Micah
Introduction
Person of the Prophet. - Micah, מיכה, an abbreviated form of מיכיה (Micaiah), as he is called in Jer 26:18, which is also a contraction of מיכיהוּ, “who is as Jehovah?” - i.e., one dedicated to Jehovah the incomparable God (Greek, Μιχαίας; Vulg. Michaeas or Micha, Neh 11:17) - is called hammorashtı̄, the Morashitite, i.e., sprung from Moresheth-gath in the plain of Judah (see at Mic 1:14), to distinguish him from the elder prophet Micah the son of Imlah (1Ki 22:8.), as well as from other persons of the same name, of whom ten are met with in the Old Testament, apart from Maacah the wife of Rehoboam, a grand-daughter of Absalom (1Ki 15:2, 1Ki 15:10, 1Ki 15:13; 2Ch 11:20.), who is also called מכיהוּ in 2Ch 13:2 (see Caspari on Micha, p. 3ff.). Our Micah was therefore a Judaean, and prophesied, according to the heading to his book, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah; so that he was contemporaneous with Isaiah. He prophesied “concerning Samaria and Jerusalem,” the capitals of the two kingdoms, that is to say, concerning all Israel, the fate of which was determined by the circumstances and fates of the two capitals. The correctness of this statement, and at the same time the genuineness of the heading, are confirmed by the contents of the book. Micah not only predicts, in Mic 1:6-7, the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah; but he also mentions Asshur, the great enemy of Israel at that time, as the representative of the power of the world in its hostility to the kingdom of God (Mic 5:4); and he agrees so thoroughly with Isaiah in his description of the prevailing moral corruption, as well as in his Messianic
