An inheritance is so deeply sacred. It’s the last gift your loved ones leave to you. And the Israelites had figured out ways to steal others inheritances. That was just one of their many sins.
They drove women out of their homes (v. 9), you take their inheritance (v. 9), you stole others houses (v2) and found ways to satiate greed at the expense of the suffering of other people. They defiled what was sacred to others.
So the Lord had enough of the cries of the suffering. He was going to bring judgment.
But the prophets who wanted to please and profit from the people told the people God wasn’t going to bring judgment on them. Those negative prophets were just fear-mongerers. They told the true prophets of God like Micah to stop prophesying.
The Lord says,
“If a liar and deliver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer, he would be just the prophet for this people!” (v. 11).
They wanted their pleasures more than they wanted righteousness. Truth. Or God.
But make not mistake, judgment was going to come. Sin always harms people. And the cries of the suffering had reached his limit.
There would be hope though. He would punish them and send them to exile, but one day they would come back. They would one day be delivered.
—
I think of several things when I read this.
- Sin always harms people. Always. There are no “little” sins that do not harm another person.
- Pride is blinding. I’ve talked to more than one young person in this nation that says we won’t fall. We are too strong and too powerful and the best. Ugh. Sorry but we are already fallen more than the world understands.
- We tend to want to only hear the good from God and not judgment. And sometimes people only want to hear the judgment and not the good from God.
