MICAH, THE PROPHET. Sept. Mixatas ; Vulg. lifichaeas. The full form of the Hebrew name is tir0;40 (who is like Jehovah?), 2 Chron.
xiii. 2; xvii, 7; abbreviated first to VIVO, Judg.
= • xvii. 1-4 ; then to Irr:n, Jer. r, or MVO, := • Kings xxii. 13 ; and finally to n34p• In the Sep tuagint Micah ranks third among the prophets, and in the arrangement of the present Hebrew copies he is placed the sixth of the minor prophets. In point of time he might be classed as fourth in the pro phetic series—Jonah, Joel, and Amos having pre ceded him. Of his life nothing is known. In Jer. xxvi. 18, and in the inscription to his oracles, he is called Micah the Morasthite.' The epithet was probably given to distinguish him from an older prophet, Micaiah the son of Imlah, who lived in the period of Elijah. Some of the fathers, as Jerome, Athanasius, and Eusebius, have identified the two men, though they were separated by more than a century, and, according to Bleek, the com piler of the Book of Kings has fallen into the same anachronism (Einleit. p. 539). Bleek's one proof is the similarity between the beginning of this pro phecy and an oracle of Micaiah the son of Imlah, recorded in t Kings xxii. 28, the repeated formula being the simple one, Hearken, 0 people, every one of you.' The assertion of Hengstenberg, and of Naegelsbach (Herzog's .Encyclopzedia, art. Micah), that this repetition was intentional, and was meant to form a kind of link in the prophetic succession, is as unwarranted, on the one hand, as is that of Bleek on the other, for such an initial note of warning was surely natural to one bearing a momentous ' divine message. Micah was of Moresheth—either as born in it or identified with it as his home — though Jerusalem seems to have been the scene of his prophetic activity. Jerome and Eusebius call it Morasthi, and the first says it is a hamlet—fraud sTrandis viczclus—to the east of Eleutheropolis and in its immediate neighbourhood. The Morasthite is therefore no patronymic, as the Septuagint gives it----Tov TOD MatpacrBel—in this place, though the reading is different under Jer. xxvi. 18—d Aiwa &Tyr. The word in this first verse is translated by the Chaldee and Syriac versionists, and in the Septuagint and Vulgate, as a common noun xXnpovogia, Haereditas. It is probable, but not absolutely certain, that the place is the same as Moresheth-gath, i. 14—a town belonging to Judah. It is doubtful, as Robinson suggests, whether Je rome does not confound Mareshah with Moresheth —or perhaps they were near one another. Jerome says further of the Sepulchrum quondam Michaire prophet nunc Ecclesiam,' Ep. toS, ad Eustochium [MORESHETH-GATH ; MARESHAH]. (Robinson's Biblical Researches, vol. ii. p. 68.) Ewald remarks that Micah gives proof that he belonged to a small city of the lowlands, as he chiefly refers to such towns both in his threatenings and in his promises of mercy (i. to, 15 ; v. 2), Die Propketen, p. 324. According to Sozomen, Eccles. vii. 29, the remains of Habakkuk and Micah were brought to light under the Emperor Theodosius—those of the latter being found at a place called Beratsatia, ten stadia from Cela while his tomb was ignorantly called by the people Nephsameemana, an Aramaic word which he interprets into Greek as pszijaa rlarov.
