MICAH, also written Micaiah, was perhaps the youngest of that remarkable group of prophets who fill up the period from Uzziah to Hezekiah. He is called "the Morasthite" (a native of Moresheth, a small town in the maritime plain near Gath), to distinguish him from the Micaiah who lived in the reign of Ahab. . . .
The prophecies of Micah are addressed to all Israel, but refer more particularly to Judah. He was, like Amos, a native of a country district, and his rustic origin doubtless strengthened his recoil from the unnatural sins of the capital. He seems to have sprung from a deeply religious family; his name (Micah is a shortened form of Micaiah) means "Who is like unto Jehovah?" Thus, like Isaiah, he was "a sign and a portent in Israel from Jehovah." Micah and Isaiah should in fact be read in connection. . . . It was his prophecy of judgment through which he was remembered by the next generation; and in the unflinching severity of his tone he passes beyond even his great contemporary, Isaiah. In this predominant ethical tendency, Micah reminds us very much of Amos; but in his softer moods (for he has such) he suggests a comparison with Hosea. He would willingly strip himself like a captive, and cry as an ostrich for the calamity of Beth-aphrah; he unites himself in spirit with the besieged Zion of the near future. He compensates himself, moreover, for the enforced preponderance of threatening by a conclusion which is one of the sweetest passages of prophetic writing. Nor is it, perhaps, accidental that he lays such stress on "kindness" as one of the three elements of true religion. For human kindness is the reflection of divine; and the Jehovah whom Micah preaches is no capricious despot—he has entered into a moral relation to His people, Israel.—From Micah,
