Micheas

Micah, says St. Jerome to Paulinus, of Morasthite, co-heir of Christ, announces the devastation of the daughter of the robber, and sets siege against her, because she struck the jaw of the judge of Israel. Concerning the same, St. Epiphanius writes thus in his Life: Micah of Marathes, a prophet, sprung from the tribe of Ephraim, when he had foretold many things to King Achab of Judah, was cast down and perished by the hand of his son whose name was Joram; because he had rebuked him concerning the iniquities of himself and his forefathers, which he had perpetrated. He, freed from the prison of death, in Marathi his own land, altogether solitary, obtained a tomb beside the polyandrium. His monument is indeed most noble even to this day. The same Dorotheus has in the Life of Micah. These authors therefore hold that this Micah lived in the time of Achab and Jezabel.

But note: First, this Micah is different from Micah the son of Imlah, who foretold the slaughter and death of Achab, III Kings XXI, 14; whom Eusebius in the Chronicle says began to prophesy in the fifth year of Josaphat (although some in Eusebius think Elias should be read for Micah): for that one lived under Achab and Josaphat; but this our one under Jotham and Ahaz: this one therefore was later than that one by two hundred or one hundred fifty years. Again, that one lived in Israel, this one in Judah. Micah prophesied under Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, as he himself says cap. I, 1; therefore not under Josiah, as Isidore has it: for between Jotham and Josiah there elapsed one hundred and twenty years.

Note secondly: This Micah was sprung from Morasthite, which was a village in the tribe of Judah near Eleutheropolis, to the east of it. The Chaldean, Clarius, Arias and Vatablus think it to be the same as Mareshah. For from Mareshah or Moreset the Hebrew patronymic name Morasthite seems to be derived, that is Morasthite, which is attributed to this Micah here. But St. Jerome teaches that the name Morasthite is that of a place distinct from Mareshah. Whence he himself in the Epitaph of Paula writes that in his time there existed there the tomb of Micah, and that it had been converted into a church, which St. Paula visited for the sake of devotion. Thus also Adrichomius and others in the Description of the Holy Land;

thus also Remigius, Haymo, Rupertus, Hugo and Lyra here. Micah therefore was sprung from the tribe of Judah, not Ephraim, as Epiphanius, Isidore and Dorotheus in the Synopsis thought; whence cap. 1, 9, he says: It shall come even to Judah, it shall touch the gate of my people even to Jerusalem. But concerning Mareshah as if concerning a foreign place he says vers. 15: Yet will I bring an heir to thee, O thou that dwellest in Mareshah.

Micah the martyr fell slain by the sword, says Theophylactus; whence he is inscribed in the catalogue of Saints in the Martyrology on the 15th of January. For there we read thus: In Judaea, the holy Habakkuk and Micah the prophets, whose bodies were found under Theodosius the Elder by divine revelation. Sozomenus narrates this revelation in lib. VII, cap. ult., Cassiodorus in Hist. Tripart. lib. I, cap. XLIX, Nicephorus lib. XII, cap. XLVIII. Hear Sozomenus: But not only these things adorned religion, but also Habakkuk, and after him not long after Micah, the first among the Prophets, appeared about this time. But the bodies of both were indicated by divine vision in dreams to Sebennus, then bishop of Eleutheropolis. But the name of that city was Cala, which was formerly called Cila, in which Habakkuk was found. But Baratsatia is a place about ten stadia distant from that city, in which was the tomb of Micah, which monument the natives called faithful, not knowing what they were saying, calling it Nephasa neemana (that is, a faithful soul, or a faithful body: for soul is taken metonymically for body, even dead, namely for a corpse, as I have shown in Leviticus) in their native tongue.

The argument of Micah is to censure idolatry and the vices born from it, and especially the oppression of the poor both in Samaria and Jerusalem; namely both of the ten tribes and of the two. And because Samaria gave the beginning of the idolatry of calves, and communicated it to Judah under Ahaz the impious king, hence he first threatens the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians, then the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and foretells the slaughter and captivity of the people, especially of the princes both lay and ecclesiastical, who were leaders to the people in wickedness. After these sad things, after the manner he subjoins joyful things, and comforts them, promising a joyful return from Babylon through Cyrus, and a more joyful return from sin, death and hell to grace, life and the Church both militant and triumphant through Christ, whom he foretells will be born in Bethlehem.

Note: Micah in style and spirit is similar to Isaiah, and as it were his rival; whence he also cites him sometimes word for word, as will appear cap. IV, 1, and cap. V, 1. See Canon. VI, in the Proem.

We can divide the prophecies of Micah into three parts with Kilber. The first part contains a prophecy as it were legal, presenting judicial actions against both kingdoms of the Hebrews, cap. I-III; the second part, evangelical prophecy, exhibiting the promise of the Christian Church, cap. IV, V; the third part, a prophecy mixed from legal contention and evangelical consolation, cap. VI, VII.

Micah employs a brief, concise, precipitous style, most similar to Hosea, yet De Wette prefers Micah to Hosea as the more sublime and vehement. The tropes are various and elegant, and the rebukes of vices most severe. But since he burns with a certain vivid fire and suddenly flies from one thing to another, he is more obscure and less inclined toward readers. (From Rosenmüller, De Wette, Lowth.) Whoever desires more should consult Eichorn, who has set forth Micah's poetic nature, but as merely natural, in vivid colors (Eichorn. Einleit. sect. 582).