Micah 3

LXX: And he will say: Hear these things, O princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel. The sentence clings to what went before. For above he had said: But the Lord will be the leader, and he will say: Hear, O princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel. For "the rest of the house of Israel", all except the Seventy translated "leaders of the house of Israel". The Lord, therefore, who made a way for his people, and went out before their face, and is himself the leader of the journey of the simpler people, whom he calls his flock, threatens those who are unwilling to follow him as he goes before, but are proud, and, as judges of the people, do not follow his footsteps, and he says: Hear, O princes of the house of Jacob, and leaders of the house of Israel. But what is it that compels them to hear? It is not yours, he says, to know judgment, you who hate the good, and seek evils; that is, you do not deserve to know the judgment of God, which is a great abyss, and the depth of his justice a perverse mind does not find. Or how can you know the judgment of God, you who hate the good and seek evil, who loathe the holy poor and honor rich sinners? And at the same time let us consider the force of the words: if not to love good things is a mark of sin, of how great a crime is it even to hate them? And on the contrary, if not to flee evil things is a fault, of how great an impiety is it even to seek them out diligently? After this the savagery of the judges is described, and their cruelty toward those subject to them.

And I said: Hear, O princes of Jacob, and leaders of the house of Israel. Is it not yours to know judgment, you who hate the good and love evil, who violently tear their skins from off them, and their flesh from off their bones, who have eaten the flesh of my people, and flayed their skin from off them; and they have broken their bones, and chopped them up as in a cauldron, and like flesh in the midst of a pot. Then they will cry to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will hide his face from them at that time, as they have acted wickedly in their devices. The word is plainly directed against the princes of Israel, and under the metaphor of lions or of robbers their cruelty is described: that they despoiled the poor, and killed them, and crushed their flesh and bones; and that, as in the midst of a pot, so in the city of Jerusalem they afflicted the wretched common people; and that on account of these things punishment is afterwards brought upon them in the day of captivity, whether by Nebuchadnezzar or by Vespasian and Titus. And they cry to the Lord, and he does not hear them, and he hides his face from them, because they acted wickedly in their crimes.

For the Prophets ever rebuked them, saying, "Hear, ye rulers of Sodom"; and, "Thy rulers are disobedient"; and again, "Is it not for you to know judgment?" And everywhere they attack them vehemently. What then? Shall one blame God for this? Away with the thought. This blame is theirs. And what other proof can a man bring of your not knowing the Law than your not obeying it?

He delivers this address to the leaders: those entrusted with judgment trampled on justice; hence he puts it in the form of a question, Was it not you who had responsibility for judging, for punishing the guilty and letting the innocent go free without blame? How did you, then, who were entrusted with administering the laws, turn from the practice of good works and ardently support evil? You exercised such greed in regard to the needy as to strip them of all their possessions (suggesting this by saying "robbing people of their skins and the flesh from their bones").

LXX: Tearing away their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones. As they have devoured the flesh of my people, and flayed the skins from them, and broken their bones, and chopped them up like flesh in a cauldron, and like flesh in a pot; so will they cry to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will turn away his face from them at that time, because they have acted most wickedly in their devices. It had not been enough for them to despoil the flock subject to them, but they also afflicted their bodies with harsh rule, and crushed their bones, so as to break and grind whatever perhaps had been in them. As, therefore, they despoiled my people, and stripped them of all the beauty and comeliness of their skin, and put their flesh and bones into the boiling pot which the Assyrian king kindled, handing my flock over to the devil and his angels, so they too, when the day of vengeance has come, will cry to the Lord and will not be heard, because they themselves did not hear those who asked; and they will stretch out their hands to the Lord, and God will turn away his face from them, because they too turned away their countenance from those who entreated them. And they will suffer all these things because they acted most wickedly in their pursuits and in their pleasures; and they were not kings but tyrants, not overseers but lions, not teachers of disciples but wolves of the sheep; and they glutted themselves with flesh, and grew fat, and, like a most fat victim of slaughter, were also made ready for the punishments of the Lord. Thus far against the wicked princes; the word that follows is against the false prophets and the very wicked teachers, who trip up the people of God with flattery, promising knowledge of the Scriptures.

