NOTES for Mic 2:10

The prophet's call, "rise and go," seems a little strange at first glance: where should faithful Yahwists go from Judah, where the people of God live, flawed though they are, where the Temple stands, where, finally, the place of God's presence is? Of course, God Himself, through the mouth of His prophet, says that His people, in the state in which the prophet found them, are almost no people at all; but God Himself is certainly not going to begin the history of His people from the beginning, from a blank slate. So where then should His faithful ones go? This can be understood only in the context of all that the pre-exilic prophets, beginning with Isaiah of Jerusalem, said about the remnant that, in times of universal apostasy and spiritual decline, would preserve faith while remaining faithful to the God of the fathers.

The historical fate of this remnant, according to the testimony of all the prophets, was not going to be simple: the people were threatened by a historical catastrophe that was to become the consequence of spiritual decline, and the remnant would have to preserve faithfulness to God in exile, in dispersion, in foreign countries, among pagans. It did not become clear at once that the land of exile would be Babylonia. In such a context, the prophet's call to leave sounds like a warning that the prophecies of those who spoke of the coming catastrophe and of the remnant would soon be fulfilled.

But there is something else in Micah's words as well: an understanding that God's long-suffering is not infinite. Of course, God can wait, and sometimes He waits a very long time. But He waits as long as there is meaning in waiting. And meaning remains as long as there are chances to correct the situation without radical measures, including such a catastrophe as defeat in war, exile, and dispersion.

God plainly resorts to such extreme measures only when all other possibilities have been exhausted. But before the catastrophe, He warns His faithful ones so that they know what to prepare for. And the prophet's words, as we can see, should also be understood in this way: they are a warning that the situation is critical, that catastrophe is inevitable, and that God will no longer delay it by holding the situation back from complete collapse. Not because He has changed His plans for His people, but because the people have left Him only one way to carry out His plans.