Controversy of Jehovah with Jerusalem (Chs. 6-7). 

        The changes of thought here are even more violent than any attempt to try and discover a connexion between the various sections other than a general spiritual one is doomed to disappointment.

        6:1-8 introduces us to Jehovah’s controversy with Judah, based this time not so much on the sins of the people as on their false conception of what He expects from them. The people are “wearied” by His service, an expression used in two other passages of the demands of the sacrificial worship on the people, viz. Isa. 43:22ff, Mal. 1:13. It is only our neglect of the legal portions of the Pentateuch and our failure to get a comprehen­sive picture of the demands of the sacrificial system as a whole against the economic background of the time that hinders us from realizing what a burden the system was, especially on the poorer man. In the days of Micah the tendency was to expand rather than cut down the ritual.

        An appeal is first made to the time of the Exodus and the Conquest (ver. 4f), when the grace of God was supremely realized by Israel, but during which sacrifices and the ritual must have been cut to a minimum. “From Shittim to Gil-gal” refers to the crossing of the Jordan; some part of the text has been accidentally dropped.

        The misunderstanding people then ask how God is to be propitiated, suggesting an intensification of its sacrificial system (ver. 6f). The reference to human sacrifice is one ground for thinking of the reign of Manasseh (cf. IIKings 21:6; Jer. 7:31). Micah sums up the requirements of true re­ligion in a famous verse (ver. 8), which virtually combines the teaching of his three great predecessors:

·           to do justly — Amos.

·           to love mercy, i.e. chesed (see p. 39) — Hosea.

·           to walk humbly with thy God, i.e. as befits His holiness — Isaiah.

In 6:9-16 we have a second denunciation of Judah, but this time the stress is on social sin rather than false concep­tions of religion. Israel answers God (7:1-6, though this need not originally have been a unity with the preceding). In 7:7-10 Israel still speaks, but it is now Israel of the future, on whom the judgments have fallen. Then the prophet answers her (7:11ff), though the grammar suggests that the con­nexion is merely one of juxtaposition. The prophecy ends with a prayer (7:14-17) and a doxology (7:18ff).

        With these notes of confidence the voice of recorded pro­phecy becomes silent for the rest of the long reign of Manasseh. God had spoken to Judah, but she would not hear. Now she had to sow the bitter seed that would yield a yet bitterer har­vest.