The Pulpit Commentary — Micah — Section 49

Where have we men now to" declare unto Jacob hie transgression, and unto Israel his sin"? 1. This ta a painful tDOrk. It will incur the disfavour of some, and rouse the antagonism of the delinquents. Still, it must be done-done as John the Baptist did it, who denounced his countrymen as a" generation of vipers;" done as Christ did it, who levelled his terrible "woes.., at the heads of the great criminals of his age. 2. Thi.sis an urgent work. No work is more needed in England to-day. To expose wrong goes a great way towards its extinction. Honeyed words in the pulpit we have enough, tawdry disquisitions, and sensational inanities. God multiply men of the stamp of John the Baptist and of the Apostle Peter, who on the Doy of Pentecost charged home the terrible crime of the crucifixion to the men he addressed! II. THE POWEB OF A TRUE PROPHET. "Truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might." There is no egotism in this. A powerful man knows bis power, and will ascribe it to the right Source-the "Spirit of the Lord." Micah's power was moral; it was the might of conscience, moral conviction, of invincible sympathy with eternal right and truth. This is a very different power to that of mere intellect, imagination, or what is called genius. It is higher, more creditable, more influential, more God-like. What does the man who has it care for the smiles or frowns of his audiences? He sets his face like a flint. The praises of his fellow-men affect him no more than the twitterings of a sparrow would an eagle; their frowns, no more than tbe yelpings of a cur affect the monarch of the forest. III. THE FIDELITY OF A TBUE PROPHET. This is seen here in three things. 1. In the class he denO'Unces. "Hear this, I pray you, ye_heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel." He struck at the higher classes of life. "Heads of the house of ,Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel." .Ah me! how little we pulpiteering cowards here in England address ourselves to the crimes of the upper classes I The low, the helpless, the destitute, we are always lecturing. Do your ecclesiastical lords lecture royalty, think you? I read their fulsome flatteries often, but their denunciations never. The prophet's fidelity is seen: 2. In the chargf!8 he makes. "They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity." (1) He charges them with extortionate cruelty. "The civic rulers only are addressed in ver. 9, viz. those who were charged with the administration of justice and of the affairs of the state, but who did the very opposite-who abhorred justice and made the straight crooked because they passed sentence for bribes. They thereby build Zion with blood, etc., i.e. obtain the means of erecting splendid buildings by cruel extortions, partly also by actual judicial murder, as Ahab, and arter him J ehoiakim, had done" (Delitzsch). Building up Jerusalem by blood is something like building up churches by beer. It is not uncommon now for large brewers, from the enormous profits of their pernicious craft, to build up mag- nificent temples for God. What an outrage on decency I What an insult to omniscient Purity! (2) He charges them with base mercenariness. "The heads thereof judge for reward, and tl,e priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof di vine for money." He saw mercenariness on the bench, inspiring the judge; mercenariness e.t the altar, inspiring the priests; mercenariness in the pulpit, inspiring the preachers. Money was the motive power of all. With all this mercenariness, still they "leaned upon the Lord," that is, professed to worship the one true and living God, and ignorantly and presumptuously concluded that he would be ever amongst them, and that consequently no great evil would overtake them. The prophet's faithfulness is seen : 3. In the doom he proclaims. " Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." The prophecy was never literally fulfilled till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, when the ground on which the city stood was ploughed up, in token of its utter demolition, and no city was to be built there without the emperor's leave. "It is," says an old writer, "the wickedness of !hose who preside in them that brings the ruin. It is for your sake that Zion shall be ploughed as a field; you pretend to build up Zi0n, but, doing it by blood and iniquity, you pull it down. The sin of priests E.nd µrioces is often the ruin of states and Oh urches. Delira11,t reges, plectuntur ..4.chivi, the kings act foolishly, and the people suffer by it." • CoNcLusroN. Such is the true prophet.-D. T, CH, lV, 1-18.] THE BOOK OF MICAH. 49