Bethlehem and what the LORD requires: Micah 5-6

Micah came from Moresheth, a town in the Judean foothills southwest of Jerusalem (1:1). He prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, which puts his ministry in the last decades of the eighth century BC and makes him a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea. It was the age of Assyrian expansion. Samaria fell in 722 BC, and in 701 BC the Assyrian king Sennacherib invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem. Micah spoke to both the northern and southern kingdoms, and unlike Isaiah, who lived in the capital, he spoke as a countryman, often against the rich and powerful in Jerusalem. A century later, when Jeremiah was in danger, the elders remembered that Micah had announced the fall of Jerusalem and that King Hezekiah had not killed him but sought the LORD (Jeremiah 26:17-19; Micah 3:12).

The book is traditionally credited to Micah. Some scholars think later editors added the promises of restoration, especially in chapters 4 and 7, while others defend their unity with the rest. The book is arranged in three cycles, each of which moves from judgment to hope: chapters 1 to 2, chapters 3 to 5 and chapters 6 to 7. This class's passage runs across the second and third. Chapter 5 closes the second cycle with its promise of a ruler and a purified remnant, and chapter 6 begins the third with the LORD's case against his people.

A note on numbering: English Micah 5:1 is verse 14 of chapter 4 in the Hebrew Bible, and 5:2 is 5:1 in Hebrew. The citations here use the English numbers.

Micah 5 and 6 are Hebrew poetry in several prophetic forms: oracle of promise (5:2-9), oracle of purging (5:10-15), covenant lawsuit (6:1-5) and indictment (6:9-16), with a liturgical dialogue between them (6:6-8). The covenant lawsuit, in Hebrew a rib, is a legal image. The LORD, as the offended party, calls the mountains and hills as witnesses and presents his case against his people. The form borrows from the courts, but its tone is the hurt of a wronged God: 'My people, what have I done to you?'

Two rules guide the reading.

• First, a prophetic promise has a near and a larger horizon. Micah 5:2 is spoken in the shadow of an Assyrian siege, to say that the future of God's people does not depend on the fortress city but on a new ruler from the humble town of David. Within the Old Testament this belongs with Isaiah's promises of a Davidic child (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6-7; 11:1-5). The larger horizon is stated by the New Testament and is considered below.
• Second, a verse that has become famous needs its setting. Micah 6:8 is the answer to questions about sacrifice in verses 6-7, and it is followed by an indictment of the dishonesty of the city. What the LORD requires is described in the language of the covenant with Israel. It is not a general religion of kindness separate from the Law and the temple.

The book also contains hard language about the nations (5:8-9, 15). The remnant is compared to a lion among sheep, and the LORD takes vengeance on the nations who have not obeyed. These verses stand beside the image of the remnant as dew and showers (5:7). They are the images of ancient poetry about the LORD's victory.

Chapter 5:1

Jerusalem is told to gather its troops, for it is under siege. The judge of Israel, the ruler, is struck on the cheek with a rod, a mark of humiliation. The Davidic king appears weak and dishonoured, just before the promise.

Chapter 5:2

'But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah.' Bethlehem is the town of David (1 Samuel 16:1; 17:12), and Ephrathah is the name of its clan or district (Genesis 35:19; Ruth 4:11). It was a village, too small to count among the clans of Judah. 'Out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel.' The ruler comes for the LORD, to carry out his purpose. The next line says that his origins are 'of old, from the days of eternity'. The Hebrew phrases (miqqedem, mimei olam) refer to ancient times and can mean time beyond measure. They may simply point back to the ancient promise to David (2 Samuel 7), or they may mean something stronger about the ruler's origin. The text allows both, and Christian readers have heard in them the pre-existence of the Son. The Aramaic Targum on this verse says that out of Bethlehem the Messiah will come before the LORD.

Chapter 5:3

'Therefore Israel will be abandoned until she who is in labor has given birth.' The delay lasts until a birth. Interpreters differ on whether the woman is Zion, Israel, or the mother of the ruler, and the verse recalls Isaiah 7:14, where a young woman bears a son called Immanuel. Then the rest of his brothers return to the children of Israel, so the exiles come home.

Verses 4-5a. 'He will stand and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD.' Shepherd was a standard image for a king. He rules in the LORD's strength and name, his greatness reaches to the ends of the earth, and the people dwell secure. 'And He will be our peace' (shalom). The ruler does not merely bring peace. He is their peace.

