by
Damien F. Mackey
“Micah uses the imagery of a threshing
floor (same word in Hebrew) and
iron horns that come from the events
surrounding Micaiah’s prophecy”.
Christadelphian
Books
Many have observed the amazing series of compelling likenesses
between the words and visions of the prophet Micaiah and those of the prophet
Micah. {“The name Mica(h) is the accepted abbreviated form of the
name Michaiah (like … Rick is to
Richard)”: Abarim Publications: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Micah.html#.W8vYKWdRc_w}
However, the next step, to identify Micah as Micaiah,
would clearly seem to be a step too far, given Micah’s contemporaneity with
king Ahab of Israel (c. 871 - 852 BC, conventional dating) (1 Kings 22:8-28), and
Micah’s contemporaneity with king Hezekiah of Judah (c.
715 - 686 BC, conventional dating) (cf. Jeremiah 26:18).
That
is a time separation of at least a century and a half!
Micah, though, does seem to be making definite reference
to king Ahab and the Naboth incident.
(See chart below). Not to mention this clearly direct
reference to Ahab and Omri (Micah 6:16): “The statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab are observed; and in their
devices you walk."
So I suspect that the Divided Monarchy needs further shortening,
with the age of Ahab brought significantly closer to that of Micah.
The following chart is one example of just how well Micah
lines up alongside Micaiah: http://www.christadelphianbooks.org/mannell/jehoshaphat/JEH5%20(Micah%20and%20Micaia
Micah
|
Micaiah
|
Comment
|
|||
“Hear, O peoples, all
of you; listen, O earth”
(1:2)
|
“Listen, all you
people."
(2Chron 18:27)
|
Micah’s opening quotes
Micaiah’s final words
(the only occasion of
this phrase in scripture).
|
|||
“…the Lord from His
holy temple.“
(1:2)
|
“I saw the LORD
sitting on His throne, and
all the host of heaven
standing on His right
and on His left.”
(2Chron 18:18)
|
||||
“All this is for the
rebellion of Jacob and for the
sins of the house of
Israel. What is the rebellion
of Jacob? Is it not Samaria?
What is the high
place of Judah? Is it
not Jerusalem? For I will
make Samaria a
heap of ruins in the open
country, planting
places for a vineyard. I will pour
her stones down into
the valley, and will lay bare
her foundations. All
of her idols will be smashed,
all of her earnings
will be burned with fire, and all
of her images I will
make desolate, for she
collected them from a
harlot's earnings, and to
the earnings of a
harlot they will return. Because
of this I must lament
and wail, I must go barefoot
and naked; I must make
a lament like the jackals
and a mourning like
the ostriches. For her wound
is incurable, for
it has come to Judah; it has
reached the gate of
my people, even to
Jerusalem.”
(1:5-9)
|
Now the king of Israel
and Jehoshaphat the
king of Judah were sitting
each on his
throne, arrayed in
their robes, and they were
sitting at the
threshing floor at the entrance
of the gate of Samaria; and all the
prophets were
prophesying before them.
(2Chron 18:9)
|
Micah’s concern is
that the evil from Samaria
is infecting Judah, it
has even reached the
gate of Jerusalem.
That infection can be
traced back to the
gate of Samaria.
|
|||
Micah
|
Micaiah
|
Comment
|
|||
“Woe to those who
scheme iniquity, who work
out evil on their beds! When morning comes,
they do it, for it is
in the power of their hands.
They covet fields and then seize them
and
houses, and take them
away. They rob a man
and his house, a man
and his inheritance.”
(2:1-2)
|
So Ahab came into his
house sullen and
vexed because of the
word which Naboth
the Jezreelite had
spoken to him; for he
said, "I will not
give you the inheritance of
my fathers." And he
lay down on his bed
and turned away his
face and ate no food.
(1Kings 21:4 and
context)
|
Micah’s description of
evil doers is very
reminiscent of the
incident of Ahab and
Naboth.
|
|||
"If a man walking
after wind and falsehood had
told lies and said 'I will speak
out to you
concerning wine and
liquor,' He would be
spokesman (KJV:
prophet) to
this people.”
(2:11)
|
"Now therefore,
behold, the LORD has put a
deceiving spirit in
the mouth of these
your prophets; for the LORD has
proclaimed disaster
against you.”
(2Chron 18:22)
|
Lying prophets
|
|||
"I will surely
assemble all of you, Jacob, I will
surely gather the
remnant of Israel. I will put
them together like
sheep in the fold;
like a
flock in the midst of
its pasture they will be noisy
with men.
