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From: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20

Prayer for Jerusalem

[14] Shepherd thy people with thy staff,
the flock of thy inheritance,
who dwell alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Báshan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
[15] As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt
I will show them marvellous things.

Hymn to the Lord

[18] Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger for ever
because he delights in steadfast love.
[19] He will again have compassion upon us,
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
Thou wilt cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
[20] Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as thou hast sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.

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Commentary:

7:14-17. These verses also deal with hope in the future restoration, but it is now
expressed in the form of a prayer to the Lord. He is asked for a return to the way
things were in the early days of the chosen people — a repetition of wondrous
works that will astound the Gentiles (vv. 16-17) and convince them of the power
of the Lord (v. 16). The prayer also desires the Lord to be the only shepherd of
his people (v. 14; cf. 5:3), who now occupy the whole of Palestine again, a land
that is most fertile. Bashan and Gilead, on the eastern banks and highlands of
the Jordan, were areas renowned for rich pasture-land.

7:18-20. The last three verses of the book celebrate the Lord’s steadfast love in
a liturgical tone. Witnessing the works of the Lord (his pardoning of sins, and
putting them out of his mind: vv. 18-19; his faithfulness to his promises, no mat-
ter what: v. 20), all that the believer can do is be grateful and live in awe: “Who
is a God like thee?” (v. 18). Many of the terms used in this short hymn (remnant,
inheritance, faithfulness, etc.) have come up earlier in the book and are being re-
hearsed again here. But we can appreciate their importance more if we remem-
ber the way Micah is echoed in the Benedictus of Zechariah in the New Testa-
ment. That hymn sums up very well the hope in the Messiah harbored by gene-
ration upon generation of the people of God, and when we reread it, it will help to
revive our own hope in the definitive (second) coming of the Lord: “Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up
a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the
mouth of his holy prophets from of old” (Lk 1:68-70).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.