Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/968

of their abettors the false prophets. (Mic 2:6-11); after which this address closes with a brief promise of the eventual restoration of the remnant of Israel to favour (Mic 2:12, Mic 2:13). The second address closes with a brief promise of the eventual restoration of the remnant of Israel to favour (Mic 2:12, Mic 2:13). The second address spreads itself out still more elaborately in the first half (Mic 3:1-12) over the sins and crimes of the heads of the nation, viz., the princes, the false prophets, the unjust judges and bad priests; and because of these sins threatens the destruction and utter devastation of Zion, and the temple hill. As an antithesis to this threat, the second half (Mic 4:1-13 and Mic 5:1-15) contains a promise, commencing with the opening of a prospect of the glorification of Zion and Israel at the end of the days (Mic 4:1-7), advancing to an assurance of the restoration of the former dominion of the daughter of Zion, after the people have first been carried away to Babel, and rescued again out of the hand of their enemies, and of her triumph in the last conflict with the nations of the world (Mic 4:8 -14), and culminating in the announcement of the birth of the great Ruler in Israel, who will arise out of Bethlehem, and feed His people in the majesty of Jehovah (Mic 5:1-5), and not only protect the rescued remnant of Jacob against the attacks of the imperial kingdom, but exalt it into a beneficent, and at the same time fearful, power to the heathen nations (Mic 5:6-8), and establish a kingdom of blessed peace (Mic 5:9-14). The third address sets forth the way to salvation in the dramatic dress of a law-suit between Jehovah and His people, by exhibiting the divine benefits for which Israel had repaid its God with ingratitude, and by a repeated allusion to the prevailing sins and unrighteousness which God must punish (ch. 6), and also by showing how the consciousness of misery will lead to the penitential confession of guilt and to conversion, and by encouraging to believing trust in the compassion upon His people, rebuild Zion, and humble the foe, and by renewing the miracles of the olden time fill all nations with fear of His omnipotence (Micah 7:1-17); after which the prophet closes his book with praise for the sin-forgiving grace of the Lord (Mic 7:18-20).
From this general survey of the contents of the three addresses, their internal connection may be at once perceived. In the first the threatening of judgment predominates; in the second the announcement of the Messianic salvation; in the