just the division of the three sections of MICA. Great.

Andrew, you know, in my, I listened to McCauley, I listened to J. Ron McGee, and I got the impression that MICA So Micah is speaking to Judah, the Southern Kingdom, is that right? Yeah, Southern Kingdom, Judah. Yeah, okay. And so was Isaiah, right? Both Isaiah and Micah spoke to the Southern Kingdom. Yeah, Southern Kingdom.

Think of that, it's not that they, because he also... Doesn't he address the Northern Kingdom too? Yeah, he does. He does both, okay. It's kind of helpful to think of him being on a team, a white team versus a blue team. So he's on the white team or the Southern Kingdom team. But he doesn't limit his address to just the Southern Kingdom. That's his focus. And that's his mission.

However, he also addresses he because he has to prophesy about what's happening in the north. Okay. And the interesting thing about it is he's Oh, because he, he, he prophesies about the fall of the Northern Kingdom, and it's addressed to them. And so he, he prophesies about that. for the benefit of the Southern Kingdom. So as a warning to the Southern Kingdom.

Okay, I understand. You could say that he's prophesying to the Northern Kingdom, the ten tribes, but he allows the Southern Kingdom to read their mail, right? Okay, that's good. Yeah. I heard somebody in my, you know, I got the impression initially that he was just doing the Northern Kingdom and I got kind of confused. He was from there. Right. If I could say something. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Thanks, Roy.

This is the message of God to us. And it encompassed not just his time, the speaker, because he was, you know, moved by the Holy Spirit to speak these words. and how they would be used in the future become significant at the birth of Christ. Yeah. At the time of his birth, the message of Micah that the Holy Spirit gave informed them where he would be born.

And I look at that and I say, man, what a confirmation of the author behind the author. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. And yeah, that's a good point, Roy, because, you know, we're talking about the Northern and Southern Kingdom, but then he also talks about the Millennial Kingdom. And that is future for us. So that is beneficial for, you know, all of his creation. Amen. Great. We get a great benefit from that, don't we? And it's just really cool.

And I don't know, Roger, I tried to get you to schedule Micah 5-2 on December 22nd. Yeah, I know. I couldn't arrange that. We could move that. Oh, we could actually do that. I mean, if you wanted to, I could. That's kind of cool that we're going to come up against that here at Christmas. It'll be a late Christmas present. How about that?

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a wonderful passage there. And to Roy's point, it gives us information about the eternality of Christ, right? That's just wonderful stuff. Go ahead. Yeah, it's Bob. Have you had a chance to listen to the entire book by McGee?

I'm into chapter, we're into chapter 2 right now. I haven't got much further than chapter 2. I have all these, you know, I purchased a thumb drive with everything he broadcasts, so I can listen to whatever I want. So, we're into chapter 2 right now. Is there something I should listen to? Well, I was just going to say, you know, having listened to this fairly recently, I thought that's maybe why this might be a good choice.

I mean, he repeatedly kind of reflects how the principles of God as outlined for Judah and actually the whole nation of Israel really are being manifested today. I mean, right. And I think that, again, we can't apply it directly, but we certainly can learn from it in terms of how sin will be judged, and a promise is a good one, and that's entirely because of the cross. So, I mean, I think that that theme should be something we think about and maintain as we teach this.

Amen. Yeah, no, I agree. And it's also I don't know if you plan this Roger or but we we just somehow landed on Jonah, like last year. It's a short one doable and very familiar with everyone, right from childhood. So we but this isn't We got a theme going out of these minor prophets now.

Very important section of scripture. Well, I think it's very appropriate. If you look at the nation of Israel right now, they're fighting for their lives, so to speak, to Egypt almost. And with the crazy world politics, you know, but we know they're, you know, they will survive eventually, whether this is this particular group of folks. I don't know. It's interesting, interesting times. Yeah, it is, so it fits right in there, so great. Andrew? Yeah? It's not the minor part, it's the Gang of Twelve. The Gang of Twelve. I think they call it the Book of Twelve. The Book of Twelve, yeah, you said the Book of Twelve. Jews call it that. I think it's the Book of Twelve, I'm not sure.

They're all in the same scroll, I think. Well, I think they were separate scrolls, but they had to, you know, like maps, you have to roll them up together, so keep them all together. And I think there was a, interesting, because I think there was, that caused a lot of brouhaha by biblical scholars, because Christ said, well, in the book of Isaiah, it says this. But they said, no, that's from Ezekiel, so Christ is wrong. But what he was talking about is, The main scroll, it was called Isaiah, I guess.

So that's interesting how these scrolls were kept together. Great. Well, here, I'll close this out and we'll continue this next week. Great. Our Father, we thank you for the start of this book and we thank you for All that you give us in scripture and all the blessed things that are in store for us. And we learn these things and we learn from your nation of Israel. And we just thank you for your sovereignty and all this.