followHIM - Jonah, Micah Part 2 • Dr. Joshua Sears • Nov. 21 - 27

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Dr. Sears continues to explore the Book of Amos and the importance of the minor prophets, the concept of hesed, and the importance of the Everlasting Covenant.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-him-a-come-follow-me-podcast/id1545433056Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYThanks to the follow HIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers, SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to part two of Dr. Josh Sears, the books of Jonah and Micah. Well, this has been wonderful about Jonah. The next book is Micah, and I'm excited to look at this. Where do you want to go with this one, Josh? Well, I'm really excited. Micah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. And when I was here last time and we were in Second Kings, I mentioned that my firstborn son, we named Josiah after King Josiah there. My second born son is named Micah after this book right here, just because I like it. Well, if Micah's out there listening, hello, Micah. We love you. Here, follow him. So I've trained him what his name means. Micah, Micah means literally who is like with the question mark. And that sounds funny, but there's longer versions of the name also in Israel. You can have Micaiah,

which means who is like Yahweh. And you can have Michael, Micah El, who is like God. Micah is like the shortened version of that name that doesn't have the God you're talking about there. So it's kind of implied that Micah probably still means something like who is like God or who is like Yahweh, Jehovah. It's just clipped right there. So that's what his name means, which is fun because at the end of the book, he's got a little play off his own name. He says, who is a God like you that's like this? And it's really trying to get them to understand the incomparable nature of the God of Israel. Oh, that's fantastic. Who is like? So Micah, one way you could think about him, he's the less famous brother of Isaiah. He's not literally his brother, but the book is like a sibling to Isaiah.

Oh, okay. Micah is the Sam or the Shiblon to Isaiah's Nephi and Helaman. at the same time. So they very well could have known each other. And the book covers many of the same themes and topics that Isaiah does. And they even share for word for word, some of the same prophecies. So there's a lot of connections between the book. And one thing that also brings them together is that in third Nephi, when Jesus is teaching the Nephites about the last days, he draws heavily on Isaiah to do that and on the prophet Micah. Oh, really? So it weaves both of them together in there. So part of what I would love to do today is when we get to those parts, we'll jump to

third Nephi and see what Jesus is doing with Micah. Okay. That'd be fantastic. I love that. Micah's got all this stuff going for it. But because it's, yeah, overshadowed by his more famous older brother book, Isaiah, people tend not to know him as well. But I think he's every bit as worth the attention that he's giving. He's every bit as prophetic and important here,

just on a much smaller scale, seven chapters instead of 66. So Isaiah gets all the spotlight, but Micah is right in there in the ring with him fighting the good fight like Sam or Shiblon. Yeah, I wrote that down. Micah is to Isaiah as Sam is to Nephi. Yeah. Good guys, just with a lot more famous person next to him. But no less serviceable. Yeah. So again, Micah lives the same time as Isaiah. You've got four of these great eighth century prophets, Micah, Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea all live kind of in the same time period there. So might've known each other, but we don't know. They never say such a thing. It's fun to imagine what going to church with Isaiah and Micah might have been like.

So Micah's got seven chapters. It's hard to know exactly how to structure them. It depends on what kind of features you decide to look for, but there is what everybody agrees on. There's an interesting back and forth dynamic between judgment and justice and destruction and those kinds of prophecies, and then bright rays of hope about a better future. And then it goes back to the present dark times and then back to the good times coming in the future. So you do see that switch going back and forth throughout the book. That sounds like Isaiah as well. Yep. Isaiah does that as well. So here's the thing. We really can't cover every verse in depth, even though there's only seven chapters. I really feel for people like Jan Martin, who he made cover like the whole book of Ezekiel

in one go. But even though we have fewer chapters to go through, they're just really rich. So I'm going to go through some parts fast, and then we'll slow down at more relevant parts, especially the parts where, again, Jesus is going to incorporate it into 3 Nephi, because I think that'll be the biggest payoff for a lot of our listeners here, because it'll help make more sense of what Jesus is saying in the Book of Mormon, which is always a good thing. Let's get into it. Verse 1. The word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Moreshite, that means he's from the village of Moreshite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Living in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah and these guys like Isaiah, you got to bring back all that context from the book of Isaiah. What's going on? What's all the wickedness going on in Jerusalem? The predictions that the Assyrians are going to come and destroy Judah. All that stuff is playing in here. So we got to kind of get back in that dynamic, thinking of all those things. And he starts off in verse two, hear all ye people, hearken, O earth, and all that therein is, and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valley shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this

and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? Therefore, I will make Samaria as an heap of the field and as plantings of a vineyard. And I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley and I will discover the foundations thereof. So you remember in Isaiah's time, I know you cover, I'll keep referring to Isaiah by comparison because I know you spent five weeks on Isaiah. But in Isaiah's lifetime, Ann Micah is the northern kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria. It's going to get destroyed by the Assyrians. And the southern kingdom of Judah is going to get almost destroyed with Jerusalem getting saved in the nick of time. So all that dynamic is behind this as he criticizes both the Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom

for all the things that they're doing wrong. Josh, I just got to say, as I think of Jonah, Jonah was like, this is what I wanted. I wanted fire coming down. I wanted valleys. Melt like wax. But it's important to note Micah, you know, we can joke about Jonah because he would have. Yeah. But Micah is really upset by this. In verse eight, he says, therefore, because of all that I just said, I will wail and howl. I will go stripped and naked.

I will make a wailing like the dragons and mourning like the owls. So dragons and owls, probably better translated jackals and ostriches. It's this image of desolation and ruin these wild animals that are just going through what was once civilized territory there so he's wailing and howl yeah he kind of hates the fact that he's got to prophesy of these terrible things going on uh i just thought of jonah going give me that job that's the one i wanted but what did you say about the dragons? Modern translations usually use jackals. Oh, okay. The King James translators, if they didn't know what an animal was,

they'd sometimes stick in a fantastical animal as a placeholder. Like we don't know what it is. So here's something, you know, it's not. And there you go. Here we go. So dragons and satyrs and things like that in there, but these wild animals. So then the rest of chapter one is just predictions of destruction. So verses 10 through 15, he lists all sorts of towns that are all towns in Judah. And what he might be doing, given his context, is listing places that the Assyrians are going to come destroy. He's really clever with the way he does it. All the town names have a meaning in Hebrew, and the image of destruction that he pairs with that town name is a pun or a play on

words on the name of the town. The footnotes give you the first one, what Afra means right there. And then it points out that this is going on for the others rather than explain all of them. Afra there means dust. So it says, at this town, roll thyself in the dust. So the action that he predicts is based off the town name. And it's like that for all the others. So like the footnotes, I'm going to take a cop out and not give you all the details. You can look those up in a good study Bible, but for the sake of time, we'll keep going. Even though the linguistics of it all is fun and you can see Micah is really creative. I think it helps us to know that this isn't just somebody jotting down something real quick when this was originally written. And we missed that because we're not seeing it in Hebrew,

but this was crafted and poured over. And I like knowing that. The footnote says, Each of the cities named in verses 10 through 16 will meet a fate appropriate to the meaning of its name. Yep. It'd be like saying, Oh, Los Angeles will be destroyed

and the angels will come overthrow it. You know, because Los Angeles means the angels. It's something like that. I'll pull the drapes on Draper and Sandy will be a sandstorm. And yeah. Yeah. So like Isaiah, Micah is a poet and these prophecies are all in poetic form.

