NOTES for Mic 7:2

And in the prophetic books, and in the psalms we sometimes meet the assertion that there are no more righteous men on earth, that all around there are only villains and wickeds, and the world runs to the abyss. How to deal with such statements? Of course, we could say that it is about a local concrete situation, about an immediate environment of the one, to whom belongs the statement. And even if it is about the prophetic sermon, it is necessary to consider this fact that such a sermon was always very concrete. But does this change the situation dramatically?

Probably, all the same not, and the reasons of this are at least two. In the first place, it is not all the same about an individual, but about the people of God in general. And is important here the presence not of one person, but of a community, which could spiritually influence the situation. The history of the angelic visit to Abraham is known, during which Abraham pleads for Sodom, which is threatened for destruction.

And if we find all the same fifty righteous men there? And thirty? And ten? The conversation is interrupted on ten, and it is not accidentally: because according to the Jewish religious standards, ten persons is minimal necessary for the creation of an entire community. But, according to the words of the prophet, it can’t be about any community in this concrete situation, of which he speaks. And if that was the case, then the society will run to the spiritual, and then historic abyss, although it may be happened not immediately. But there is also secondly, which concerns not so much the spiritual situation of the community, than what we could call the spiritual dimension of history.

This component like the covenant with Noah is particularly remarkable, such as described in the book of Genesis, after the deluge, the just man brings to God a sacrifice, and God conclude a covenant with him. And He says, pulling with the nostrils the smoke of the sacrifice (the image of God is clearly here intentionally archaic): I shall no more destroy the world because of man, because all the intentions of the human heart - is the evil from its youth.

That is, man is incorrigible, and all the righteousness of the righteous (in the collective image that becomes Noah) is enough only so that the world does not collapse into the abyss. And if there are no righteous? And if they are very few? Of course, the history of the people of God is a history apart, special, in which God intervenes in a completely particular way. But indeed, the spiritual laws are common for all, and if in the history of any people, even the people of God, it arrives moments, when the righteousness of its righteous becomes imperceptible, everything is possible, until a historic disaster. Indeed, in the fallen world the rupture is always possible, as there will always be there, where to fall.