Verses 5b-9. When Assyria invades, they will raise up seven shepherds and eight leaders, a numerical idiom meaning a full and sufficient number. 'The land of Nimrod' is Assyria (Genesis 10:8-12). The remnant will be like dew from the LORD, which does not wait for human help, and like a lion among sheep. These two images show the remnant as a blessing and as a power among the nations.

Chapter 5:10–15

'In that day' the LORD removes what Judah trusts. Horses and chariots, the cities and strongholds, the sorcery and fortune-tellers, the carved images, the sacred pillars and the Asherah poles are cut off. The purging is of false security, military, political and religious.

6:1-5. The mountains and hills are summoned as witnesses. The LORD asks his people to say how he has wearied them, then answers himself with history: he brought them out of Egypt, redeemed them from slavery, and sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam. He recalls Balak and Balaam, when the king of Moab tried to have Israel cursed and Balaam blessed them instead (Numbers 22-24), and the journey from Shittim to Gilgal, from the last camp east of the Jordan to the first camp west of it (Numbers 25; Joshua 3-5). These are the righteous acts of the LORD, the saving deeds on which the covenant stands.

6:6-7. The people reply with questions that escalate: burnt offerings, year-old calves, thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, and finally the firstborn child. The sequence is a reductio ad absurdum. No amount of offering could answer the charge. Child sacrifice was practised in Judah in this period, under Ahaz and later Manasseh (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6), so the last question is not merely rhetorical.

6:8. 'He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?' The good was already shown in the Law. The three requirements are justice (mishpat), loyal love (chesed) and a humble walk with God. The first is conduct in public life, the second the covenant faithfulness shown in relationships, and the third a life lived in attentive dependence on the LORD.

6:9-16. The voice of the LORD calls to the city. He asks if he can forget the treasures of wickedness, the short ephah and the false scales. The wealthy are full of violence and the residents speak lies. Therefore the LORD strikes them: they will eat and not be satisfied, sow and not reap, press olives and not anoint themselves. They have kept the statutes of Omri and the practices of Ahab, the kings who built Samaria and brought in Baal worship (1 Kings 16:25-33). The result is desolation and the scorn of the nations.

Micah 5 and 6 together state the two sides of God's relation to his covenant people. On one side is his promise: a ruler from the line of David, a remnant that survives, a peace that does not depend on chariots. On the other is his demand: justice, mercy and humility, and an end to dishonesty in the market. The two belong together. The salvation promised in chapter 5 is not an escape from the covenant but its fulfilment, and the demands of chapter 6 are the life of the people who are saved.

The chapter teaches that God redeems by weakness and humble beginnings. The ruler does not come from the capital but from a small village, and the town that is 'small among the clans' is chosen, as David the youngest son was. This theme of God choosing the small recurs in 1 Corinthians 1:27-28.

It also teaches that worship cannot replace obedience. The Old Testament has a consistent teaching that sacrifices without justice are rejected (1 Samuel 15:22; Psalm 51:16-17; Isaiah 1:11-17; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-24). Micah 6:6-8 is among its clearest statements. The Talmud (Makkot 24a) records a rabbinic tradition that Micah reduced the commandments to three, justice, mercy and walking humbly with God.

The strongest connection is promise and fulfilment, and the New Testament makes it explicit. When the Magi ask where the king of the Jews is to be born, the chief priests and scribes answer from Micah 5:2 that it is Bethlehem in Judea (Matthew 2:1-6). Matthew combines the verse with 2 Samuel 5:2, the promise that David would shepherd Israel, and so reads Micah's ruler as the shepherd of God's people. Luke records that Joseph went to Bethlehem, the city of David, and that the child was born there (Luke 2:4-7, 11). In John 7:42 the crowd cites the Scripture that the Christ comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived, which shows the expectation was known.

Other parts of the passage have been read in the light of Christ. 'He will be our peace' is echoed in Ephesians 2:14, where Christ himself is our peace, making Jew and Gentile one. The shepherd standing in the strength of the LORD recalls Jesus the good shepherd (John 10:11-16) and the shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20). The woman in labor has been linked by many Christian interpreters with Isaiah 7:14 and with Mary, although this is an echo. The words about the ancient origin have been read as pointing to the eternity of the Son (John 1:1-2; Colossians 1:17).

Micah 6:6-8 is picked up in Jesus's teaching. He tells the Pharisees that they neglect justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), and he quotes Hosea's words about mercy and sacrifice (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). A scribe who says that loving God and neighbour is more than all burnt offerings is told he is not far from the kingdom (Mark 12:33-34). Hebrews reads the Old Testament's dissatisfaction with sacrifice as pointing to Christ's body offered once (Hebrews 10:5-10).