He will yet again have compassion on us, he will tread under foot our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
Micah's prophecy ends in wonder. It shows a God who treads sins underfoot and drops them where no one can reach them. But whose sins, and how completely?
The book's closing lines change key. Commentators read them as the prophet's own response.
The last three verses of the prophecy express the faith and adoration that fill the prophet's heart. He thinks of the goodness of God, who pardoned the iniquities of the people and cast their sins into the depths of the sea. This is the God who delighted in mercy, and who would carry out His promises to Abraham and what He had sworn to the fathers long ago.
The verbs point forward. One commentator ties the verse to a day still ahead for the Jewish people, and notes a custom that keeps the words alive among them now.
This will be the future praise of the remnant of His people. That praise will rise when the Deliverer comes to Zion and turns away ungodliness from Jacob, when God completes His covenant with them and takes their sins away (Rom. 11:26, 27). Once a year orthodox Jews go to a running stream. They scatter bits of paper and small articles into it, and repeat these three verses while they do it (the so-called Tashlik ceremony). It is only an outward act, yet it testifies that there is still faith in Israel. It will be a glorious day when God forgives them their sins and remembers them no more.
That future tense marks a real difference. One writer contrasts how the remnant speaks with how Christians speak:
"Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God." "In Him we have redemption through His blood." … That is how the Church speaks. With the remnant, "have" and "has" become "shall" and "will."
The verse handles sin twice. He treads iniquities down; He throws sins into the sea. Treading down deals with sin as a power that rules a person. One commentator applies that to the believer's struggle now:
The day is coming when this will be true in all its fulness. For now we still need to pray that He may "break the power of cancelled sin." Yet even now He is able to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:25-27). And though "at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him," let us remember that the fight has been fought and won: the foes that are left are defeated foes.
The other half deals with guilt. One writer sets the sea beside a ritual that acted out the same thing:
The high priest laid his hands on the head of the live goat. He confessed the sins of the people of Israel and all their wrongdoing, putting them in that symbolic way on the head of the goat, and then sent it away into the wilderness. This picture showed how fully sin is put away — gone for good, never to be seen again. It reminds us of Scriptures that show how thoroughly God deals with sin. We read, "as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us" (Ps. 103:12). "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more" (Heb. 10:17).
Depth matters. What sinks that far is not just out of sight but beyond recovery. One writer turns that against the fear that God might raise the subject again:
God will never again refer to those sins which His own loving hand has cancelled by the blood of the cross. Never! No, never! He has cast them behind His back for ever. They have sunk like lead into the deep waters of His eternal forgetfulness.
The reason lies in God's own character, and one writer aims it straight at the reader:
What a thrill of joy goes through the heart to find that a holy God so delights in mercy. And if you are here this evening a wretched, good-for-nothing, ruined sinner, know that the Lord delights to meet you. He will be glad to show you mercy, pardon all your sins, and give you the knowledge of His forgiveness.
- Delight — He acts because He delights in mercy, so the ruined sinner is exactly the person He is glad to meet.
- Compassion — That delight turns toward a people who deserve ruin, and the prophet ends in adoration at the God who pardons.
- Underfoot — He treads down sin's power. The fight is won, and the enemies still standing are defeated enemies.
- Depths — Guilt sinks beyond recovery: as far as east is from west, behind His back, remembered no more.
- Fulness — Israel still says "He will." Christians already say "we have." One day the remnant will sing this verse as a finished fact.
Thou wilt perform truth to Jacob, loving-kindness to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers, from the days of old.
Micah ends his book not with Israel's record but with God's own word, sworn to Abraham and Jacob long ago and still standing. After all the failure this book has exposed, what is left to hope in?
The book ends in praise. One writer reads the last three verses as the prophet's own heart overflowing:
The last three verses of the prophecy express the faith and the adoration that fill the prophet's heart. He is thinking of the goodness of God, who pardoned the iniquities of the people and cast their sins into the depths of the sea. This is the God who delighted in mercy, and who would perform His promises to Abraham and what He had sworn to the fathers in days of old.
Micah's hope does not rest on anything Israel promised. It rests on a covenant God made without conditions, and Scripture keeps to that pattern whenever Israel's future is in view:
The Spirit of God, in all references to the true hopes of Israel, refers to the unconditional covenant made with Abraham. So we have seen Moses saying, "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self." In the same way, the God of mercy promised blessing for their obedience and answered their rebellions with threats, right up to their actual scattering. Then He adds in Leviticus 26: "If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers … and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember; and I will remember the land." See also Micah 7:20. Such was the hope of Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:72-73).
"Our fathers from the days of old" means people long dead. Later generations could plead nothing of their own, but they could still plead what God had promised to men now gone:
They with their fathers have failed, but God had made promises to David. Where they could not speak of themselves, they could tell of the promises. David had died, but the promises held good: his children had failed, but God's words could not. The mercy to Abraham, the truth to Jacob (Micah 7:20), the promise to David, the Lord will perform. How gracious of our God! He did not only plan; He promised to His servants, long since dead, what He would do for them and their people. So when failure comes in — and the only right place for the people is to own it — they can still lay hold of promises.
The promise here is still ahead. That future tense marks the difference between the remnant — the believing part of Israel — and Christians who already know salvation:
Prophecy shows those who make up the remnant using language of repentance — concern for God's glory — confidence in God's promises to their fathers, and in His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their words also express a strong desire for pardoning mercy and the hope of receiving it. For that very reason their language rules out any present assurance of salvation. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." "In whom we have redemption through his blood." Such is the language of the Church. With the remnant "have" and "has" are changed into "shall" and "will."
One writer names the moment when the waiting ends:
Such will be the future praise of the remnant of His heritage. It comes when the Deliverer comes to Zion and turns away ungodliness from Jacob, when God fulfils the covenant with them and takes away their sins (Rom. 11:26, 27). Once a year orthodox Jews go to a running stream and scatter bits of paper and small articles into it, repeating these three verses as they do (the so-called Tashlik ceremony). It is only an outward act, yet it testifies that there is still faith in Israel. It will be a glorious day when God forgives them their sins and remembers them no more.
This promise looks like Israel's business alone. One writer ties it to ours:
Always remember this. If God were to fail to fulfil those earthly promises to Abraham, we would have no reason to suppose that He would not also fail in His spiritual promises to him — and those promises come to us. Consult Galatians 3:6-14. Neither, we know, can ever fail.
- Sworn — the verse rests on an oath God swore to Abraham, to Jacob and to the fathers of old, with no conditions attached.
- Not earned — whenever Scripture speaks of Israel's real hope, it points back to that unconditional covenant, as Moses, Leviticus 26 and Zacharias all do.
- Outliving — the men who received the oath are dead and their children failed, yet the promise still stands and can still be pleaded.
- Future — the verse promises what God will do: the remnant hopes for what Christians already have, and the wait ends when the Deliverer comes to Zion.
- Yours — if God could let the earthly promises to Abraham lapse, the spiritual promises that reach us would be no safer; neither can fail.