"The sun will go down" upon those prophets who lead my people astray, dwelling in darkness. "It will be night for you, without vision, and it will be dark for you, without dawn." "For, when [the spirit] goes out of a man, it goes about wandering." It does this quite by nature. [The Lord] rendered this judgment with regard to [the people]: "Thus will it be for this generation." That is, in the days of the prophets the evil spirit had gone out from them, [that spirit] that was sin itself.

But if we choose to take what is said according to the Seventy as concerning the heretics, who are truly false prophets, and say, thus says the Lord, when the Lord has not sent them, we shall not err. For they deceive the people that was once God's with error, and they do this in order to eat them, either simply in receiving presents, or mystically in the slaughter of their souls; and they promise them peace and the heavenly kingdoms, and say, there is no need for you to live continently and holily; hold the faith which we teach, and you will obtain all the promises of the Lord. Speaking such things, they rather stir up the wrath of the Lord against them, and sanctify war against them.

Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who bite with their teeth and preach peace; and if anyone does not put something into their mouth, they sanctify war against him; therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them, and those who see visions shall be confounded; and the diviners shall be confounded, and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer of God. But I am filled with the strength of the spirit of the Lord, with judgment and truth, to declare to Jacob his crime, and to Israel his sin. LXX: Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, and bite with their teeth, and preach peace over him, and it was not given into their mouth, they sanctified war against him; therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness shall be to you from divination, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall grow dark over them; and those who see dreams shall be confounded, and the soothsayers shall be mocked, and all these shall speak against them, because there is no one to hear them, unless I fill up strength in the spirit of the Lord, and judgment and power, to declare to Jacob his impieties, and to Israel his sins. We read that there were false prophets in Israel who for gifts preached peace, which had not been given to them, and if anyone had not given them presents, however holy he might be, they would announce to him that the wrath of God was going to come. Hence it is now said to them that they speak lies, and that their word is not prophecy but divination, and that they have not light but darkness and error. And when the things they had promised have been turned to the contrary, then they are covered with confusion, because there will not be, he says, an answer of God.

Now not even the demons will receive power to deceive them by their fraud. The oracles will be mute, the unclean spirit will be silent and will not dare to mock. So much concerning the false prophets.

Wherefore, O you heretics, who think that you have prophecy and imitate the Church of God, where you suppose there is vision, there will be night, and where you boast of prophetic utterance, there the unclean spirit will speak. For the sun of justice will set upon prophets of this kind, and they will see their own darkness and be confounded. And when they have been proved to be diviners rather than prophets, they will be laughed at over their dreams, and the peoples who had formerly been deceived by them will speak against them. Then the teachers themselves too will repent, and no one will hear them except I, whom they had offended. And because I am merciful, and do not wish the death of the sinner, but desire that he turn back and live, when I have heard them I will give them the power of my spirit, and I will fill them with my judgment and strength, so that those who formerly deceived the people with blandishments may afterwards, by declaring true things, deter them and call them back to the right way, and those who had been the cause of error may begin to heal the wounds which they had inflicted, and become an occasion of health. Notice in the present passage that someone can teach after sin, provided, however, that he has washed away his former vices with worthy repentance. Hence David too, after adultery and homicide, says in the psalm: You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Nor is he content with his own purity alone, but he adds: Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a governing spirit. And when you have done this. I will teach, he says, the wicked your ways, and the impious will be turned to you.

The third ground of the influx of fortitude is from God indwelling. Whence in Micah: "I am filled with the fortitude of the Lord, with judgment and power." The human body, when it does not have a spirit, does not have power, even if it were a gigantic body; so if God is not in the soul, then it does not have power.

If, further, one works through the twelve minor prophets, many testimonies to the Holy Spirit are to be found. Thus Micah speaks as God's mouthpiece and says, "Truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord." Joel cries, " 'And it shall come to pass afterwards,' says God, 'that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh' " and what follows. Haggai said, " 'For I am with you,' says the Lord of hosts … 'my Spirit remained among you.' " And in like manner Zechariah says, "Receive my words and my statutes which I commanded my servants the prophets."

