Who was Micah in the Bible?

When the prophet Jeremiah was in danger of being put to death for his faithful testimony, certain of the elders rose up and said, "Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah; and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest" (Jer. 26:18). This is the testimony of the book of Jeremiah to Micah, who prophesied under the reign of Hezekiah, as well as Jotham and Ahaz. The first verse of the book of Micah gives us this information. While Jonah was a Galilean, Micah was a Judean. He came from Moresheth-Gath, which distinguishes him from another prophet of the same name, Micah the son of Imlah. (See 1 Kings 22:8; Micaiah is the same as Micah.) The name Micah means "who is like the LORD?"

Prophesying mostly in Jerusalem during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, he was contemporaneous with Isaiah. Though his name is not mentioned in the prophecy of Isaiah, his message is the same as the message of Isaiah, in describing the moral corruption of their times, and the Messianic prophecies. The following passages will confirm this:

The prophet Micah's name is probably an abbreviation of Micaiah (= who is like Jehovah?). Micah came from Moresheth Gath, around 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem near to the border to the Philistines.

Micah lived and worked under the kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah around 750 - 700 BC. He therefore was a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea and Amos. During this time the Assyrians attacked the northern kingdom, which was defeated in 722 BC and was brought into Assyrian captivity (see Micah 1 and 5:5ff). In the land itself Micah was troubled with problems such as formal worship without true fear of God, idolatry and oppression of the people by the leadership.

The Morasthite, the prophet. Jer. 26:18; Micah 1:1.

Nothing is known of the prophet personally. He prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and was thus contemporary with Isaiah and Hosea. His prophecy was concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. God spoke from His holy temple, and the prophet exclaimed, "Hear, all ye peoples." He spoke to all people saying "Hearken, O earth." All the earth was involved in the judgements that God was going to bring upon His chosen people: a solemn consideration when the people of God, instead of being a testimony for Him, bring the judgements of God down on the world. The time has come that judgement must begin at the house of God. The prophecy seems to divide itself into three sections: the word 'hear' introducing each.

Micah (who is like unto the Lord?). This prophet was contemporary with Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos: see the first verse of each of the books of these prophets. Micah is termed "the Morasthite" from Moresheth-Gath, a small town in southern Judea, not far from Jerusalem. There is not in this book such a range of subjects or comprehensiveness of treatment as in Isaiah, yet Micah in some respects resembles his great contemporary. Both specially regard Israel's political foe and external enemy in the future Jewish crisis, namely, "the Assyrian" or "king of the north;" and both predict millennial blessedness in the same eloquent terms (Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-3).

Verse 1. This introduction tells us two things. In the first place, we learn that this book contains the word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Morasthite; in the second place, we are told when Micah exercised his office. As stated in the introduction, he was contemporary with Isaiah, probably for about twenty-nine years. Criticism has attacked the authorship of this book also. Since criticism began, with Ewald, to question the unity of this little book, it has raged with increasing violence, until Professor Cheyne, improving on Robertson Smith in the Encyclopedia Britannica, concludes: "In no part of chapters 4-7 can we venture to detect the hand of Micah." There is no need to answer such statements. The unity of the book of Micah is fully demonstrated by the message it contains. If chapters 4-7 were not written by Micah, will the critics give us light on who the author is?

Verses 2-5. The opening message is sublime, it is an appeal to all the nations, the whole earth and all that is in it, to listen to the witness of the Lord Jehovah against them, the witness which comes from His holy temple. The other Micah (Micaiah, the same as Micah) the son of Imlah, uttered similar words (1 Kings 22:28). He next describes the Lord coming out of His place, the place where He dwells in mercy, to come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. He is coming to judge; He is coming in wrath. The nations are to hear it, that the judgment is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. On verse 4 see Psalm 18:7-10; Psalm 68:8 and Judges 5:4. The near fulfillment was the double judgment which came upon the two kingdoms, the kingdom of the ten tribes, Samaria, and the kingdom of Judah. But the description of the coming of the Lord in judgment also relates to that great future event, the day of the Lord.

Already 1 Kings 22:8ff (and 2 Chron. 18) mentions a prophet by the name of Micaiah who laboured at king Ahab's time in Israel. He warned Ahab and Jehoshaphat against the war with Syria but he was not taken seriously. It is very striking that the last words of this prophet Micaiah literally correspond with the first words of Micah the Morasthite "Hear, all ye people" ( hebr . schim'u ' ammim kullam; compare 1 Kings 22:28; 2 Chron. 18:27 with Micah 1:2). The second prophet Micah thus starts where the first ended.

b) Micah and Isaiah

We find remarkably many parallels in the two books of the prophets Micah and Isaiah. They stress the fact that both had the same commission from God at the same time in spite of all differences. They had to warn the people of God and to announce God's judgment but also God's mercy and the Messiah. The following show the main parallels:

Designation of Micah the prophet. Jer. 26:18; Micah 1:1. The name signifies 'a man of Moresheth.'

This prophet is mentioned and quoted in Jer. 26:18. He was called to be one of the Lord's watchmen, much at the same time with Isaiah, and it was a marked time. The history of things in Judah was taking a peculiar character, and things in Israel were ripening for the sickle of the Assyrian. It was a day in importance only second to the day of the Chaldean; but it was second to that, I grant. For the captivity of Israel, or the removal of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, did not involve the house of God as did that of Judah. The glory was still in the land, though Israel had gone away to the river Gozan. But the Chaldean sacked the city of the king, and spoiled the sanctuary of God; and the glory had to depart when Judah became a captive and Jerusalem a desolation. And as the prophetic spirit was largely poured out in that day of the Chaldean, as in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and others, so was it now, as in Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, and others.

MICAH prophesied during the period of Isaiah. He treats of the invasion of the Assyrian and his threats in order to present in a special manner the judgment of Judea, but at the same time Jehovah's blessing in Christ.

MICAH prophesied during the period of Isaiah. He treats of the invasion of the Assyrian and his threats, in order to present in a special manner the judgment of Judea, but at the same time Jehovah's blessing in Christ.