MTBZAR (mIb'zar), (Heb. mib-tsawr', fortress), one of the petty chiefs of Edom, a de scendant of Esau (Gen. xxxvi:42; Citron. i:53), B. C. after 1905.
(mrkah),(Heb.77;'', mee-kaw', who is like Jehovah).
1. One of the twelve Minor Prophets who, according to the inscription of the book, prophe sied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Heze kiah (B. C. and was consequently con temporary with Isaiah. It is, however, doubtful whether any accurate separation of the particular prophecies of Micah can be ascertained. He was a native of Moresheth of Gath 0:14,15), so called to distinguish it from another town of the same name, in the tribe of Judah (Josh. xv :44; 2 Chron. xiv :9, to). Micah is to be distinguished from a former prophet of the same name, called also Micaialt, mentioned in Kings xxii :8 (B. C. 897).
2. An Ephraimite, apparently contemporary with the elders who outlived Joshua. He secretly appropriated 1,too shekels of silver which his mother had saved ; but being alarmed at her im precations on the author of her loss, he confessed the matter to her, and restored the money. She then forgave him, and returned him the silver, to be applied to the use for which it had been ac cumulated. Two hundred shekels of the amount were given to the founder, as the cost or material of two teraphim, the one molten and the other graven ; and the rest of the money served to cover the other expenses of the semi-idolatrous estab lishment which was formed in the house of Micah, of which a wandering Levite became the priest, at a yearly stipend ; till the Danite army, on their journey to settle northward in Laish, took away both the establishment and the priest, which they afterwards maintained in their new settlement (Judg. xviii :18). (See DAN ; JONATHAN, 1). The
establishments of this kind, of which there are other instances—as that of Gideon at Ophrah— were, although most mistakenly, formed in honor of Jehovah, whom they thus sought to serve by means of a local worship, in imitation of that at Shiloh. This was in direct contravention of the law, which allowed but one place of sacrifice and ceremonial service; and was something of the same kind, al though different in extent and degree, as the serv ice of the golden calves, which Jeroboam set up, and his successors maintained, in Dan and Bethel. The previous existence of Micah's establishment in the former city no doubt pointed it out to Jero boam as a suitable place for one of his golden calves.
3. Son of Merib-baal, or Alephiltosheth, son of Jonathan (t Chron. viii :34. 35; ix:4o, 41), B. C. after to37. He is called MicliA (2 Sam. ix:12).
4. A Kohathite Levite of the house of Uzziel, and the first in rank according to the arrangement of David (1 Chron. xxiii :2o), B. C. to14. (Sec