The Author and His Book. 

        Micah, or Micaiah (Jer. 26:18, R.V.), was a native of Moresheth-gath (1:1, 14), as mall country town in the Shephelah, the low hills on the edge of the Philistine plain, near Gath.1 While Isaiah depicts the social crimes of his time from the standpoint of the townsman in the capital, Micah shows us them from the standpoint of the suffering countryman. Nothing is known of him apart from his pro­phecies and the reference in Jer.  26:18.

        In the closing section of the book (chs. 6, 7) Micah’s de­nunciations pass from the leaders to the people as a whole, and the general tone is much more gloomy than in chs. 1-3. There is a general tendency on the part of those who do not restrict (as some do quite unnecessarily) Micah’s work to the first three chapters of the book to place the closing section in the dark days of Manasseh. This is quite probable, for the structure of the book suggests that these chapters are considerably later than 3:12, which Jer. 26:18 places in the reign of Hezekiah. In addition the picture given seems rather too dark for the reign of Hezekiah.

        If this is so, it confirms the general impression created by the prophecy that Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, outliving him in his public ministry. Micah contains numerous reminiscences of Isaiah (For a list see Cheyne: Micah (C.B.), p. 12. 63), though the most striking, 4:1-5 (Isa. 2:2-5), is probably due to common quotation from an earlier prophet.

        If we have interpreted the evidence correctly, then we must look on the heading (1:1) as only approximately correct, Micah’s work beginning at the very end of Jotham’s reign, but going on beyond the time of Hezekiah.

        We get the impression that we have only a small portion of his prophecies preserved for us, and that sometimes we have the gist of his message rather than the original words in full. The transition of thought is often violent, and la many cases the only connexion between sections will be that of later juxta­position because of spiritual connexion. In places the thought is made even more difficult by the possibility of dislocation in the order of verses in transmission.