So very creative, lots of very imaginative. I want you guys to keep doing that. That was really fun. And then chapter two is mostly all more judgment and destruction, but the last two verses of chapter two give us that first little ray of hope as we give that there. So chapter two gets into more, what are these people doing that's so bad? So verse one, woe to them that devise iniquity

and work evil upon their beds. You can just imagine them lying there like dreaming of all the iniquity they're going to do when they get up in the morning. When the morning is light, they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields and take them by violence and houses and take them away. So they oppress a man in his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, against this family, do I devise an evil from which you shall not remove your necks. Neither shall you go haughtily for this time is evil. So the thing about coveting fields and taking them and grabbing houses, this gets back to something Isaiah also talked a lot about, about the social injustice going on where you have-

Joining house to house. Isaiah said, yeah, joining house to house, gobbling up the property belonging to these poor families so they can create these big, vast estates and make lots more money that way. So Micah, it'll have a lot of things about that too, about how judgment is being denied to the poor and the oppressed. So Isaiah had similar language there. So does Amos, all these things about exploiting people who are poor and can't fend for themselves and the corruption of the legal system and all that. So Micah's got lots of that. So the rest of verse chapter two, start in verse four. So one's going to take up a parable or a taunt song here against you and lament about you. And then it's

got the people in verse six saying, prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy. They shall not prophesy to them that they shall not take shame. The word here is not the usual word for prophesy. So often translations will have preach or teach instead of prophesy, but they're basically saying, don't prophesy to us stuff that we don't want to hear about. Don't put us to shame with your words here. The guilty take it the truth to be hard. We don't want to hear this. Is that Isaiah 30, 10, where prophesy smooth things, prophesy deceits. I think this is in the same mode. And look, jump down a few verses to 11.

If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink, he shall even be the prophet of this people or the preacher of this people. So it's these people saying, we don't like the prophets that are telling us what we don't want to hear. But if you have people claiming this authority that are telling you to live it up and do the bad things you want to do, then you accept him as an authoritative teacher. Oh, that is so Samuel the Lamanite. And I look and there's the footnote, Helaman 13, 27. I think we ought to go to Helaman 13 and have John read that. Helaman 13, 26 and 27. There's Samuel the Lamanite starting in verse 26. Behold, ye are worse than they, for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declare unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast

him out, and seek all manner of ways to destroy him. Ye will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil. But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say, Do this, there is no iniquity, do that, ye shall not suffer. Yea, he will say, Walk after the pride of your own hearts, yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth. If a man shall come among you and say this, you will receive him and say that he is a prophet. You'll lift him up. You'll give unto him of your substance. You'll give unto him of your gold and of your silver.

You will clothe him in costly apparel. And because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith that all is well, then you will not find fault with him. Yeah, your gold and your silver and your podcast subscriptions and your likes and shares. The current sea of today. We've got these people here. I think exactly the same sentiment in 11. Someone says, I'll prophesy to you saying it's okay to go after wine and strong drink. Oh yeah, that.

I like that one. Yeah. Let me keep shopping until I find a prophet that I like. We'll skip around a little here. Chapter three, verse five, Micah says, thus sayeth the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people air, that bite with their teeth and cry peace. So I think that means who say peace to people who give them something to eat, but they make war against he that putteth not into their mouth. So again, you've got these people that are like prophets for hire that'll say whoever gives them money. So a cry peace to people who give them stuff, something to bite with their teeth food, but then they prepare

war against people that aren't going to give them anything. So you've got these people that are setting themselves up as authority, but are just going for whatever will get them the most money or something in return here. They'll say whatever people want to hear. And you got people who that's what they want. Tell us what we want to hear. And then we'll prop you up. These true and false prophetic voices here is a problem. And then Micah responds famously in chapter three, verse eight. He contrasts himself to all those false teachers. But truly I, Micah, am full of power by the spirit of the Lord and of judgment. The word there means justice and of might. So I'm full of power and of justice and of might to declare unto Jacob

his transgression and to Israel his sin. And that's the burden of the true prophets. They have to tell the people what they don't want to hear. They have to tell the truth. They have to tell them that they're sinning and what are the consequences of sin. And that's what Micah, imagining he doesn't get stuff to bite with his teeth because this isn't what people want to hear, but it's what the Lord's called him to say. Oh, I like it. And I like his confidence there. I am full of the power of the Spirit of the Lord. It reminds me of President Nelson three years ago now, before COVID, so it seems like forever ago, but he came to BYU, his most recent devotional, it was called The Love and the Laws of God. And he discussed this kind of burden that the prophetic mantle places on him. So here's his quote, the arbiter or truth is God, not your favorite social media newsfeed, not Google, and certainly not those who

are disaffected from the church. Many now claim that truth is relative and that there's no such thing as divine law or a divine plan. Such a claim is simply not true. There is a difference between right and wrong. Truth is based upon the laws God has established for the dependability, protection, and nurturing of his children. Eternal laws operate in and affect each of our lives, whether we believe in them or not. Sometimes we as leaders of the church are criticized for holding firm to the laws of God, defending the Savior's doctrine, and resisting the social pressures of our day. But our commission, this is like Micah, as ordained apostles, is to go into all the world and preach his gospel into every creature. That means we are commanded to teach truth. In doing so, sometimes we are accused of being

uncaring as we teach the Father's requirements for exaltation in the celestial kingdom. But wouldn't it be far more uncaring for us not to tell the truth, not to teach what God has revealed? It is precisely because we do deeply care about all of God's children that we proclaim his truth. We may not always tell people what they want to hear. Prophets are rarely popular, but we will always teach the truth. And I think Micah really feels that burden there as he points out these professional prophets that are just saying whatever people will pay them to say versus Micah, who truly does have the spirit, but that means he's got the responsibility to declare transgression and sin. That's what he's got to do. He's probably not biting with his teeth very much.

That's true. No one's paying him. All right. Now the rest of chapter three, verse 12, famously says, therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high place of the forest. Now, the reason I say that's famous is because it appears in another story. Jeremiah, like a hundred years later is on trial. There's this great story where he's saying Jerusalem will be destroyed and that upsets everybody. And they're planning what they should do with them. And someone quotes this from Micah, prophet from a hundred years before going, well, Micah did say Jerusalem would be destroyed. So maybe there's some precedent for this idea. We can't just

dismiss Jeremiah outright. Maybe. So that's really interesting that they had access to Micah's words and people are looking at this and wrestling with, hmm, what does this mean? And maybe this is another place to talk about the Old Testament is not necessarily chronological. Yeah. These prophetic books are not in order. We read all these history stories and you get the historical frame and then you get to the prophetic books. You have to figure out, okay, where am I in the story?

Where does he fit in the history? Yeah. So yeah, we already covered Jeremiah in our Come Follow Me reading, but Micah's before him. Before Jeremiah. Okay. Now the last two verses of chapter two, if we can go back, are important. This is where we get that ray of hope that you get in the midst of all the judgment. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold. They shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker has come up before them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it.

