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From: Micah 6:1-4, 6-8

The Lord hands down his sentence

[1] Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
[2] Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
[3] O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
[4] For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of bondage;
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.

Formal religion is not enough

[6] With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
[7] Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
[8] He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

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Commentary:

6:1-7:7. This is the third part of the book. As we have seen, the book oscillates
between reproaches and messages of encouragement. This part is of the former
type. The book began by taking Israel and Judah to task and by announcing
their sentence (1:2-3:12); then came an augury of an eschatological restoration
of the kingdom of God, with the coming of the Messiah and the salvation of the
“remnant” (4:1-5:15). Now (6:1-7:7) the people are again condemned for their
unjust and immoral behaviour. But the last verse (7:7) shows us that the prophet
trusts in God and is confident that he will be heard. As in 4:1-5, this confidence
on Micah’s part is an earnest of what is said in the final verses of the book (7:8-
20), where one sees fulfilled all the hopes placed in the future.

The faults for which the prophet criticizes the people are infidelity and ingratitude
towards the Lord (6:1-15) and a lack of virtue (6:6-8), particularly injustice (6:9-
16), which has led to despair and betrayal (7:1-6).

6:1-5. Here begins the arraignment of Israel in the style of a court case (rib) in
which the Lord and Israel speak. The rib is a literary form found quite frequently
in prophetical writings (cf. Is 3:13-15; 5:3-7; Hos 4:1-3; etc.) It depicts a public
trial or debate in which the Lord is the plaintiff (v. 2) and the world around (hills,
mountains) is the witness (vv. 1-2). The drama of the scene lies in the fact that
the people being addressed are at one and the same time the defendants (v. 2)
and those who are expected to give judgment. Given the case made in the ora-
cle, anyone present must agree with the prophet that the thing to do is to try to
know the “saving acts of the Lord” (v. 5). The points made by God through the
prophet involve basically an appeal to the very origin of the people of Israel and
what the Lord did for them: he appeals to the basic elements of Israelite faith (cf.
Deut 5:15). Similar arguments should also impress the Christian: “Christian soul,
always remember your dignity, and having been invited to partake of the divine
nature, do not fall back by your behaviour into your past sinfulness. Be mindful
of what head and body you are a member. Remember that you were freed from
darkness and led into the light of the kingdom of God” (St Leo the Great,
Sermones, 21, 3).

This message (especially vv. 3-4) is very familiar to Christians because it is used
in the Reproaches sung during the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday. That
chant combines the Micah text with short paragraphs taken from the Trisagium
(an ancient liturgical hymn in honour of the Blessed Trinity), from Isaiah 5:1-5,
and from events connected with the exodus from Egypt (updated in the liturgy
by linking them to episodes in the passion of our Lord). That part of the Good Fri-
day liturgy serves to remind Christians and people in general of their ingratitude
towards God (as shown by their sins) — God whose love and generosity are un-
bounded. It invites us to acknowledge our sins and helps to get us ready (collec-
tively and personally) for conversion. When a Christian kisses the cross of Christ,
he can apply the prophet’s words to himself — as if Jesus were speaking them to
him, for, as St Francis of Assisi says, “The demons alone did not crucify him;
you helped them to crucify him, and to crucify him still, by falling into error and
sin” (Admonitiones, 5, 3; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 598). The liturgy
of the Adoration of the Cross is an excellent way of taking to heart Micah’s ora-
cle.

6:6-8. These verses are a kind of summary of what true religion is; it is not only
a matter of formal religious worship: it involves obedience towards God which in
turn means practising justice and charity towards one’s neighbour (v. 8). Verse
7 alludes to the abominable Canaanite practice of sacrificing children to the God
Moloch and to the Baals — a practice roundly condemned elsewhere in the Bible:
“In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abi-
ram his first-born, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub” (1
Kings 16:34; cf. Lev 20:2; Deut 12:31; etc.). It could he that these sins from the
Northern kingdom were finding their way into Judah (cf. 6:16), as 2 Kings 16:3
suggests and as Jeremiah asserts: “[the kings of Judah] have filled this place
with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their
sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal” (Jer 19:4-5).

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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

From: Matthew 12:38-42

The Sign of Jonah

[38] Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him (Jesus), “Teacher, we
wish to see a sign from you.” [39] But he answered them, “An evil and adulte-
rous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign
of the prophet Jonah. [40] For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. [41] The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and
behold, something greater than Jonah is here. [42] The queen of the South will
arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from
the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something
greater than Solomon is here.”

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Commentary:

39-40. This sign the Jews were asking for would have been a miracle or some
other prodigy; they wanted Jesus, incongruously, to confirm his preaching —
given with such simplicity—by dramatic signs. Our Lord replies by announcing
the mystery of his death and resurrection, using the parallel of the case of Jo-
nah: “No sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Jesus’
glorious resurrection is the “sign” “par excellence”, the decisive proof of the di-
vine character of his person, of his mission and of his teaching.

When St. Paul (1 Cor 14:3-4) confesses that Jesus Christ “was raised on the
third day in accordance with the scriptures” (words which later found their way
into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Creed used in the Mass), he
must have had this passage particularly in mind. We can see another allusion
to Jonah in the words our Lord spoke shortly before his ascension: “Thus it is
written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead”
(Lk 24:45-46).

41-42. Nineveh was a city in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to which the prophet
Jonah was sent. The Ninevites did penance (Jn 3:6-9) because they recognized
the prophet and accepted his message; whereas Jerusalem does not wish to
recognize Jesus, of whom Jonah was merely a figure. The queen of the South
was the queen of Sheba in southwestern Arabia, who visited Solomon (1 Kings
10:1-10) and was in awe of the wisdom with which God had endowed the King
of Israel. Jesus is also prefigured in Solomon, whom Jewish tradition saw as
the epitome of the wise man. Jesus’ reproach is accentuated by the example
of pagan converts, and gives us a glimpse of the universal scope of Christianity,
which will take root among the Gentiles.

There is a certain irony in what Jesus says about “something greater” than Jo-
nah or Solomon having coming: really, he is infinitely greater, but Jesus prefers
to tone down the difference between himself and any figure, no matter how im-
portant, in the Old Testament.

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