Isaiah and Micah agree absolutely in their essential teaching, but each contemplates the present and the future from his own standpoint. Micah, a humble-minded countryman, realized the special wickedness of the two great Hebrew capitals, Jerusalem and Samaria. He drew a graphic picture of the social vices of the time. The judges were venal, the princes corrupt, the prophets mercenary ; mammonism and luxury were rampant ; the rich coveted fields and houses, and were ever extending their estates, crushing the poor, and divorcing the people from the soil. Those in authority remorselessly fleeced and flayed the hapless people. On the other hand, there was a most extravagant ex- penditure. The Temple and the city were made magnificent. But Micah, instead of being carried away by this architectural splendour, saw in the sanctuary and in the palaces of the privileged the blood of the disinherited, the exploited, the down-trodden poor. " They build up Zion," he cries out, " with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity."
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2. Now God, the King and Judge of His people, comes down from His lofty throne, His awful seat of judgment, to speak to rebellious Israel in another tone and under another character. He has rebuked in vain, He has punished in vain. His people go on sinning and heed none of His judgments. He feels that no small part of their sin is but senseless folly and perverseness. So He comes down not to command but to argue. " Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord " ; and this is the meaning of Micah as well as of Isaiah. God is resolved to plead His own cause against Israel as though He were an equal ; and He invites them to meet Him in the presence of the everlasting hills. For many an age those hills have looked down in silent, unchanging majesty on all the doings and all the sufferings of the people. Through summer and winter, day and night, sunshine and storm, they have remained the same, while one generation after another has been born and has grown up and has died out. In their solemn, stately presence God desires to have the matter argued out as between Him and His people. " Hear ye now what the Lord saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, 0 mountains, the Lord's con- troversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth : for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel."
3. There is no attempt of the people to do what they had been invited to do. They will not stand out openly beside the Lord and state their complaints against Him. They neither deny what He has done for them nor yet confess it. They have nothing to plead against Him, yet they will not say so. But they take for granted that He is a hard, grasping, exacting master. They think this argument of His with them is only meant to wring something out of them. So they demand to know how much He will take to let them off. Instead of honestly pleading their cause, they blindly inquire how they may satisfy the demands of the Lord. " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? "
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4. The text is the answer given to these wild and desperate questions, not directly by the Lord Himself, but by His holy prophet. The prophet has to speak for God to the people ; but he is also himself one of the people, and so his message is that of a man who has gone through the same discipline as themselves. But the difference in his heart from their hearts has made all the course of life have a different look to him from what it has to them ; and he speaks out of that which he knows, because he has felt it in himself. Not in language of rebuke or threatening, but in simple appeal to what they too might have known if they would, does he fulfil his office as God's spokesman among men.
" He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" Not the gifts which wealth can buy, not the sacrifices of selfish fear, not these shall bring you near to Him. You have nought to give but what He first bestowed on you, and with a breath could take away again. It is character that He wants, not presents — moral and spiritual character, integrity of soul, truth in the inward parts, and the pure heart which alone can see God. Not what you bring with you, but what you yourself are, can alone be your passport into His presence. Not your many prayers, not your bended knees, not your psalm singing, not your sound opinions, not your pious customs, your Sabbaths and fasts and many other observances, not these, but your just conduct, your merciful spirit, and your lowly heart, shall open to you the strait gate that leadeth unto life eternal.