And their king shall pass before them and the Lord on the head of them. So you get images of gathering. You get images of Jehovah being a shepherd, a king who's gathered his flock, and he's kind of leading them out of this gate off like a king, like in a new exodus and all that. But there's an important concept that appears here for the first time in Micah, but not the last time, and that's the remnant of Israel. So we need to talk about that for a minute. And here's why. You open up the Book of Mormon to the title page, and like John mentioned earlier, it says, what's the Book of Mormon supposed to be doing here?

The big purposes. It says, the Book of Mormon is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers, and that they may know the covenants of the Lord that they are not cast off forever. So right from the get-go, the Book of Mormon is framing itself as a book about remnants, written to remnants, to talk about stuff that's happened to remnants right there. And the problem with that is Moroni, and then you get into Nephi and the others, they're assuming that we've read our Old Testaments and that we have Old Testament 101 down in our heads and that we know what they mean by remnants right there. So the Book of Mormon is saturated with this remnant idea there, but they're assuming that you've read Isaiah, Micah, Amos,

these other prophetic books of the Old Testament that outline the idea of what it means to be a remnant of Israel. And the Book of Mormon is going to go deeper with that idea. But if we haven't really studied up an Old Testament prophetic ideas, then we're not fully understanding what the Book of Mormon is doing with those messages. Yeah, I can just hear Nephi, what? You don't know Micah? Yeah, he's like, the angel told me you've got the Old Testament. Yeah. How do you not know this? I am assuming here. So remnants are really important. So here's a little bit of background so we can make sense of this. A remnant dictionary definition, it's a

small part of a greater whole. It's a piece of something, piece of the puzzle. So a remnant of Israel is like a chunk of Israel, a subgroup of Israel. So when you're using Israel as like an analogy to a tree, remnants could be like the different branches. So you don't have a talk of a remnant early in the story of the Abrahamic covenant. It's just, here's the covenant family, Abraham and Sarah. And the Abrahamic covenant is presented in Genesis as a solution to the world's problems. Again, there's wickedness, there's violence. How are we going to bring peace and righteousness and bring the covenant to everyone on earth? It's through this family here. So you've got this big world problem and the Abrahamic covenant is a solution.

But then as you keep going through the story, a new problem develops where, yeah, it sounds great in the ideal. This family goes and just shares with everybody, but it doesn't quite go like that. First off, Israel, this family, they're imperfect themselves. They can't get their own act together. You've got Isaac versus Ishmael, and then you've got Esau versus Jacob and then Joseph versus his brothers. Like this family is having so much interpersonal conflict themselves. How are they supposed to be a light to the nations? How are they going to bless the world when they're fighting with each other? Yeah. And then eventually when they come out of Egypt and settle back in there, they can't get along so badly. They split into two different countries. You got the Northern

Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. They just cannot be unified. So it really impedes their ability to tell everyone, Hey, live like us. And you can have peace and prosperity and all these blessings when they're so messed up. So what's the solution to this problem? How can God use such a messed up group of humans to still get the job done of taking the covenant to the whole world? And the answer does not come in Genesis nor in the historical books of the old Testament. You read Samuel does not come in Genesis, nor in the historical books of the Old Testament. You read Samuel and Kings, it's just the story of these problem children. And Kings ends with them in exile, like there's no solution here. So where you get the solution to this problem is in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Isaiah, Micah, Amos, these others,

they try to work this out. How can God still use Israel when they're so imperfect to still get the job done, to still fulfill the covenant? And the answer to that is remnants. Remnants is the solution to this problem. And why is that? Because if you take Israel as a wicked whole, you can reduce them down to a righteous remnant, a righteous minority that can still get the job done. And remnants give you some flexibility rather than having all of Israel in one spot where they're just kind of doing their thing as a nation. Remnants gives God the flexibility to move different groups of Israelites physically to different spaces so that they can reach more Gentiles and thus be a light to more people around the world. I'm pretty sure you've read Jacob chapter five. Yeah, that's exactly Jacob five.

Move those branches around to different trees so you can spread the fruit. That's exactly it. If it's all stuck in one tree, you can't bring the goodness of the good fruit to all the other trees in the vineyard. That's exactly it. Well, and that is an Old Testament allegory.

We just don't have Zenith in our current Old Testament. Exactly. So if you want more background on this Old Testament concept, one good resource to go to that I'd recommend to people, there was an article presented at the Sperry Symposium a few years ago by our colleague Joseph Spencer, and it's called The Prophet's Remnant Theology. And it's just going through setting up what all the Old Testament prophets say about this. And you can read that online for free at the Religious Studies Center website, rsc.byu.edu. We'll put a link in our show notes, followhim.co, followhim.co. You could find it there too.

And he starts off by pointing out that the Book of Mormon talks a lot about remnants, but it's kind of assuming we know the Old Testament background. So he's like, here's the Old Testament background. So then the Book of Mormon makes more sense. So that's a great kind of quick review for a Latter-day Saint context of this remnant idea. So Micah here brings up this concept of a remnant, and he's very similar in how he talks about it to what Isaiah does. And since these remnant stories are going to be brought together in 3 Nephi, it's worth maybe doing a quick review of what Isaiah says. Sorry, all this background just to get back to verse 12. Isaiah talks a lot about remnants. And in the book of Isaiah, if you step back and look at Isaiah as a whole, it's the story of two different remnants primarily.

The first half of the book, chapters 1 through 39, is one remnant story. And chapters 40 through 66, the second half, it was a remnant story about a different remnant. So the first half of the book, the first remnant, is the one that's in Isaiah's day, where Judah is wicked. Those Assyrians are on the horizon. They're going to come destroy everybody. Isaiah is trying to preach to them. And what he's, Isaiah's warning is that God is going to reduce wicked Judah down, down, down until you just get the righteous people left. So this righteous remnant that survives the destruction. In Isaiah six, God even puts a number on this. He says a 10th shall return.

So it's like 10% of them. And there's all sorts of places where Isaiah talks about this. He says that the survivors that are left in Jerusalem will be holy, everyone that is counted among the living in Jerusalem. He talks about a holy seed kind of replanting the tree of Judah after it's chopped down, all sorts of images, getting at this remnant idea. You can tell how important this is to Isaiah because he names his son Sha'ar Yashub, which means Sha'ar, a remnant, Yashub, will return. He likes to give kids these message names. So they're walking billboards for the big points he's trying to make. Maher Shalah Hashbaz, right? Yeah. Emmanuel, God is with us, right? So,

sha'ar yashub, sha'ar is the term for remnant that he typically uses right there. So, a remnant shall return, a remnant will survive is a big deal for him. So, then the Assyrians come and we've got the Hezekiah story and you just have these survivors in Jerusalem that repented and turned to Jehovah in trust like Hezekiah. So, that's the righteous remnant there. And now they're prepared to do the job of Israel because instead of having 90% of Israel's wicked, now you've got 10% left, but at least they're righteous. They can keep the commandments. They can be the light that they're supposed to be. They can do the job properly now. So that's one function of creating a remnant. The second half of the book of Isaiah has the remnant different story now. You've got