Again the speech of the prophet speaking about himself is introduced: while they prophesy falsely and are covered with confusion and ignominy, I, what I speak, I speak moved by the Holy Spirit, and I speak the judgment of the Lord and the truth. And while the false prophets bite with their teeth and preach peace, I without any fear declare to Jacob his crime and to Israel his sin, because they either worshipped idols in place of God, or crucified the Son of God.

But when some of those accustomed "to pervert what is right" turn my words aside into what seems best to them, let your holiness not wonder at this. [Know] that those involved in every heresy collect from the divinely inspired Scripture as pretexts of their own divination whatever was spoken truly through the Holy Spirit, corrupting it by their own evil ideas and pouring unquenchable fire upon their very own heads. But since we have learned that some have published a corrupt text of the letter of our all-glorious father, Athanasius, to the blessed Epictetus, a letter which is itself orthodox, so that many are done harm from it, thinking that for this reason it would be something useful and necessary for our brothers, we have sent to your holiness copies of it made from the ancient copy which is with us and is genuine.

The judges and princes of the house of Jacob and of the house of Israel, that is, of both the two and the ten tribes, not only did not do judgment, but abhorred it, and perverted all that is right, so that not even a little justice might remain in the city, because they built Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquity, with the plundering of the poor, the slaughter of the innocent, the killing of the saints.

But if anyone transfers these things which are said of Jerusalem and of Zion to the Church (for she is the house of Jacob and the house of Israel, according to what is written in Isaiah: Jacob my servant, I will uphold him, and that word to Timothy: That you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church), he will see clearly that the princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel, or, as is better written in the Hebrew: judges of the house of Israel, are none other than the bishops, presbyters and deacons, who, unless they have kept their heart with all watchfulness, abhor judgment and pervert all that is right; for when they judge according to the person, and in the hearing of a case it is not the merit of the cause that prevails but the power of the defendants, do they not abhor judgment and pervert all that is right? But it can also be taken in another way: that the princes of the house of Jacob and the judges of the house of Israel abhor and detest judgment, turning aside from the sentence of God the judge, and distorting every rule of the Scriptures with evil interpretations; these build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquity. For whereas Scripture commands: Do not bring the ungodly man into the tabernacle of the just, and: The man of blood and deceit let the Lord abhor, these, ordaining as clergy any of their hangers-on whatever, and exposing their life as a scandal to the peoples, are guilty of the unbelief of those who are scandalized. Hence it is said that it is better for a man that a millstone turned by an ass be tied around his neck and that he be cast into the deep, than that he should scandalize one of the least of the Church.

Hear these things, O princes of the house of Jacob, and judges of the house of Israel, you who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquity. Her princes judged for gifts, and her priests taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money; and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in our midst? No evils will come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of the forests. LXX: Hear these things, O judges of the house of Jacob and the rest of the house of Israel, you who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right; who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquities. Her leaders judged for gifts, and her priests gave answers for hire, and her prophets divined for money; and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord among us? No evils will come upon us. Therefore, on account of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a watch-hut for fruit, and the mountain of the Lord like a grove of the forest. No one doubts that Jerusalem was overthrown on account of the crimes which are described in this section; and since earlier the threat had gone before against either the judges or the false prophets: Hear, O princes of the house of Jacob, and leaders of the house of Israel. And after a few little verses: Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, and the rest; now the prophetic word is woven generally, both against the judges and against the false prophets, and against the priests, and against those who promised themselves the knowledge of God, and it rebukes them because on account of their crimes Zion is to be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem is to collapse like a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple is to become like the high places of the forests. We see fulfilled the things that were said; the eyes prove the utterance of the mouth; the sight is the witness of the prophecy. This very testimony is written also in the scroll of Jeremiah, where mention is made of the prophet Micah, and the devastation of Jerusalem is foretold.

If however circumvention occurs with a profane agreement, it is called simony, in which he who buys acquires nothing, nor does he who sells possess anything, but they only handle another's property: and this happens when a spiritual thing is sold as though it were a cheap thing. Against whom the Lord says: "Do not make my Father's house a house of trade." But some make it a den of thieves; whence: "Her princes judged for bribes, and her priests taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money."

