AP

Micah 7:8-10  Do not gloat over me, my enemy!  Though I have fallen, I will rise.  Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.  Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD’s wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause.  He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.  Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame, she who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?”  My eyes will see her downfall; even now she will be trampled underfoot like mire in the streets.

Although, like Isaiah, Micah prophesied before Babylon attacked God’s Covenant People and took them into captiviity for 70 years, that powerful Chaldean nation was a constant threat to their national security.  It was customary to personify an enemy nation with the feminine pronoun (as the book of Revelation does with ‘Babylon’ in the NT), and certainly proud, powerful nations like Babylon and Assyria made effective use of mockery to destabilise and undermine the confidence of nations they had in their plans for conquest, so it is not hard to see the context of Micah’s words here.

Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Micah was only too aware of the sinfulness of God’s people and that this put them at the mercy of God’s wrath.  His words here ought to be a comfort and encouragement to God’s People, his Church throughout the world, today.  We, too, are aware of our constant failures to be his faithful, holy ‘Bride’, and can understand our culture’s readiness to mock the fact that we have ceased to have the same effectiveness and influence in national and international affairs that we once had.

But, because we live on the other side of Jesus’ Death, Resurrection and Ascension from the OT prophets, we can say with even greater confidence, and evidence to back it: “Though I have fallen, I will rise.  Though I sit in darkness, Jesus (the NT identity of ‘the LORD’!) will be my light.  Because I have sinned against him, [he has borne] the LORD’s wrath [in my place], [and] he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light; I will see [and claim] his righteousness”.

And as we wait for him to return in power to take his place as God’s rightful King, when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11), let us be much involved in prayer and evangelism so that as few people as possible (especially among our families, friends and neighbours) will be “trampled underfoot like mire in the streets” when he does!

– Bruce Christian