this group that has been exiled to captivity in Babylon. So the way they were created as a remnant is the Babylonians came, scooped up this chunk of people and physically relocated them to Babylon and dumped them there. And now they're a remnant that's operating there. And God promises to redeem them, to get them out of Babylon, physically gather them back to the land of their inheritance where they can rebuild Jerusalem. So it's a different remnant story. And it's kind of nice comparing and contrasting those two stories because Nephi wants to talk about remnants in the Book of Mormon so he can liken these stories to the last days. And Nephi's got two stories in Isaiah he can turn to. So the first story is more handy to make certain points. And then the second story is more handy to make other points. So Nephi's

got two kind of stories he can draw from. So for example, when Nephi wants to focus on God's destruction on the wicked mean Gentiles oppressing the remnant, best resource for that is the first half of Isaiah, where you get the destruction of the Assyrians. You did get the destructions of Babylon in the second half, but it's mostly applied. There's not as much destruction language there. On the flip side, when you want to talk about remnants that physically gather back after being scattered, you got to go to the second half of Isaiah. Because in the first half, the remnant doesn't go anywhere. They're just in Jerusalem the whole time. They don't move. It's in the second half where they got to make a physical journey. So when Nephi wants to talk about that aspect of it, he's got to go to the second half of Isaiah.

Or when Nephi wants to talk about this dynamic of nice Gentiles who are helping the remnant, he's got to go to the second half because those Persians are the nice Gentiles that help out the remnant there. There's no nice Gentiles in the first half. It's just the Assyrians, these mean Gentiles there. So when Nephi wants to talk about a contrast between mean wicked Gentiles and nice helpful Gentiles, he's got to go to the second half of Isaiah and quote from there. So Nephi is very much aware of the dynamic of these two remnant stories, and he very powerfully draws upon them to liken it to the latter day remnants and what their situation is, such as the Lamanites. So back to Micah then. All that being said, verse 12 in chapter two, again,

I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. The remnant is always a promise that only a minority of you are going to make it through this, but there will always be that minority that survives. There's a protection clause in the Abrahamic covenant that God won't let Israel get completely destroyed. They're always going to survive and then he'll keep working with them. So you see this like in the Book of Mormon, powerful contrast between the children of Lehi who are part of the covenant. And when they go apostate, they have a remnant that survives to the last days so that they can come back eventually.

Then there's the Jaredites by contrast or Gentiles. They're not part of the covenant. And when they go apostate, they're completely destroyed. There is no root nor branch. There's no remnant to survive to the last days. Latter-day Jaredites coming back because they don't have the protection clause that's built in. Josh, doesn't Isaiah use it as like a tree that's been chopped down, but a piece then starts growing again out of the trunk? Yes. A few places Isaiah uses that image of the chopped down tree and then the holy seed that sprouts like a root or a shoot or a rod that comes out and can regrow the tree. The teal tree or the oak. And Terry Ball says those are trees that can be, you get to have all the leaves eaten off, but it will still come back because there's a remnant or

a sap within. Yeah. So this remnant idea is very powerful for the prophets because on the one hand, it's a promise that God won't let Israel be completely destroyed. He'll make them, at least a small part of them survive so they can live and grow another day. And on the other hand, it gives God the ability to now have some flexibility to still work with Israel in either to produce a righteous group that can get the job done

or to move them around in new Gentile areas, mix them up a little bit. But either way, that helps God use Israel to fulfill the purposes of the Abrahamic covenant to bring the blessings of the everlasting covenant to fulfill the purposes of the Abrahamic covenant to bring the blessings of the everlasting covenant to all the nations of the earth. So remnants are key to making this work. If they're all stuck in one group and you had to take them all or nothing, it really halt God's ability to work with them here. So remnants is a key and powerful idea.

So the scattering is a good thing. It put them into these remnants. Yeah. It can be a good thing to get them out there. Like the Nephites go to the Americas and now they can do missionary work among the natives that are there, the Gentiles there. You have Book of Mormon hints about that. Sometimes it's a punishment, but even then when it's a punishment, he'll use the unfortunate situation they're in, in order to still get the job done. Like Isaiah 49, God says to the remnant in Judah, yeah, I'll get you out of Babylon, but that's too light of a thing. I'm also want you to be a light to the nation so we can bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. Like let's do this. Let's get back to basics here. So Micah talks a lot about this remnant idea in the same vein of Isaiah, but he's also going to add a little bit more detail about a certain

aspect of the remnant that Isaiah does not do, which is why one reason I think at third Nephi, Jesus quotes Micah instead of just sticking with Isaiah. So we'll get there. Anyway, let's go to chapter four now and continue through the book. So chapter three ended, remember, with Jerusalem getting plowed. And then it says the mountain of the house will be as a high place to the forest, meaning it'll be like just bare. It'll be like an open field out in the wilderness, just bulldozed. And that transitions into chapter four, which has a lot of hope opens right here. And it opens with a prophecy that will sound very familiar because it's almost word for word the same as Isaiah chapter two. But in the last days, so now we're moving from Micah's time and looking forward to like a hopeful future. In the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord. So that's the

same thing that just got destroyed at the end of chapter three, but is now apparently rebuilt and destroyed, or sorry, rebuilt and restored. The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and it shall be exalted above the hills and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For the law shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Sounds familiar. Yeah, it sounds very familiar. There's a few differences, but it's mostly the same here as Isaiah. So people have asked, did Micah take this from Isaiah or did Isaiah take this from Micah? And officially, we don't know. Scholars have argued that Isaiah was first and Micah copied it. Others have argued that Micah is first and Isaiah copied it. Others have argued that they're both taking it from a third source that we don't know about. I think Latter-day Saints have often assumed that Isaiah was first, but that's just because we think Isaiah

is awesome. So we just jumped to that. And he comes first as you read, right? If you're reading the Old Testament, he comes first. So you kind of automatically think that way, but they're not in chronological order. So the interesting thing here is though, they frame this prophecy a little bit differently. In Isaiah, he's contrasting this amazing future with the wicked present we have right now. And like, get your act together, guys, you're sinning. You need to repent so we can work towards this future. In Micah, he's just said, Jerusalem's going to be destroyed. You're all going to be plowed, but someday things are going to be better. So then he contrasts that with the temple's going to be rebuilt.

Everyone's going to come here. And like in Isaiah, it's important here that you've got all these nations and these peoples that are coming to the temple, coming to the house of the Lord. Because again, the Abrahamic covenant is all about Gentiles coming and joining Israel, being adopted, becoming numbered with the house of Israel. And you get that dynamic very beautifully presented here. And the way that Micah talks about the remnant before this, and he's going to talk about the remnant after this, suggests that remnants are tied into this, that it's by creating a remnant that God can do this work of bringing these Gentiles into the house of Israel. So we'll move on to chapter, verse six.

In that day, saith the Lord, so still talking about this future time, will I assemble her that halteth or is lame, and I will gather her that is driven out and her that I have afflicted. And I will make her that halted a remnant and her that was cast afar off a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. Israel's been, they're like walking lamely. They've been injured. He's afflicted them. They're all over the place. They're scattered, but he's going to bring them together. And remnants are the way that he's going to do it. We're going to gather in these pockets of Israel that are scattered in all the nations of the earth. And there's that her again, like she's the bride.