(2:11)
|
So he said, "I
saw all Israel Scattered on
the mountains, like
sheep which
have no
shepherd…”
(2Chron 18:16)
|
Scattered sheep.
|
|||
“Thus says the LORD concerning
the prophets
Who lead my people
astray;
when they have
something to bite
with their teeth, they cry,
"Peace,"
but against him who puts nothing in
their mouths, they
declare holy war.“
(3:5)
|
Then the king of
Israel assembled the
prophets, four hundred
men …And they
said," Go up, for
God will give it into the
hand of the
king."
(2Chron 18:5)
…400 prophets of
the Asherah, who eat at
Jezebel's table.
(1Kings 18:19)
|
Ahab’s false prophets
were clearly only saying
what their employer
wanted.
|
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Micah
|
Micaiah
|
Comment
|
Therefore it will be
night for you-- without vision,
and darkness for you--
without divination. The
sun will go down on
the prophets, and the day
will become dark over
them. The seers will be
ashamed and the diviners will
be embarrassed.
Indeed, they will all
cover their mouths Because
there is no answer
from God.
(3:6)
|
And Micaiah said,
"Behold, you shall see on
that day, when you enter
an inner room to
hide yourself."
(2Chron 18:24)
|
Zedekiah was a blind
seer (“seer” and “see”
are almost identical
in Hebrew) who would
finally see on the day
he cowardly hides
himself in shame.
(Inner room can mean the
toilet as in Judges
3:24)
|
On the other hand I
am filled with power-- With
the Spirit of the LORD-- And with justice
and
courage To make known
to Jacob his rebellious
act, even to Israel
his sin.
(3:8)
|
"How did the
Spirit of the LORD pass
from me to speak to
you?"
(2Chron 18:24)
|
Zedekiah claims that
Micaiah did not have the
spirit of Yahweh as he
makes known Ahab’s
sin.
|
"But they do not know
the thoughts of the LORD,
and they do not
understand His purpose; for He
has gathered them like
sheaves to the threshing
floor. Arise and thresh,
daughter of Zion, for your
horn I will make iron and your hoofs I will
make
bronze, that you may
pulverize many peoples,
that you may devote to
the LORD their unjust
gain and their wealth
to the Lord of all the earth.
(4:12-13)
|
Now the king of Israel
and Jehoshaphat the
king of Judah were
sitting each on his
throne, arrayed in
their robes, and they were
sitting at the threshing
floor at the entrance
of the gate of
Samaria; and all the prophets
were prophesying
before them. And
Zedekiah the son of
Chenaanah made
horns of iron for himself and said,
"Thus
says the LORD, 'With
these you shall gore
the Arameans, until
they are consumed.'"
(2Chron 18:9-10)
|
Micah uses the imagery
of a threshing floor
(same word in Hebrew)
and iron horns that
come from the events
surrounding Micaiah’s
prophecy.
|
"Now muster
yourselves in troops, daughter of
troops; they have laid
siege against us; with a rod
they will smite the
judge of Israel on the
cheek.”
(5:1)
|
Then Zedekiah the son
of Chenaanah came
near and struck
Micaiah on the cheek…
(2Chron 18:23
|
Struck on the cheek
|
Micah
|
Micaiah
|
Comment
|
And He will arise and shepherd
His flock in the
strength of the LORD…
(5:4)
Shepherd Thy people with Thy scepter, the
flock of Thy
possession which dwells by itself in
the woodland, in the
midst of a fruitful field. Let
them feed in Bashan
and Gilead as in the days
of old.
(7:14)
|
Israel Scattered on
the mountains, like
sheep which have no
shepherd; and the
(2Chron 18:16)
|
Micah looks forward to
the day when Israel
and Judah will have a
proper shepherd.
He also looks forward
to that flock feeding in
Gilead, the very place
Ahab and Jehoshaphat
were seeking to
reclaim.
|
"My people,
remember now what Balak king of
Moab counselled…Does the
LORD take delight
in thousands of rams,
in ten thousand rivers of
oil? Shall I
present my first-born for my
rebellious acts, the
fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul?
(6:5, 7)
|
When the king of
Moab saw that the battle
was too fierce for
him, he took with him 700
men who drew swords,
to break through to
the king of Edom; but
they could not. Then
he took his oldest son
who was to reign
in his place, and
offered him as a burnt
offering on the wall. And there
came great
wrath against Israel,
and they departed from
him and returned to
their own land.
(2Kings 3:26-27)
|
A couple of years
later Jehoshaphat and
Ahab’s son were again
joined in a campaign,
against Moab when the
king of Moab offered
his first born son.
|
"The statutes
of Omri and all the works of the
house of Ahab are observed; and in
their
devices you
walk."
