Project 119: Micah 2
| Project 119 | Dr. Wayne Splawn
As we saw yesterday, Micah 1 focuses on the importance of right worship. Here in Micah 2, the prophet highlights the importance of right living. The people of Micah’s day were engaged in works of injustice. They were so consumed with taking advantage of the poor and oppressed, in fact, that Micah states that all night long they dreamed of ways to take advantage of others and acted on those plans as soon as the sun came up (Micah 2:1). In the moment, the rich and privileged of Micah’s day were in the seat of power and were able to do whatever they pleased at the expense of the disadvantaged among them. I would guess that very few of us are as actively engaged in oppressing others as were the people of Micah’s day, but it is possible that we have some things in common with them. For example, in Micah 2:3, Micah says that when God brings justice to the poor and oppressed at the expense of the rich and mighty, those who experience God’s judgement will no longer be haughty. To be haughty is to be proud, arrogant, and conceited. These are attributes that often characterize the rich and powerful in every age.
You may not be the richest or most powerful person in the world, but when compared with most of the world, chances are you are indeed quite wealthy and influential. And, if this is the case, then you must be on guard against any feelings of superiority that might lead you to be haughty. Ask God to reveal to you if there are ways in which you feel proud, arrogant, or conceited when you look at those who are poor and oppressed by the world’s standards. Ask the Lord to help you see the money and influence God has entrusted to you as tools you can use to lift others up rather than as things you can leverage to obtain and enjoy more material possessions in this life.
Micah 2 (ESV):
Woe to the Oppressors
1 Woe to those who devise wickedness
and work evil on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in the power of their hand.
2 They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
3 Therefore thus says the LORD:
behold, against this family I am devising disaster,
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you shall not walk haughtily,
for it will be a time of disaster.
4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you
and moan bitterly,
and say, “We are utterly ruined;
he changes the portion of my people;
how he removes it from me!
To an apostate he allots our fields.”
5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot
in the assembly of the LORD.
6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”
7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
Has the LORD grown impatient?
Are these his deeds?
Do not my words do good
to him who walks uprightly?
8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;
you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.
9 The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.
10 Arise and go,
for this is no place to rest,
because of uncleanness that destroys
with a grievous destruction.
11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!
12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;
I will gather the remnant of Israel;
I will set them together
like sheep in a fold,
like a flock in its pasture,
a noisy multitude of men.
13 He who opens the breach goes up before them;
they break through and pass the gate,
going out by it.
Their king passes on before them,
the LORD at their head.