Yep. Bringing them back. Then the rest of chapter four is more talking about destruction and things. So it's like verse 10 says that Zion is like a woman in travail, a woman in labor. So they're having these birth pains and they're shrieking and stuff like that. You're going through this awful, painful experience. But what always happens at the end of the labor, you get the baby and it's nice again, right? So that's what he's using.

He has a little allusion here to the Babylonian exile that's still 100 years out. Thou shalt go even to Babylon and there shalt thou be delivered. So that's a play on here. Both be delivered of the baby. You've gotten through the birth pains now and you're going to be delivered from Babylon, redeemed from there, right? The Lord shall redeem thee from the hands of thine enemies. So basically it's saying, hey, remnant, I'm going to save you, but you're going to have to go through some hard times first. You might feel sometimes like you're in the middle of labor, and that's what you got to get through if you're going to get to the joy that's on the

other side of the labor. He's promising eventual salvation for the remnant, but it doesn't mean there's not going to be a painful, difficult road to get there before you get to that final restoration. So then verses 11, 12, 13, start to get into the stuff we're going to quote in the Book of Mormon. So I'll read this. Now, also many nations are gathered against thee that say, let her be defiled and let our eye look upon Zion. So you got these antagonistic Gentiles that are antagonistic to the remnant, but they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel. For he, the Lord, shall gather them, meaning the remnant, as the sheaves into the floor, the sheaves into the threshing floor. So gathering image. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion,

for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hooves brass. And thou shalt beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth. So two images here. Verse 12 has this image of gathering the remnant together. And in verse 13 says that Zion here is going to have a horn of iron, which is like an image of strength and hooves of bronze, which is like an image of hardness. And then they are going to go beat in people, beat in pieces, these people, these antagonistic Gentiles that are trying to fight them. So you get this image of the remnant being the instrument in the Lord's hand to then go and beat these wicked, oppressive Gentiles that are trying to fight them. So you get this image of the remnant being the instrument in the Lord's hand to then go and beat these wicked, oppressive Gentiles that are trying to destroy

them. So that'll become important in 3 Nephi. So we'll move on and then circle back to this. So he's saying this will happen in a future date where Jerusalem's going to suffer all this destruction, but this remnant will have power at a future date. Yeah, they'll be gathered and then they'll be strengthened. So instead of getting beaten up, they will then be hardened and strengthened so they can then beat their oppressors. Okay. Chapter five, verse one is kind of continuing that same general train of thought. Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops. He hath laid siege against us. They shall smite the judge of Israel with the rod upon the cheek. So this image of

getting oppressed and the leader of Israel is getting smacked. Maybe as they first understood it, this could be like Sennacherib invading Jerusalem and attacking Hezekiah, something like that. But certainly it's part of this military imagery we're getting here in 12 and 13. And then chapter five, verse two kind of starts a new section that's really important because it describes this king from the line of David who's going to come and make everything good. So I think we can all guess where that is going. And we're listening to this right before Christmas. So this is an important passage to get into. And it tells us where this king's going to come from.

Exactly. So, but thou Bethlehem of Ephrathah. Ephrathah might be like an, we're not sure what that means exactly. It might be an archaic equivalent to Bethlehem or somewhere nearby identifying the region. So Bethlehem, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, like these villages, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, God, that is to be a ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting. So the reference to Bethlehem seems to be suggesting that this ruler is going to be from the line of David. David is from Bethlehem, and that's where the prophet Samuel anointed him to be king. So even though the Davidic line did not live in Bethlehem after that, it's probably

invoking Bethlehem there to say, yeah, this king is going to come from Bethlehem either physically because they actually do still come from that village or at least invoking that idea that King David was from there and where that Davidic line. So this is the verse that of course is quoted in the gospel of Matthew. Yeah. When you've got the wise men going to Herod and they're like, where is he that is born? The king of the Jews. And that makes Herod panic because he's not born king of the Jews. He's a Roman appointee. So he's sensitive about his position. And then he asked the guys and they go look and they say, well, in the prophets has written an illusion of Micah. And then they quote chapter five, verse two, right? Well, look, it says he's going to come out of Bethlehem.

And that's how the wise men know to go to Bethlehem. And that's then Herod, of course, hatches his evil plots to go murder all the babies in Bethlehem and keep this guy who's born King of the Jews from coming and doing all these things. So we get that Christmas reference very clearly there, but reading the rest of the verses is interesting because it continues to talk about in this prophecy, what this King from the line of David is going to do. So in verse three, therefore, will he give them up until the time that she, which travaileth hath brought forth. So that's a reference back to chapter four, where Israel's like this woman that's in labor and we're waiting for that time

of deliverance there. So it seems like it's hard to say what this means, but somehow he's being kind of held back until the right moment. Then the remnant, there's that word again, of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he, still this kingly figure, shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord. Feeding means like a shepherd, you're feeding your flock. In the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall abide. For now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth, and this man shall be the peace, or the one of peace. When the Assyrian shall come into our land, when he shall tread in our palaces, then we will rise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men, and they shall waste the land of Assyria

with the sword and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof. Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land and when he treadeth within our borders. So this is interesting because it uses Assyria as this image, but we have no indication in the scriptures that a king of Judah ever takes the fight to the land of Assyria and fights them there for having invaded Judah. So I take this as using the imagery that was familiar to them in their time, but still using it symbolically of a greater evil that's going to attack Israel in the future. And you've got this king of David coming forth, this ruler in Israel, who's going to attack Israel in the future. And you've got this king of David coming forth, this ruler in Israel, who's going to gather the remnant and he's going to take the

fight to their enemies and he's going to conquer and feed them as a shepherd and lead them to victory and peace right there. So the fact that Matthew identifies this as Jesus is very significant that Jesus is the king of Israel who will come. And as the redeemer of Israel, gather the remnants in the last days, preserve and protect them and lead them in the fight against their enemies. Verse seven, and the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, so presumably Gentiles, non-covenant people, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass that tarrieth not for man nor waiteth for the sons of men. People have read this as either the remnant being positive in its relationship to these peoples or negative. You could see it both ways. That verse eight is clearly negative. It's an antagonistic relationship. So if verse seven is

positive, it's that image, you know, dew being nourishing and life-giving and refreshing. But there are other spots in the Old Testament where it uses the dew falling on everything as a military image to say, we're just going to fall on all these guys and cover them completely and take them out. Like 2 Samuel 17, 12 uses the dew in that way. So you can either read it as a positive negative compare contrast, or that they're both negative and discussing what's going to happen. So verse eight, this is getting down to the part Jesus will quote. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of the sheep. So the remnant of Israel is the lion and the Gentiles are like the sheep. And then you just imagine if you let a lion loose in a flock of sheep, what is going to happen?

