Micah 6:7, commentary and pictures

In a time of apostasy the people ask with what they shall come before the Lord and bow before the high God, treating enormously multiplied sacrifices as the way to please Him and cover transgression. Even the most abundant, vast and costly offerings cannot by themselves satisfy God, purchase His favor, or atone for sin. No person can make expiation for himself by giving a firstborn child for transgression, for God rejects human sacrifice and only the Son of God can bear the world's guilt. What the Lord has shown to be good and requires instead is to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. He does not ask for a costly price or self-imposed penance to earn His favor, but for a humble and contrite heart, for outward ceremony and generosity are worthless and abhorrent to Him without tenderness, love, obedience, compassion and justice.

Question and Its Setting

Micah 6:7 preserves the cry of people in Judah and Israel in a time of apostasy, asking with what they shall come before the Lord and bow themselves before the high God. The question treats enormously multiplied sacrifices as the way to please Him and to cover transgression. It comes as the Lord holds a controversy with His people and pleads with Israel. That pleading follows His reminder that He brought them up out of Egypt and redeemed them from the house of servants, that He sent Moses and Aaron and Miriam before them, and that He turned aside Balak king of Moab and Balaam son of Beor from Shittim unto Gilgal, that they might know His righteousness.

The inquiry rises step by step, from burnt offerings and calves of a year old to thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, and finally to giving the firstborn for transgression, the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul. It asks whether the Lord will be pleased with such abundant, vast, costly and extreme offerings. The teaching is that even these cannot by themselves satisfy God, purchase His favor, or atone for sin. Lavish sacrifice is not what satisfies Him.

Human sacrifice in particular is unacceptable to God for atonement. Abraham's experience proves that no person can make expiation for himself, for God rejected the offering of Isaac and provided a sacrifice instead. Only the Son of God can bear the guilt of the world.

What God Requires Instead

The plain answer to the question of what will please God is that lavish and multiplied sacrifice is not what satisfies Him, for even thousands of animals, vast rivers of oil, and the costliest gifts including a firstborn child cannot atone for sin, purchase favor, or excuse wrongdoing. What He has shown to be good and requires instead is to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him in humble fellowship and humiliation of spirit. Multiplied offerings do not please Him when offered while His character is misrepresented, and extravagant religious gifts cannot be substituted for obedience.

He does not ask for a costly price or for self-imposed penance by which to earn His favor, and repentance does not require such penance. What He asks is a humble and contrite heart that gratefully accepts His free gift, receives it, and responds with justice, mercy, and a humble walk with Him, turning from sin and living humbly. Costly gifts, outward religious ceremony, observance, and displays of generosity are abhorrent and repugnant to Him and worthless without contrition, tenderness, and love. They are unacceptable when joined to indifference to human need and unwillingness to help others, and when they stand in place of obedience, compassion, and justice.

Such costly sacrifices cannot by themselves deal with transgression or make up for sin in place of the good He requires. Through Christ's atoning sacrifice He can pardon the sinner while upholding His justice and holiness, cleanse from sin, and receive the repentant believer as accepted in Christ. That pardon restores the sinner to love and trust rather than merely releasing from punishment, and it joins the call to justice, mercy, and humble walking to His delight in mercy and His pardon of sin.

True godliness is therefore practical rather than outward religious form that neglects mercy while acting unjustly. It is expressed in deeds such as treating the poor and the stranger kindly and refusing to exploit them. What the Father asks is justice and mercy and humility in reasonable service of good deeds, pure living, tenderness to human needs, reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see the Master's footsteps in daily ways. It is the calm beauty of an ordered life whose very breathing is unworded praise, standing fast rooted in the faith that God is good.

Rebuke Warning and Hope

The question with its answer stands as a present message to professed believers, and with special force to those placed in control of institutions and enterprises, who must themselves first be controlled by God and copy the character of Christ. It comes as the Lord's controversy with His people, after He reminds them that He brought them up out of Egypt, redeemed them from the house of servants, sent Moses and Aaron and Miriam before them, and turned aside Balak king of Moab and Balaam son of Beor from Shittim unto Gilgal that they might know His righteousness. Through departure from Him that controversy and His rod have come upon His people in rebuke and sickness and smiting and desolation.

The verse testifies that God condemns unfair actions and false dealing and robbery and injustice in business and institutional management. This includes violence and lies and fraud, wicked balances and deceitful weights, grasping selfish dealing and sharp dealing, hidden transactions kept from the light, and scheming to deny others a fair chance and make merchandise of them. Multiplied sacrifices cannot please Him while His character is thus misrepresented, and He will not be trifled with but will surely punish persistence in such ways, abhorring advantage gained by injustice. What He requires instead is integrity and guardedness, humiliation of spirit, doing justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with Him, even to the refusal to sell the soul by doing injustice to any soul though it cost life itself.

Money gained by wronging a neighbor remains unlawful gain before God. Giving such gain to His treasury cannot serve as a compromise with Him, for dishonest gain and deceitful measures are incompatible with doing justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with Him. Even vast offerings, thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil, and even the offering of a firstborn, cannot make up for transgression or purchase His favor.

In its setting the verse belongs to rebuke of those who reject the light God has given, act against the path He marked out, and show ingratitude for His blessings. Such cannot expect Him to fulfill His promises to them or to continue speaking words of encouragement. It is also numbered among prophecies describing the world just before the Lord's second coming, when iniquity abounds because men transgress God's law and break the everlasting covenant.

Yet the statement of what God requires, to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him, is a plain and definite promise, rich and full, given upon conditions. No quantity of animal offerings or oil, and not even the sacrifice of a child, can make up for sin or satisfy God, but this requirement shows what is good and acceptable to Him. It is to be trusted when the conditions are met, and to be held up as a source of hope when tempted to give up all hope or to despair.