The next picture it much like a three paneled mural. Micah chapter 6 hold a favorite verse that is a popular scripture song: verse 8. And that is the last part of this three paneled piece, but I don’t think we adequately appreciate verse 8 because we don’t usually step back and see it in its relationship with the surrounding text.
The Lord’s Complaint (vs. 1-5)
The first section this piece is actually the longest: Micah 6:1-5. The first two verses invites the mountains and the hills to hear the Lord’s complaint against Israel (His people). I find it a little curious that God calls on nature to witness to the righteousness of God’s dealings with His people. But mountains and hills were the traditional places of worship.
Consider the mountain witnesses:
- Mount Moriah, also called “The-Lord-Will-Provide”, where Abraham took Isaac (Gen. 22);
- Mount Horeb where Moses encounters God in the burning bush (Ex. 3);
- Mount Sinai where God re-established the Abrahamic covenant with Israel (Ex. 19, 10);
- Mount Gerizim and Ebal where Joshua renews the covenant and the blessing and curses are pronounced (Judges 8)
- Mount Gilboa where King Saul was killed after he departed from the Lord (1 Sam. 31)
- Mount Moriah, also called Zion, where Solomon built the Lord’s temple (1 Kings 3)
- Mount Carmel where Elijah alone represented the Lord against the 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18)
- And all the unnamed mountains and hills where the children of Israel set up altars to false gods to emulate the surrounding nations