Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/1060

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His incomparable nature in grace and compassion. The words נשׂא עון וגו are formed after Exo 34:6-7, where the Lord, after the falling away of Israel from Him by the worship of the golden calf, reveals Himself to Moses as a gracious and merciful God, who forgives guilt and sin. But this grace and compassion are only fully revealed in the restoration and blessing of the remnant of His nation by Jesus Christ. (For Mic 7:18, see Psa 103:9.) As One who delighteth in mercy, He will have compassion upon Israel again (yâshūbh used adverbially, as in Hos 14:8, etc.), will tread down its sins, i.e., conquer their power and tyranny by His compassion, and cast them into the depths of the sea, as He once conquered the tyrant Pharaoh and drowned him in the depths of the sea (Exo 15:5, Exo 15:10). This believing assurance then closes with the prayer (tittēn is optative) that the Lord will give His rescued nation truth and mercy (‘ĕmeth and chesed, after Eze 34:6), i.e., give them to enjoy, or bestow upon them, what He had sworn to the patriarchs (Gen 22:16). Abraham and Jacob are mentioned instead of their family (cf. Isa 41:8).
With this lofty praise of the Lord, Micah closes not only the last words, but his whole book. The New Testament parallel, as Hengstenberg has correctly observed, is Rom 11:33-36; and the μυστήριον made known by the apostle in Rom 11:25. gives us a view of the object and end of the ways of the Lord with His people.