1 Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has a case against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
Micah 6:1-8 (NRSVue)
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God?
Divine pathos in Micah 6:1-8 mirrors the suffering of the defenseless articulated in the book of Micah. It offers the elite Judahites an opportunity to reconfigure their life as part of the larger fabric of God’s people whom they have wronged willfully and publicly. The public exploitation will now be challenged openly before prominent witnesses. In an act of divine solidarity, YHWH takes a stand as a prosecutor of the powerful and supporter of the victimized.
Micah 6:1-8 is a covenant lawsuit: it opens with an account of identifying the witnesses (6:1-2), a three-step summary of God’s historical faithfulness (6:3-5), a series of questions by an unidentified defendant (6:6-7), and finally, God’s response on the religious and ethical standards of the covenantal relationship (6:8). Most of these sections of the text introduce an unexpected and marginal element to create solidarity with the victimized. The author’s literary choice of mountains as witnesses, God as the mourner, Miriam as one of the three central figures of God’s liberation from slavery, and a combination of three ethical standards- do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, interact to form a strong literary solidarity to give voice to the marginal and victimized in the book. Although the lectionary selection departs from the hope-filled promise of restoration in Micah 5 and does not name the defenseless explicitly, Micah 6 in its canonical context presupposes their suffering. The suffering of the defenseless is also evident in other parts of Micah (2:1-2, 8-9; 3:2-3, 9-11; 6:11-12; 7:2-4). In focusing on the literary marginalities in the text, and God’s self-disclosure as a mourner, Micah 6:1-8 weaves the suffering of the marginalized with the suffering of God, thus providing a framework for a reconfigured community.
First, mountains are positioned as witnesses in the lawsuit against the elite Judahites (6:1-2). God takes the stand on behalf of the defenseless and invokes mountains and hills as witnesses to a public hearing. The literary presence of the cosmic elements in the narrative movement of Micah is succinctly highlighted by Hebrew Bible scholar Dominic S. Irudayaraj, who delineates their varied functions and traces the thematic shifts of judgment and promise they embody. As Irudayaraj rightly suggests, each reference to mountains, hills, and foundations in Micah symbolize the effects of God’s activity: they melt at God’s self-revelation (1:4); the mountain of the temple becomes a mound of rubble, symbolizing judgment (2:12); mountains are desired as the highest place for the restored (4:1-2); they are a place of God’s reign (4:7); they are witnesses to a public dispute (6:1-2); and finally, they signify the geographical markers of the earth (7:12). While mountains evidently have multiple functions in these texts, they uniquely signify permanence – their presence at the beginning of God’s covenantal relationship, in God’s self-revelation and benevolence, in God’s presence throughout their many journeys. As enduring witnesses to both divine judgment and the vulnerability of the defenseless, their presence was the preferred witness in the lawsuit (symbolized in the vocabulary “hear,” “contend,” and “case/controversy”). They stand out for their permanence in contrast to the elite Judahites’ fragility. Their witness can reinforce the innocence of the marginalized.
Second, God is a mourner (6:3-5). Embodying the wounds of the children, women, the wronged, and the exploited, God’s tone in Micah 6:3-5 softens to present a grieving God. In direct contrast to the portrayal of God’s power and glory rooted in the judgement against the hurtful (1:3-4), God’s characterization in this section is bereaved. Weaving the vulnerability of the oppressed people into God’s grief, in this lawsuit, God bemoans the actions of the priests, prophets, and rulers. A frequent violation of the marginalized and oppression of the defenseless indicates Judahites’ explicit withdrawal from the covenantal relationship. As a vulnerable defender and a sole partner upholding the covenant faithfully, God takes the role of a mourner.
These verses combine God’s complaint against the elite Judahites and grief for the broken relationship. God’s lament is evidenced in the text in multiple ways: first, the combination of the words, “my people,” the twice-repeated interrogative pronouns “what,” the causative verb “wearied,” and the distressed anticipation to hear the “answer.” Second, in taking the stand as a lamenter, God charges with three rhetorical questions about God’s active presence in the most crucial moments of Israelite history. 1) Deliverance from slavery in Egypt (6:4). 2) God’s active protection, through the foreign prophet Balaam, from the irrational fear and curses of King Balak of Moab. This refers to the narrative in Numbers 22-24. Balak’s success would have prevented Israel from entering the promised land. 3) Upholding covenant faithfulness in their journey from Shittim to Gilgal (6:5). Shittim is the last stop before crossing of the Jordan (Josh 3:1) and Gilgal, the first place where they dwelt in the promised land. These places evoke the end of a prolonged liminal experience and the realization of God’s promise. These three moments in Israelite history required God’s active presence amid the most turbulent times. Divine lament against the elite Judahites functions as a complaint against their forgetfulness, symbolized in the invitation to “remember” in verse 5. By iterating this historical memory, God invites them to restore their relationship to the people, a restoration which will in turn be reflected in their relationship with God.