And if any of the princes seemed to judge what was right, he rather sold his sentence, and judged for gifts. The priests also did not teach the people unless they had received a price; and whereas it is said to the saints: Freely you have received, freely give, they, bringing forth the answer of God when money had been received, sold the grace of the Lord for avaricious hire. And after these evils, not understanding their sin, as though they were buying back the love of God with crimes, they kept declaring that they were judges and priests and prophets of God, and in accordance with their impenitent heart they said: The Lord is in our midst, and no evils will come upon us.

And although the prophet Malachi calls priests angels, and their mouth is the oracle of the Lord, they do not judge without the taking of gifts, though they read: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise, and like a bridle in the mouth turn away reproof. And although it is said to the apostles: Do not possess gold and silver, nor let there be copper in your belts; and money, even when earned by labor, is to be shaken out of the hands of a holy man, they sell the words of the Lord and trade in doves in the temple. But the prophets of Jerusalem also divined for money, not knowing that prophecy is one thing and divination another; for divination is never taken in a good sense in the Scriptures. There shall be, he says, no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. They seemed to themselves indeed to be prophets, but because they took money, their prophecy became divination. The apostle Peter: Silver, he says, and gold I have not; he certainly could have sold to Simon Magus what he was asking for, or rather, he could have pretended to be selling it, for the Holy Spirit can be neither sold nor bought; but he condemned the money offered, together with the one offering it. Now you may see that the prophets of Jerusalem do not have prophecy in their mouth, and rest upon the Lord, and say: No evils will come upon us, on whose account God's watchtower is cut by the enemy's plow; and the place once of peace becomes full of ruins, and the temple of the Lord is turned into briars and thorns, and is a dwelling of beasts. Nor let anyone be troubled by what we read in the first book of Kings (1 Samuel): that Saul, wishing to go to Samuel, said to his servant that he could not go to him because he did not have a price to offer for the prophecy, and that the servant answered: Behold, there is found in my hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God, and he will tell us our way; for it is not written that Samuel accepted it, or that they offered it to him; on the contrary, they are fed by the prophet and invited to a meal. But suppose that he did accept it: it should be reckoned rather as offerings for the tabernacle than as payment for prophecy. For a shekel contains twenty obols, and the fourth part of a shekel is five obols. So our priests too, if they wish to sell prophecy, and to set out in their chairs the doves which the Lord overturned with a whip, let them accept five obols, not the prices of country estates. The same thing is heard also in the third book of Kingdoms (1 Kings): that the wife of Jeroboam, when her son was sick, goes to Ahijah the man of God and brings him loaves and raisins and a little jar of honey. For it is told what she brought with her, and yet it is not written that the prophet accepted it, since indeed he both rebuked her and foretold the mourning to come; although it may be that those who had been accustomed to go to soothsayers (for there were many diviners and soothsayers in Israel) thought, by a bad custom, the same thing also of the prophets, and wished to offer to holy men what they had been accustomed to offer to diviners, and that Scripture only related what they wished; yet it did not add either that they dared to offer it or that the prophets accepted it. The Apostle Paul: Those who serve the altar, he says, both partake of the altar and live. It is permitted to you, O priest, to live from the altar, not to live in luxury. The mouth of the ox that treads out the grain is not muzzled. We know these things, and yet the Apostle does not abuse this license; and having food and clothing he is content; night and day he labors with his own hands, so as not to be a burden to anyone. And he swears in his epistles that he has conducted himself holily and without avarice in the gospel of Christ, and he asserts this very thing not only of himself but also of his disciples, that he sent no one who either demanded anything from the churches or was willing to accept it. And if in some epistles he gives thanks, and calls the gifts of the senders the benevolence of God, he gathers them not so much for himself as for the poor among the saints who were in Jerusalem. Now the holy poor were those in Jerusalem who first believed in Christ from among the Jews and, cast out by their parents and kinsmen and relations by marriage, had lost both their possessions and all their household goods, which the priests of the temple and the people laid waste. If the poor are such, let them accept. But if, under the pretext of the poor, a few houses are enriched, and we eat gold in glass and earthenware vessels, then either let us change our clothes along with our treasures, or let the poor habit not seek the riches of senators. Little does it profit not to have a little linen cloth about the neck for wiping away sweat. What does it help to be μονοχίτωνας (wearing a single tunic), and to display poverty in our dress, when the whole crowd of the poor sighs for our purse?

