Micah 5:10-15
10 ‘In that day,’ declares the Lord,
‘I will destroy your horses from among you
and demolish your chariots.
11 I will destroy the cities of your land
and tear down all your strongholds.
12 I will destroy your witchcraft
and you will no longer cast spells.
13 I will destroy your idols
and your sacred stones from among you;
you will no longer bow down
to the work of your hands.
14 I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles
when I demolish your cities.
15 I will take vengeance in anger and wrath
on the nations that have not obeyed me.’
Today we get another of those sudden about-turns that seem characteristic of Micah.
Yesterday, we were celebrating the prospect of God’s people decisively triumphing over their
enemies. And so we might expect v10 to say something like ‘In that day, you will rest secure,
declares the Lord.” Instead of which, we find a fresh wave of destruction beginning. This
time, it’s not the nation destroying their invader. Rather, we’re back to the theme of God
bringing destruction that we saw in earlier chapters. It feels a bit like one of those complicated
films where the good guys turn out to actually be the bad guys, and people who you thought
were the bad guys end up saving the day. Just whose side is God on here? Are his people
the innocent victims of oppression, who he swoops in to rescue. Or are they idolatrous
rebels who he arrives to judge? We’d really like it to be black and white, clear cut, but
instead it feels more like a confusing mix of shades of grey.
The truth is, this book – like all of life – is more complicated than we’d like it to be. The
people of Micah’s day are both a weak nation, about to be overrun by an aggressive
superpower, from whom God will eventually rescue them AND they’re a rebellious people
facing the consequences of rejecting their Lord. They – like us – are both sufferers and
sinners at the same time. And God is both their rescuing shepherd and their awesome
judge, just as he is ours.
We see that so clearly in these verses – Yes, he acts destructively but look at what he
destroys… their witchcraft, their spells, their idols, their Asherah poles. God is taking a
wrecking ball to the things that they treasure, but only because those things are doing them
great harm. This destruction is not an uncontrollable outburst of anger, but a careful,
thorough cleansing of the people and the land, getting rid of everything that has spoiled their
relationship with their Lord. I think that’s why horses, chariots, strongholds and cities are also
earmarked for destruction – these may well have been the things that the people trusted in
to save them, once they’d stopped trusting God. So, let’s thank God today that he loves us
enough not to leave our idols intact, but it committed to dealing decisively with our sin – even
though it cost him his one and only Son.