To be fair, none of the words suggested above are dominant terminology in the lament genre. However, as Hebrew Bible scholar Terrence Fretheim rightly argues, “‘my people’ or ‘dear my people’ (the daughter of my people) rings with hurt and disappointment wherever it appears (116).” The hurt caused by the lack of covenant faithfulness reflected in the relationship to the neighbor, grieved God. Additionally, the address “my people,” in 6:3 echoes the human lament in Psalm 22, where God is addressed as “my God,” amidst the feeling of abandonment. Departing from the traditional imagery of a warrior and a judge, the metaphor of mourner captures God’s act wholistically. Divine lament in Micah 6:3-5 yearns for a relationship not built on utter judgment and annihilation but based on rational conclusions of God’s faithfulness at the toughest times of Israelite history. Additionally, laments imagine a new world, new reality despite the experience of the contrary. The divine lament in Micah 6:3-4 imagines a restored relationship with the covenant partner.
Third, the reference to Miriam as one of the central figures in the redemption from Egyptian slavery seems to diverge from the many references of God’s active agency in liberating the Israelites. Her presence with Moses and Aaron is sudden and not elaborated, limiting the interpretative possibilities of Micah 6:4. This is the only instance in the HB, Miriam appears as one of the prominent characters in the liberation from slavery along with Moses and Aaron. Said as a matter of fact, it appears that Micah’s audience are aware of Miriam’s role in ushering in the liberation of the Israelites. Feminist biblical scholars have taken her presence in Micah as important information in reconstructing Miriam’s role in the Hebrew Bible. Miriam appears in three references in the Torah: her presumable role in protecting her infant brother Moses in Exodus 2, her identity as prophet in Exodus 15:20, and her challenge to the leadership of Moses in Numbers 12. Feminist Biblical scholar Julie M. O’Brien’s excursus on “Miriam Matters” in her Wisdom commentary on Micah provides a summary of the trajectory of Miriam’s reception history. What is helpful to note here is that Miriam’s presence in the narrative framework of Micah is crucial in the context of the covenant lawsuit, especially in her bold stance against exclusively male leadership.
Similar to the mountains and hills, Miriam stands as a witness to God’s historical faithfulness not as a mere historical figure but as God’s active agent. As one of the subjects of the Hebrew word “send” in Micah 6:4, Miriam is recognized for her prophetic role in receiving and communicating God’s messages. As a sister, prophet, leader, and as an advocate for women’s authentic leadership, Miriam’s place in Micah 6:4 is not misplaced. It contrasts the experience of women as spoils of war and vulnerable members of Micah’s community. She joins Micah in his care for the vulnerable, in his critique of leaders and false prophets, and her solidarity with the marginal women. Her presence opens interpretive possibilities for her solidarity and mirrors God’s solidarity with the marginalized of Micah’s world.
And finally, a disposition of justice, mercy, and humility. Judahites are invited to both “hear” (6:1) and let their voice heard (6:2). Micah 6:1-2 opens with prophet’s words – “Hear what the Lord says.” The public and communal command to “hear” in the imperative plural is repeated in Micah 1:2; 3:1, 9; 6:1, 2. It functions like the shema (hear) in Deuteronomy 6:4, where the command is to listen wholly and embody the instruction. This summons to hear does not anticipate a monologue but is an invitation to a dialogue. In response to the call to answer, however, the defendant does not respond to God’s specific questions. Instead, they pose a series of their own questions related to the sacrificial system. Intensifying in value and quantity of the prospective offering, the defendant’s exaggerated questions – about burnt offerings with calves a year old, thousands of rams with ten thousand of rivers of oil, offering the first-born – together these point to the accumulated wealth of the defendant.
The economic policies shaped by the wealthy that benefit the wealthy put the weak and marginal at risk. To offer a portion of that ill-gotten wealth to appease God echoes their corrupt practices condemned earlier in Micah 3:11: “Its rulers give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.” To legitimize their corruption, they co-opt God in their unjust and marginalizing practices.
As a corrective to their corruption and total misconception of God’s character, Micah puts forth the disposition God requires – the triad to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. A verse often regarded as one of the moral compasses of the prophetic tradition, it depicts the crux of Micah’s message as social justice. God’s character in Micah 6:1-8 is rooted in God’s justice. The combination of justice (mishpat), mercy (hesed), and humility (hatsnea) is evermore required in a world torn by war, colonial encroachment, genocide, silencing of dissent voices, religious fundamentalism, ecological disasters and many more.
God challenges the economic systems built on tearing the skin off the people and flesh off their bones (3:2), and policies and systems that thrive on the fear of the marginal communities. In a careful examination of the marginal cosmic elements, faithful actions (lament), characters (Miriam), and an emphasis on justice, literary solidarities for a reconfigured community is imagined. God stands in solidarity with the marginalized in the public space and calls for accountability of the offenders with explicit messages of justice, mercy, and humility. Such divine self revelation serves both as a critique of their policies and an invitation and opportunity to return to the covenantal partnership.