(6:16)
|
Micah’s criticism of
Judah is that it is following the example Ahab and his father.
|
Part Two:
Not an
overshadowed prophet
“It seems poor Micah is destined to forever play backup to headliner
Isaiah”
This view expressed here by Michael Williams about Micah is
by no means the one that I found to have been the case when Micah is accorded
some stunning prophetic alter egos. See
e.g. my:
Prophet
Jonah's long life of service
And, in the first part of this particular series:
I had embraced a tradition according to which Micah was
the same as the prophet Micaiah at the time of king Ahab of Israel.
The names are the same, and it is interesting that the
prophet Jeremiah gives Micah the longer form name of Micaiah: “His name is a shortened form of Micaiah (Jdgs.
17:1,4; I Kgs.
22:13), which meant
"who is like YHWH" (BDB 567). Jeremiah 26:18 has the full name in the Hebrew text
(i.e., Micaiah) [מיכיה
×”ַמּוֹרַשְׁתִּ×™]”:
https://bible.org/seriespage/introduction-micah
Whilst this tradition is extremely difficult to sustain within
the context of the extended conventional chronology of the Divided Kingdom, it
becomes feasible when it is recognised that (as according to the Prophet Jonah
article above):
(a) our composite prophet lived to 120-130 years of age; and
that
(b) the early-mid Divided Kingdom period needs to be
considerably shortened.
I have already applied such a radical shortening to the
later kingdom of Judah period in my article:
'Taking
aim on' king Amon - such a wicked king of Judah
Far from Micah’s having played second fiddle to the great
Isaiah, he was - according to my reconstructions - the very father of Isaiah. For one, he was the “Micah” of the Book
of Judith (6:15): “Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon …”, with the “Uzziah” here
being Isaiah.
This
was when the reluctant prophet (cf. Jonah), a shepherd and tender of sycamore
trees, had been assigned to Bethel (“Bethulia” of Judith) in the reign of
Jeroboam II (cf. Amos).
Micah
(“Amos redivivus”) was thus Amos (or
Amoz) the father of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1).
Micah and Isaiah were a father-and-son prophetic
combination, operating both in northern Israel and in the southern kingdom.
Wrongly Michael Williams writes (Hidden Prophets of
the Bible: Finding the Gospel in Hosea through Malachi):
We have
already seen that Micah's
ministry was far overshadowed by that of Isaiah, his contemporary. Although the precise dates for the ministry
of many of the Minor Prophets
are difficult to nail down with any precision ...
My comment:
Absolutely impossible “to nail down with any precision” the way that the
conventional biblico-history has been constructed.
…
tradition maintains that Micah's
ministry also overlapped that of at least two other prophets: Hosea
and Amos.
My comment: I
have already noted, though, that Micah was
Amos.
Hosea, I believe, to be, again, Isaiah, operating (like
his father) in northern Bethel.
So, according
to tradition,
possibly as many as three other biblical prophets who have
left books for us in our canon ministered at
the same time as Micah.
My comment:
Perhaps make that just one other biblical
prophet: namely, Isaiah (= Hosea,
Uzziah).
That same tradition asserts, however, that Micah “was a younger
contemporary of the other three” ….
My comment: Swing
and a miss! Micah was older than the other one,
who was his son.
It seems, therefore, that our hidden prophet Micah had to deal not only with
other practitioners of his craft, but also with the fact that he was a
junior to them.
My comment: Same
comment. Micah was in fact like an Alpha prophet!
Further on, Michael Williams will write:
...
Although extrabiblical traditions
regarding Micah are rare, there is one that claims he was a disciple of
Elijah. …. Elijah ministered during the
reign of Ahab in Israel
(874–853). Clearly, this period
precedes the time of
Micah's ministry by at least a hundred years. So how an assertion that Micah was a disciple of Elijah could
possibly be true is interesting to consider.
My comment: Micah
was Elijah according to my reconstruction
(see Prophet Jonah article above). And Jonah, too - thought to have been the
boy raised to life by Elijah - was
Elijah.
As we saw above, Micah's
name is actually a shorter form of the name Micaiah. And
there is indeed a prophet named Micaiah
who ministered during the reigns of King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of
Judah (I Kings 22:8). Apparently,
Jewish tradition has confused
our Minor Prophet Micah with
this earlier prophet Micaiah
son of Imlah ... even though they clearly ministered at different times.
My
comment: “Different times” during a very long life
of 120-130 years.
Jewish
tradition got this connection dead right.
So not
only is poor Micah overshadowed
by Isaiah and opposed by false prophets,
but he has also been mistaken for someone else.
My
comment: The reality of Micah is far less negative
than this, so I think.
