Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Micah · About this commentary
Yahweh's Case Against His People
Micah 6:1-5
1 Listen now to what Yahweh says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. · WEB
The third address is a lawsuit in which the plaintiff opens by inviting the defendant to state the charge against him.
The mountains and the enduring foundations of the earth are called as the panel, which is a way of saying the witnesses predate both parties. What is brought is a case — the Hebrew noun and its verb both belong to legal dispute — and the defendant is his own people.
Verse 3 gives the chapter its force. Instead of an indictment, a question: my people, what have I done to you, how have I wearied you, answer me. The one with the grievance asks to be accused first. Nothing suggests this is rhetorical fencing; it is offered as genuinely open, and the silence that follows is the answer.
The recital in verses 4 and 5 is the evidence, and it runs where such recitals run — the land of EGYPT , redemption from a house of slaves, three leaders named with Miriam beside her brothers. Then a stranger item: what Balak planned and what Balaam answered, and the road from Shittim to Gilgal .
That last is chosen with care. It is the one occasion in the recital when the danger was invisible to the people it threatened — a king hiring a curse they never heard, on a road they walked without knowing. The evidence for God's righteous acts includes the rescues nobody noticed at the time.
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