It's going to be a fight. It's going to be a bloodbath, but it's very one-sided. So who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces and none can deliver. Thy hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries and all thine enemies shall be cut off. So you got the remnant taking out these Gentiles and ripping them to pieces and destroying them and no one can save them. Then verses 10 through 15 have a new thought. It shall come to pass in that day, say the Lord, that I will cut off. And then it starts to list all these bad things that he's going to remove. And the sense you get here in Micah is that now he's talking to Israel, that he's going to purge them too, because he lists specific things that were problems for the Israelites in their particular kind of covenant context. So he says, I'll cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee

and I'll destroy thy chariots. That's military image, obviously, but it's important because the prophets often equate Judah gathering and amassing horses and chariots as a bad thing, because it means they're trusting in military stuff to save them and not God to save them. So he says, he'll get rid of those things and the cities and throw down the stronghold. So he's getting rid of all the military protection that they've trusted him before because now they got to trust in him. And then in verse 12, he'll cut off witchcrafts, soothsayers, verse 13, graven images, standing images, the work of your hand. So idols are all getting taken off. Verse 14, the groves he'll take out,

like these Asherah poles that they're worshiping. He's going to destroy these cities. So it's stuff that usually you hear in context of what Israel is doing wrong. So he sounds like he's kind of critiquing Israel here, but then verse 15 returns to the Gentiles. I will execute vengeance and anger and fury upon the heathen. The Hebrew word there is goyim, which is usually translated as either nations or Gentiles. Heathen has kind of a weird connotation in modern English, right? Like bad, but it's Gentiles. So God will also execute vengeance and anger and fury upon the Gentiles, such as they have not heard. And the word heard there often is translated as obey, shema there. So it could be these Gentiles that have not obeyed, could be another way to

translate it. So you get this interesting tension here in this section that you've got the remnant is going to be empowered to destroy these Gentiles, but then God's also going to purge Israel of its issues. And then it returns finally to this thought again about these wicked Gentiles getting destroyed. So you get all that in there. So let's jump to 3 Nephi chapter 20. This is the second day of Jesus's sermons to the Nephites there. So I thought this would be interesting to look at because I know in Come Follow Me in a couple of years, we'll get back to 3 Nephi, but there's so much going on there. Nobody's going to take the time to really be like, let's explore Micah in depth. So this is probably your best launching pad to go see what's going on specifically with that. So chapter 20 verse 10 is a section where Jesus is kind of returning to what he started to

talk about the first day about Isaiah and scattering and gathering and remnants and all that. And you remember the Nephites, their eyes get glazed over and they think Isaiah, and then Jesus pauses and says, let's let you go home. My time is at hand. Yeah. You can't understand everything. Go home, go ponder, go pray, go sleep. So he had a really important stuff to discuss with them. So here he's returning to where he left off the first day. And now he's going to continue with that thought. So verse 12, he says, I'm going to talk about the time in the last days, the fulfilling of the covenant, which the father hath made with his people, O house of Israel. And in verse 13, then shall the remnants, which shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth,

be gathered in from all these directions. And they shall be brought to a knowledge of the Lord, their God, who hath redeemed him. So they're gathered both physically and spiritually, but gathered back to knowledge there. And then he says to this, the Lehites are going to be a remnant. There's going to be a Lamanite remnant in the last days. And he says in verse 14, that the father has given you guys this land for your inheritance. It's not Jerusalem, your own remnant. Now you get your own land. And in verse 15, he starts this new kind of subsection. And I say unto you that if the Gentiles in the last days do not repent after the blessing, which they shall receive, meaning the restored gospel after they have scattered my people. And then we get into our Micah quote.

So first he quotes Micah chapter five, verses eight and nine. But in Micah five, eight, and nine, it talked about the remnant in the third person, those guys over there. But Jesus is talking to a remnant. And so he switches it to talk in the second person directly to them. Then shall ye who are a remnant of the house of Jacob go forth among them, meaning the Gentiles, and ye shall be in the midst of them who shall be many. And ye shall be among them as a lion among the beast of the forest and as a young lion among the flock of sheep, who if he goeth through both treads down and teareth in pieces and none can deliver. Thy hand shall be lifted up upon all thine adversaries and all the enemies

shall be cut off. So this Lamanite remnant is told, you're going to have Gentiles that'll afflict you, smite you, scatter you, beat you up. But eventually if those Gentiles do not repent and embrace the gospel, then I'm going to empower you and the tables are going to turn. You'll suddenly be like a lion. They'll be like sheep and you're going to tear them to pieces and you'll be freed from this oppression that you've had. Then as he goes on, he jumps back to Micah 4 and we get Micah 4, the second half of verse 12 and Micah 4, 13. So this starts in 3 Nephi 20 verse 18. And I will gather my people as a man gathered his sheaves into the floor, for I will make my people with whom the father hath covenanted. Yea, I will make thy horn iron. So he's adding a little bit to Micah. I will make thy horn iron, thy hooves brass, and you'll beat

in people many pieces. And then he concludes that verse 19 by adding something that's not in Micah saying, behold, I am he who doeth it. So again, you get this interesting dynamic. If you've got the remnant who are the agents acting as the agents of destruction, they're the ones doing the destruction directly. But he does add here that God is behind that. He's empowering the remnant. He approves of this. He's behind their sudden success as the tables have turned. And then in verse 20, he concludes with this final recap of what the point of all this is. It shall come to pass, sayeth the Father, that the sword of my justice shall hang over them at that day, and except they repent, it shall fall upon them, saith the Father, yea, even upon all the nations of the Gentiles. So this warning to Gentiles in the last days that these remnants

of Israel, such as the Lamanites, you'll get to beat them up and oppress them and abuse them and scatter them for only so long. But if you continually don't repent and don't embrace the restored gospel, and you just keep going on with your wicked and oppressive ways, eventually these remnants will be empowered to turn the tables and they'll come and destroy you and your wickedness there. Now, at this point, we might have people reading the Book of Mormon or the Bible going, okay, well, that's not me. I'm not a Gentile. I'm a member of the house of Israel. I have a patriarchal blessing that proves it. So to that, I want to suggest, well, yes, but there's a caveat here. According to the book of

Mormon, it is possible for people in the last days to be both a descendant of Israel and a Gentile. How does that work? It's basically because you can have Abraham's genes in your DNA. You can be a lost member of Israel, and that can be your covenant heritage going back and everything. But if you belong to a Gentile nation, that can be your citizenship. If you belong to a Gentile culture, that can be your cultural orientation. For example, in 2 Nephi 3, Joseph Smith is identified as a descendant of Joseph of Egypt. So he's got the Israelite DNA. But then in the title page of the Book of Mormon, Moroni says the Book of Mormon comes forth by way of the Gentile, seemingly calling Joseph Smith a Gentile, because he's a citizen of a Gentile nation right there, even though he's got the DNA. So you really can be

both. You can be Israelite in your ancestry and a Gentile in your culture and national affiliation. So that suggests that rather than just quickly going, oh man, this is talking about other people, not me. This has nothing to do for me. There might be a warning for us too, because in as much as we participate in Gentile culture, which is secularism and pop stars and violence and participating in economic systems that exploit people, all the things that Gentile culture does wrong. In as much as we participate in any of that, this can also be a warning to us. Are we going to be true to our Israelite heritage and turn to God for answers? Or are we doing what our Gentile culture tells us to do to get answers in the way we should live? And in as much as we give any loyalty to the Gentile culture,

