(c) 6'-78, which consist of three short addresses (61-8 6°28 71-6), whose original context, however, is doubtful, might, so far as their contents are con- cerned, proceed from Micah. They present J”’s controversy with His ungrateful people, the pro- phet’s denunciation of the people for the unright- eousness which marked their whole manner of life, and finally Zion’s lament over the decay of her children. This lament is intelligible in the time of Manasseh, when the sacrifice of children (Mic 6’) was a flourishing custom ; but not only the tender- ness of feeling exhibited in 6', but also the dramatic and exceedingly animated descriptions, make the composition τὰ this section by Micah very improbable.
(d) 7 cannot possibly be attributed to Micah, for what in 6-75 is yet in prospect is in 77" actually come to pass—Zion suffers for her sins, and the prophet looks to a better time, when J’ will again interest Himself on behalf of His people, and build the walls of Jerusalem.
ii. The Activity of the Prophet.—It follows from the above investigation, that if we are to form an idea of the characteristics of Micah and the method of his activity, we must base our conclusions only upon 17-2" 3 (4% 14 5°15), Tt results from these data that the title in 1' rightly represents the pro- phetic activity of Micah as having begun as early as the reign of Ahaz, for according to 1°" he pre- dicted the fall of Samaria. Since of the two con- tradictory dates given in 2 K 181 (cf. 178) and in 18 the latter is clearly the better entitled to credit—i.e, Hezekiah probably ascended the throne B.C. 715—it follows that at the time of the destrue- tion of Samaria the occupant of the throne of the Southern kingdom was not Hezekiah (as in 2 K 18), cf. 17°) but Ahaz, who would have begun to
* Of. Driver (LOT® 327f.), who, though he questions the necessity of attributing the verses to an exilic (Stade, Kuen.) or nost-exilic (WWellh.) hand, agrees that they do not now stand in their proper context.
+ So Wellhausen, Stade, Kuenen, Cornill, Giesebrecht. For the reasons on the other side, we may refer to the discussion in Driver, LOT, 33 f.
300 MICAH
MICAIAH
reign ec. 7384. Whether Micah had entered upon his prophetic activity before 734, i.e. in the time of Jotham, as the title asserts, we have no certain data to enable us to decide, for the threatening of 3" was, according to the express testimony of Jer 26", uttered under Hezekiah, and probably after the accession of Sennacherib in 705—an event which appears to have determined Hezekiah to a change of policy towards the Assyrians. Since ch. 3 stands in close connexion with ch. 2, and the latter as the foundation for the threatenings of 155. is not to be separated from ch. 1, we can only assume that the threatenings once uttered and meanwhile realized against Samaria were taken by Micah into a written discourse against the Southern kingdom (cf, Is 28 ff.)—a happy thought whereby this denunciation, ΑΕ προς to strike terror into all, acquired special weight against Jerusalem.
iii. Style and Message of Micah.—It has rightly been remarked that in his rhetoric Micah is sharply distinguished from the simplicity of Amos and the originality of Hosea. Behe with the violent hiatus of 1* and the imposing description of Jahweh’s descent in storm from heaven to earth (v.%+), to which the denunciation of judgment upon Samaria attaches itself, in order final!y to introduce the burden of his discourse—the judg- ment upon Judah,—a discourse, however, which runs off into mere puns attached to local and _per- sonal names. It is possible that this, as Well- hausen suggests, was the ancient scholastic model of prophetic style, which elsewhere has maintained itself especially in prophecies regarding foreign nations. Apart from this peculiarity, Micah has close points of contact with Amos. Like the latter, he displays a deep moral earnestness which does not shrink from drawing the last conclusions, and which, in opposition to his great contemporary Isaiah, who looked with confidence to J” the holy God to preserve Jerusalem, leads him to predict the destruction of the city as a punishment for the treading under foot of righteousness. Whether we are justified in concluding from 3” that Micah anticipated the destruction of the whole kingdom, has been rightly called in question and denied by W. R. Smith (Prophets of Israel, 287 ff.), for Micah in assigning the ground for judgment— and in this likewise he agrees with Amos—has specially to do with the aristocracy of Jerusalem, against whom his whole anger is turned on account of the injustice perpetrated by them (‘Jerusalem is Judah’s sin,’ οἵ. 15 LXX). What a powerful impression this message of judgment produced upon Micah’s contemporaries we may infer from Jer 26°", where we find that 100 years after its utterance this denunciation of judgment, which stood in such glaring contradiction to the preach- ing of Isaiah, is not yet forgotten.
Whether Micah had a glimpse of better days and committed his anticipations to writing, must, in view of what has been said above, remain un- certain; the verses which alone could come into consideration as from his pen, contain scarcely anything more than a reference to a future de- liverance and a removal by J” of things displeasing (ef. 4% 5°18), In any case, our prophet, even if he never gave expression to such hopes, would in this respect also have a predecessor in Amos, for the Messianic hopes expressed in Am 955: are a later addition to that book.