The Bible Year

The four psalms given in this week’s assignment were “written presumably by Hezekiah (Psalm 44) and Asaph during the reign of Hezekiah and the time of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. They relate to events connected with the invasion of Sennacherib and the destruction of the Assyrian host.”

Micah—the Man and His Prophecy

Micah, the sixth of the minor prophets, “was a native of Moresheth, a small town on the maritime plain, about twenty miles southwest of Jerusalem. He lived in the times of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (probably also Manasseh), kings of Judah. He was a prophet to Israel and also to Judah. He was a younger contemporary of Isaiah. Micah was a man who saw and felt keenly the social wrongs of his age (chapters 2 and 3), and sympathized deeply with the common people.” He prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The Standard Bible Dictionary gives the date as “between 745 and 700 B. C.”

Micah was a prophet of judgment. Great social evils abounded in his time, and he was called to deliver a message of wrath and warning. He “graphically depicts Jehovah coming forth out of his place amid awful convulsions of nature. Chapter 1:3, 4. The sins of the house of Israel and the transgressions of Jacob have called him forth. The prophet sees in a vision village after village destroyed. Samaria goes down, and the desolation comes to the very gates of Jerusalem.” Because of the sins of Israel, Zion is to be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem to become heaps.

The prophecy falls naturally into three divisions,—chapters 1 and 2, 3 to 5, and 6 and 7,—each beginning with the invocation “Hear,” followed by rebukes and threatenings, passing into reasons for the judgment in the guilt of sin, and closing with a promise of blessing. Chapter 5 names the birthplace of the

coming Messiah, and clearly shows his preexistence; chapter 7 seems to outline the history of the church till his second coming. Jeremiah mentions this prophet.

The Bible

“It would be hard to overestimate the influence of the Bible not only on the Western but on the Eastern world. It has been a great force religiously, morally, and politically.

“Its vivid portrayal of the customs of ancient peoples, its forcible illustrations of the rise and fall of empires, its truthful delineation of human passions as found in king and slave, its naked revelations of the human mind in its highest and in its lowest aspirations, its sane and wholesome morals flowing like refreshing streams through the parched deserts of human greed, its exhibition to the very raw of human degradation, its presentation of pastoral purity in poetry of the loftiest order, and its noble ethical ideals, all contribute to make it the paramount and incomparable volume.”—Selected.