NOTES for Mic 7:18-20
The prophets spoke a lot about the sins and crimes of the people of God. But in their words there were not only rebukes, there was also hope. The times of Micah, young contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem, were period spiritually very ambiguous. On one hand, king Hezekiah ruling then in the Judea did a lot for the fight with the heathen cults, forbidding public worship of the heathen gods in his country. The yahvisme was popular, and the sermon of Micah (as well as that of Isaiah) contributed much to that. But to destroy the heathen altars and sanctuaries turned out to be easier than to change people, whom souls and hearts remained in many unchanged. The sins also remained unchanged: the yahvisme for the majority of the new believers was reduced to the pompous religious ceremonies and to the cheerful feasts; more, they thought rarely and reluctantly about the observation of the commandments given by God, about the Torah.
The religious rise meant not at all fast spiritual changes in the society. The former sins did not leave people, what had entered the habit, was overcome slowly and with difficulty, even when people sincerely wanted to become different. Manifested what is spoken not less in the ecclesiastical books of the Pentateuch: the consequences of the sin committed consciously, drive man, even in spite of the repentance, quite as they also drive the people, if the sin was nationwide. Then was revealed to the prophet that the situation can be changed only by a special common directed spiritual effort of God and His people.
Micah says nothing about the trials that await the people, as Isaiah of Jerusalem speaks about them, but he understands that to eliminate the consequences of the sins committed by the people without shock, perhaps catastrophic shocks, will already not succeed. However the prophet understands another thing: God does not need cataclysms just for cataclysms. He just wants to give to His people the chance to begin the history with a clean slate, but for that the people also have to become a clean slate. All the historic cataclysms are necessary in the final account only for that. So that in this new history, the renewed people could meet with the Messiah promised by God.