Isaiah lived almost a thousand years ago and saw Zion in its primitive form. The city was still standing, beautified with public squares and clothed in honor; yet he says, "Zion shall be plowed like a field." He was foretelling what has been fulfilled in our day. Observe the exactness of the prophecy; for he said, "Daughter Zion shall be left like a hut in a vineyard, like a shed in a cucumber patch." Now the place is full of cucumber patches. Do you see how the Holy Spirit enlightens the saints? Therefore do not be distracted by a common term but hold fast to what is exactly true.

Hence again the divine Micah was unable to brook the building of Zion with blood, however you interpret the phrase, and of Jerusalem with iniquity. Meanwhile, these heads of the house of Jacob abhorred justice. The priests were teaching for hire. The prophets were prophesying for money! What does Micah say will be the result of this? "Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a storehouse of fruit, and the mountain of the house shall be as the grove of the forest." He bewails also the scarcity of the upright, there being scarcely a stalk or a gleaming grape left, since both the prince asks and the judge curries favor, so that his language is almost the same as the mighty David's: "Save me, O Lord, for the godly man ceases." Their blessings shall fail them, for "you consume like a moth what is dear to him."

Since, therefore, they did not repent, and the whole people followed the vices of the princes and priests and prophets, Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a heap of stones, and the temple, which formerly shone with gold and silver, will collapse into utter ruins. These things are against the people of the Jews, upon whom the true captivity and the final ruins were imposed, on account indeed of their earlier crimes, but chiefly on account of the shedding of the Lord's blood. Hence too Zion has been plowed like a field, and Jerusalem turned into mounds of stones, and that temple, once noble and lofty, has been ground down into the last ashes.

Therefore, because of us, who are such, who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity, who judge for gifts, who give answers for hire, who divine for money, and who, claiming besides a feigned sanctity for ourselves, say: No evils will come upon us. Let us hear the sentence of the Lord which follows: Zion and Jerusalem, and the mountain of the temple, the watchtower, and the vision of peace, and the temple of Christ, at the consummation and at the end, when charity has grown cold and faith has become rare, will be plowed like a field, and will be reduced to mounds, and will be like the high places of the forests, or a watch-hut for fruit, so that where once there were spacious houses and heaps of grain without number, there there may scarcely be a little hut keeping the appearance of foods which hold no refreshment for the soul.

And there rose up men of the elders of the land and said to the whole assembly of the people, speaking: Micah of Moresheth was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones, and the mountain of the house the heights of the forests. Did Hezekiah, king of Judah, and all Judah condemn him to death? Did they not fear the Lord and entreat the face of the Lord, and the Lord repented of the evil which he had spoken against them? So we are doing a great evil against our own souls. The princes of the city and the people understand the truth of the judgment; but the elders, whose proper task it was to know old things, unfold the history and prophecy of Micah of Moresheth, who prophesied under King Hezekiah, compare it with the prophecy of Jeremiah, for which a capital charge is being pressed against him, and show that Micah had said graver things and yet had suffered nothing from the righteous king Hezekiah, but that they, converted to repentance, had turned the sentence of the Lord in a good direction. For Micah said: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones, and the mountain of the house the heights of the forests; and Jeremiah: I will make, he says, this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth. And they give counsel, thinking that what Micah had foretold would by no means come to pass, because for a long time it had not been done on account of the repentance of the people, and that this too, which Jeremiah spoke, would by no means come to be, if, according to his counsel, they made good their ways and their pursuits and heard the voice of the Lord their God, so that the Lord would not bring the evil with which he had threatened them. And at the same time they break the rage of the accusers and mingle themselves with them, saying: So we are doing a great evil against our own souls, not that they ought to do it, but because, if they did it, they would by no means harm the accused, but their own souls, which they could have freed by a change of their sentence.