Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Chapter 7
14
Guide your people with your staff; tend the flock of your inheritance that dwells alone in the scrub, amid fertile land. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
15
as in the days of old, during the times when you led them out of Egypt. Show us your wonders.
18
Who is a God like you, who takes away guilt and pardons crime for the remnant of his inheritance?Who is like you, whose anger does not last? For you delight in merciful forgiveness.
19
Once again, you will show us your loving-kindness and trample on our wrongs, casting all our sins into the depths of the sea.
20
Show faithfulness to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.
Commentaries
Restoration.
The essential condition for God’s salvation is conversion, which he had urged his people to pursue through the prophet (6:2-5). Ultimately, Jerusalem, symbolizing the people, steps in as if to continue the judgment initiated by the prophet at the start of chapter 6 (8-10), challenging its enemy, Assyria, who had mocked its destiny (cf. Ps 42:5.11). God then declares the freeing and restoration of Israel (11-14), and the prophet ends his message with a prayer full of trust and hope in God, who “loves mercy” (18-19).