Micah's great message.—It was, of course, the existence of superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this sacrifice or that—or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah. Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children.
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."
Study Topics
1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1 Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh, read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease.
2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of superstitious fear?
3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can about his personal history and work.
4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how?
FOOTNOTES:
[4] 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version.