we are susceptible, I think, to the warnings that he's trying to give here. Yeah. Verse 20, the sword of my justice hang over them, except they repent. Talking to us. Yeah. And so you can ask yourself this in a bunch of ways. When you have deep spiritual questions, for example, do you go into the Lord in prayer? Do you listen to the prophets? Do you read the scriptures? Or do you do the typical thing that anyone in the world would do? Google your deep spiritual questions. Listen to podcasts from people who are antagonistic. Listen to people who don't even believe in God and get their framework, right? Which way are you turning? That's something we all have to figure out because we all have kind of these dual identities as members of a modern secular culture and as people who have

covenanted in the church to follow Jesus Christ. Yeah, and I noticed in the next verse, the Lord says, I will establish my people. Not I might or I'm going to try. I will establish my people, O house of Israel. So if you want to get on the team, come be on the team. Come repent. And I think repent is the key word there. I'm looking at 2 Nephi 30, verse 2. For behold, I say unto you that as many of the Gentiles as

will repent are the covenant people of the Lord. And as many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off. For the Lord covenanteth with none save it be them that repent and believe in his son who is the Holy One of Israel. So bottom line, repent. Yeah. In fact, that's a beautiful lead in. If we can just go really quickly to chapter 21, the second Micah quote, he's using it to make that exact point, John. So I'm glad you're cross-referencing that back to Nephi. So chapter 21, verse 11. This is third Nephi 21, right? Third Nephi 21, verse 11. So Jesus here now has a warning, not just to latter day wicked Gentiles, but latter day,

wicked Israel. Cause like John read from second Nephi, nobody's off the hook here. So verse 11, therefore, it shall come to pass that whosoever Jew or Gentile will not believe in my words, who am Jesus Christ, which the father shall cause him to bring forth unto the Gentiles skipping ahead. They shall be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant. In the context, we've been talking about the book of Mormon coming forth. So he's saying, whosoever will not believe my words that I'm presenting to the people in the last days through the book of Mormon, they'll be cut off from my people who are of the covenant. And then he quotes Micah again. So we're back to chapter five, starting in verse eight, but this time, instead of doing verses eight and nine, he goes all the way to verse 15. Man, Jesus knows his scriptures, Josh.

He does. And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them. And then we get the lion imagery again, tearing in pieces, none can deliver, all that stuff. But Jesus adds an interesting line in verse 14, yea, woe be unto the Gentiles unless they repent. And then it continues going through the things that we read in Micah that sounded like they're about the Israelites, like I'll cut off their chariots, their horses, their strongholds, their witchcraft, soothsayers, graven images, all that stuff right there. So who's he talking to? Is he still talking to Israelites like in Micah or is he talking to Gentiles? So you look at verse 14, it mentions Gentiles, but in verse 12, it mentioned my people. So who are the thys or the yours in verses like 14 through 19? It could be both. Really,

you could read it that way. It could be the Gentiles here, could still be the Israelites. This might be a good place to mention that our friend Dana Pike, who has been on your podcast this year, he just wrote a fantastic book chapter on Micah here in Third Nephi and how it's used. It's in this new book that just came out, They Shall Grow Together, The Bible in the Book of Mormon, which is just full of fantastic articles about the dynamic between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. That's printed by the RSC. Yeah, Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book. So this just came out and Dana Pike has what I think is the best take on Micah in the book of Mormon that's ever been done. I'm getting some of my stuff from him here. I'll just say that. So like Dana Pike, for example, on this question of in these verses here, are we

talking warning to Gentile warning to Israel? He thinks it's perhaps intentional ambiguity going on here. Cause we got two kinds of references. We can go back to everybody's being critiqued right here. Jumping down to verse 18. This is the end of the Micah quote. I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee, so I will destroy thy cities. And then verses 19 and 20 have stuff that Jesus now adds into the quote from Micah. It shall come to pass that all lyings and deceivings and envying and strifes and priestcrafts and whoredoms shall be done away. For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that on that day whosoever will not repent and come unto my beloved son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel. So he repeats this idea. Doesn't

matter what your background is, covenant, non-covenant, whatever, anybody who does not repent will be cut off from the people. And then he returns to the quote from Micah in verse 21. And I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard. Now the switch he does there is in the original Micah verse, Micah 5 verse 15. He says, I'll execute vengeance on the heathen, on these Gentiles. So it's just all about the Gentiles there. But here he says, whoever doesn't accept Jesus Christ and whoever does not repent will be cut off from the house of Israel, just like the heathens, just like the Gentiles. So there it's a very clear warning to Israel that if you do not repent and believe in Jesus and follow him, it doesn't matter what your

background is or what covens you have made. You'll be cut off and you'll be just like a Gentile, basically. So throughout third Nephi, Jesus is painting this dynamic. Like back in third Nephi 16, he said, the remnant is going to be brought to the knowledge of me, their Redeemer. So you can find these remnants, gather them into the covenant. He also said in third Nephi 16, that if the Gentiles will repent and come unto me, then they can be numbered among my people. So everybody's invited into the covenant in the last days, but then you can also get out of the covenant. So like here in 21, he had said, whosoever will not believe in Jesus Christ shall be cut off from among my people who are the covenant. And then he repeated here, if the Gentiles don't repent, the sword of my justice will hang over them. So his point is, it really doesn't matter who your ancestor was.

It really doesn't matter what covenants you have made. If you're not repenting, if you're not believing the Book of Mormon and coming unto Jesus Christ, those are the things that ultimately matter. And President Nelson has said the same thing. It doesn't matter if you're a literal descendant of Israel or you're just adopted in, the blessings are the same. What matters in the end is covenant keeping, whatever your background is. And that's really what he wants to stress here in 3 Nephi. So before we leave 3 Nephi, I'll just make a comment on this. So why is he quoting from Micah to make this point? Why not just stick with Isaiah? Because he quotes lots of Isaiah too. There's probably lots of reasons. So I'll just suggest one of them here. Micah has these images from both chapter four and

chapter five about the remnant directly being the instrument of destruction on these wicked, unrepentant Gentiles. Your horn will be iron and they hoof is brass and be like a lion among sheep. So they're the direct agents of destruction. Somehow God's going to use the remnant to destroy these wicked, unrepentant Gentiles. In the book of Isaiah, you don't really find an image like that. You get a few verses that are sort of maybe, but nothing really direct. Part of the reason for that is in the stories of remnants that Isaiah is telling, the remnant's always pretty powerless. Whether it's the people getting beat up by the Assyrians and they're left there in Jerusalem, or this remnant of Jews exiled in Babylon, both of them

need a lot of help to get out. And in both cases, it's God kind of doing all the destruction and thing or using the Persians to do it. So it's other people doing it. It's not the remnant themselves that are ever powerful in those stories. So Isaiah really doesn't give you a lot of material to make that kind of a picture. Whereas Micah does. He's got this image of remnants who are like the lions doing the tearing and the treading down. So when Jesus wants to make this point in third Nephi, that part of the destruction on the wicked will come through the instrumentality of the remnant with him empowering them. He can't go to Isaiah really for that to get an image for that.