According to the inscription—and there is no reason to doubt its genuineness—Micah prophesied `in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.' His ministry began at some point in Jotham's reign, and terminated at some point in Hezekiah's, giving a duration of from twenty to twenty-five years—for one need not give the extreme termini of the accession of Jotham and the death of Hezekiah, comprising a period of more than half a century, or from B.C. 756 to 697. The inscription, however, has been called in question. On the one hand, Bertholdt holds that none of Micah's oracles belong to the period of Hezekiah, but to the times of Ahaz and Manasseh, Einleit. sec. 411. But his proofs based on denunciations of idolatry are very precarious, for even in the days of Jotham and Hezekiah polytheism had deeply leavened the people, bringing along with it superstitious prac tices and moral declension. Hartmann and Eich horn go still farther, and refer them wholly to the reign of Manasseh, though they admit that Micah flourished in Hezekiah's time, or from the 14th year of his reign. De Wette would give the last years of Ahaz and the first of Hezekiah, as the period of Micah's prophetical work. Little argu ment can be gathered from the allusions to neigh bouring kingdoms, since what is said of them in Micah quite harmonizes with what is known of them during the reigns of these three Jewish sovereigns. On the other hand, Ewald, Hitzig, Bleek, Knobel (Prophetismus, ii. p. 203), and Maurer (Comment. Gram., ii. p. 243), while not denying that the prophet may have lived and laboured under Jotham and Ahaz, maintain that the oracles, as preserved in his book, belong all to the reign of Hezekiah. But it may be replied, that many references fit in to the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz. The allusion in v. to to the war-horses and chariots, and for tresses, is surely applicable to the reign of Jotham, the successor of him who fortified the capital, built towers, invented engines to shoot arrows and great stones,' and had a large and disciplined body-guard, as well as a prodigious host, equipped with the finest armour (2 Chron. xxvi. 9, 10, 141 15)
The allusions to idolatrous usages are in keeping with the historical accounts of the reign of Ahaz. It is said of him (1 Kings xvi. 3), that he walked in the way of the king of Israel ;' and Micah gives, as one reason of the divine anger, The statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels.' Shall I give my first-born for my transgression ?' was a question of peculiar point under a sovereign who burned his children in the fire' (2 Chron. xxviii. 3). The frightful state of morals, false teaching, selfishness, rapacity, and injustice described in Micah agrees well with'the reign of Ahaz, by whom the nation was brought to the verge of ruin, and who was not privileged to be buried in the sepulchres of the kings' (2 Chron. xxviii. 27). While the first chapter refers to the fall of idola trous Samaria as a catastrophe soon to happen, it at the same time menaces Jerusalem, especially on account of its high places.' Besides, would it not be strange that the oracles delivered under Jotham and Ahaz had perished, and only those under Hezekiah were preserved ? Better is it to suppose that Micah's prophecies were recast and collected together as we now have them in the early period of Hezekiah, or before the sixth year of his reign—the period of the destruction of Sa maria. Great stress is laid on the quotation from Micah iii. 12 in Jer. xxvi. 18, Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake unto all the assembly of the people, saying—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 ploughed like a field,' etc. This appeal was made in the reign of Jehoiakim. It is as useless on the part of Ewald to base the refer ence on the good historical recollection' of the elders, as it is on the part of Havemick to suppose that the elders were survivors from the period of its first utterance. Nor can we agree with Hengstenherg (Christol. i. 48o), apparently endorsed by Keil (Einleit., p. 297), that Hezekiah is singled out because he alone of the three kings mentioned in the inscription was possessed of theocratic authority, in that he had listened to the voice of the prophets ; and because Micah pro bably collected his oracles under his reign. But really, the quotation by the elders only proves that this individual prophecy was delivered in the reign of Hezekiah, and it affirms nothing as to the time of the other oracles. Nay more, the quotation affords a strong presumption in favour of the genuineness of the inscription ; as a mere redactor, aware of the reference in Jeremiah to king Heze kiah, would have been strongly tempted to place the era of Micah's prophetic activity under that monarch alone. We can lay no stress on another argument which Caspari (Lieber Micha, p. 6o) ad duces as of convincing power, and which is based on the identity of a paragraph in Isaiah ii. 2-5, with that in Micah i. 1-4. He assumes that the passage in Micah is the original, and that Isaiah made a borrowed use of it ; Pusey adds, that the opinion is owned well-nigh on all hands' (Minor Pro phets, p. 289). If Micah be the author, then it would prove him a contemporary of Isaiah at an early period of his career, even when Jotham was associated in the government with his father Uz ziah. But it is hard to find which is the earlier composition. If it be said that in Micah it appears to be an integral part of an oracle, brought out into relief by the previous prediction of the over throw of Jerusalem, then it may be replied, that in Isaiah it stands as the first formal utterance, im mediately after the distinct preamble—the word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.' The probability is rather that the oracle used by both belongs to an earlier age, and commended itself to two prophets of kindred spirit. Perhaps, however, the original form is more dis tinctly preserved in Micah. The last or fourth verse seems an essential part of the oracle, and verse terse, rythmical, and suggestive, in Micah—is toned down into a brief exhortation in Isaiah. But see Gesenius (Con:mentor fiber d. Yesaia, in loc., p. 177). The use of the abbreviated form of the prophet's name in the inscription does not point of itself to a late age. The Kethib, indeed, gives the longer form in Jer. xxvi. 18, but the shorter occurs even in Judg. xvii. I, 4, 5, 8 ; and though the briefer form of such a word is always a second form, it is impossible to say when the change was effected, or how gradually it came into use. Lastly, the arrangement of Wells (117iccrh, Pref., sec. 4-6) cannot be borne out, as it is too minute and mechanical ; for he places the first chapter under Jotham, the next two chapters under Ahaz, and the rest under Hezekiah—while there are really no palpable criteria for such a sharp and definite adjustment.