He's got to go to the book of Micah. So I think that's one reason why he's using Micah here alongside Isaiah. And just as a side note, I'm so impressed with the Book of Mormon at this point with how well the Savior is using Micah and then adding to it, changing it to adapt to the message he wants to give. I mean, I was sitting here, Hank, going, yeah, like Joseph Smith, he made this up and it just poured out of him, right? He had Micah memorized and then just adjusted right there on the spot for the message. Yeah. Jesus weaves a lot of stuff together here and he changes wording. He interprets it different ways, but I can't imagine anyone complaining to him because he'll just ask, well, who do you think gave it to Micah and Isaiah and these guys in the first place? That was me. Which is really cool because Jesus is going to quote Malachi later. And it's like, well,

you gave that to Malachi. You just could have said it. But I love that he honors his prophets that way and says, let me quote the words which basically he gave to Malachi. Jesus is a scripture studier. He studies the scriptures. Even as a resurrected being, he's quoting scripture. So why don't we return now to Micah 6 and 7, and we'll take this home. Okay. The last two chapters of Micah go together right here. And again, we're not going to read every verse in detail, but Micah chapter 6 starts off with kind of this, prophets do this, where it's kind of like a lawsuit where the prophet is kind of critiquing the people like a lawyer saying, you've been unfaithful to God.

And he kind of proves the case against them. So like in verse three, God asks, oh, my people, this is Micah six, three. Oh, my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me. Like, have I broken the terms of the covenant? Have I been unfaithful? Have I ever let you down? Tell me, bring your case. And then he invokes in verse four, I got you out of Egypt. I gave you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. In verse five, he invokes other stories. And so he's accusing them of really being unfaithful, even though he's always done his job. And then Micah six verses six and seven has the people's response. They're like, well, what do you want us to do about this? Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves of a year old? Like, how do we make this right? Should we bring a bunch of sacrifices? Verse seven, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? They're like, what do you want? Rivers of oil, thousands of sacrifices. I could offer my firstborn son as a sacrifice. What would appease you? What would make you happy, God? Yeah. I'm willing to repent. What do you want me to do? And then in verse eight, Micah responds with this really classic, beautiful image. That's probably one of the most famous verses of Micah. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. Like, why are you even asking? He said this a thousand times if he has ever said it.

What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God? And guess what the word is behind mercy there? It's hesed. Hesed again. Yeah. God wants you to do justly, treat people right, to love hesed and to walk humbly before God. You be faithful and loyal and loving to me. And that's really, you know, what Jesus was getting at. What are the two greatest commandments? Love God, love your neighbor. That's what we get beautifully expressed here, I think. That's really nice because there is something that you can do. Yeah. And you don't have to go to these extremes like rivers of oil and thousands of sacrifices. He's

like, look, all I want you to do is love me, be true to your covenants and treat people right. It's a broken heart, contrite spirit. You don't have to bring literal sacrifices. Just bring you, bring your heart. And I think that's what in 3 Nephi, Jesus says, okay, no more animal sacrifice. You are the sacrifice. Bring your broken heart and your contrite spirit. Or in other words, do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.

That's a great little summary in there in verse 8. If you want to please me, change your heart. I love that. I don't need thousands of rams. I don't need a thousand rivers of oil. I definitely don't need your firstborn. I just need you. Yeah. This is one of those verses that's good to put on a t-shirt. Really gets back to those basics. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Can you spell chesed for me so I can put it in my margin and then I can tell myself how to pronounce it? So your simplest English spelling is H-E-S-E-D, chesed.

Because that's come up a lot. It sounds like it's a favorite word in the Old Testament. Yeah. And now that President Nelson is making it mainstream, we get to run with this now. We get to use it all the time. He spent several paragraphs on it in his article saying we got to understand this. This new October Liahona article, brand new. endnote, he says, if you want a fuller discussion with more details about Chesed and about the covenant as a whole, there's a book that he recommends. I brought it here. It's God Will Prevail by Kerry Muehlstein, friend of the podcast. Isn't that wonderful? This book gets an endorsement

from President Nelson in the end notes of the article. So it is fantastic. And I hope people will take up President Nelson's invitation and really make this a matter of study, the covenant and Chesed and that love and loyalty there. And Carrie's book goes over this beautifully. You can't get a better endorsement than President Nelson's, so I would look at that book. All right. And then the rest of Micah 6 is more just critiquing them and saying that they're wicked. So for the sake of time, we'll just move on. Chapter 7 has Micah starting out, woe is me. And then he points out that nobody's good in society. Everybody's a liar. Everybody's cheating each other. And so it's either Micah or him kind

of personifying Israel, just lamenting the sad state that they're in. And it goes over that for several verses until you get to verse seven. And then either Micah or again, kind of the good people personified say, you know what? I can't trust anyone. Everyone's cheating me. Society's topsy-turvy. But in verse seven, therefore, I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. So I love this here of's saying, you know what? My life stinks. I'm surrounded by people I don't trust.

Everything is just miserable. But what am I going to do about this? Am I going to give into despair? No, I'm going to look to the Lord. He's going to hear me. When I'm in darkness, he'll be my light. That's a good application for us. If the world's getting you down, look to the Lord.

Wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Because sometimes you watch the news and you think, man, what world do we live in? So verses like this stand out as ways to kind of recenter yourself. I like the word look there. It reminds me also of President Nelson's kind of famous quotation that our happiness, what is it, Has less to do with the circumstances of our lives and more to do with the focus of our lives. So we look and focus on the Lord instead. Which way do you face? Yeah. Yeah. What are we focusing on? Because if you focus on the news, yeah, that's a bad day. But

if you focus on... And then why don't we jump to the last three verses and we'll bring this home here. The last three verses are also famous. The preceding verses, he has another image of God feeding his flock like a shepherd and kind of nurturing them despite all that they've done wrong. So in verse 18, Micah asks this, who is a God like unto thee? And that's where you get kind of the play on Micah's name. Who is like? Micah. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of thy heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy, which is in the Hebrew, he delighteth in hesed. Right there. You get that

word again, tied to this remnant idea that as you're gathered into this remnant of Israel and you're that righteous remnant, he delights. And I just love this. He delights in hesed. He delights in extending that love and mercy and loyalty to us. It's not like he's grumbling about it. Like, oh man, you messed up again. Now I'm going to have to forgive you, I guess. No, he delights in it. He loves extending mercy. He loves forgiving. This is what gets him happy, is being able to extend that kind of love and mercy to us. So Micah just says, wow, can I even imagine another God like that? Who's just so quick to pardon iniquity that just passes by your transgression like it never happened, doesn't not retain his anger forever and just delights.

What a great verse, Micah 7, 18. And then it doesn't stop. These are three good verses. You put these all in the shirt. Verse 19, he will turn again. He will have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities. And then it says their sins, but other manuscripts will have our sins that will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. And the verb there is like to hurl something. He's going to take your sins and not just sweep them under the rug, not just put them in the closet and close the door. He's going to take those sins. He's going to pick them up. He's going to go over to the edge of the cliff and he's going to hurl them with all his might

into the depths of the sea where they're just going to disappear forever. Get rid of those things. And then he's going to forget them. Verse 20, that will perform the truth to Jacob or show faithfulness to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham. And that's chesed once again. You're going to do chesed to Abraham. You're going to be true to the covenant that you made with him, that these people, no matter how bad they mess up and no matter how long it takes, you're going to forgive them and make sure the covenant is fulfilled. So you'll have chesed to Abraham, which thou has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. And that's the note that we end on. Wow. What a final message from Micah. I'm reminded of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who said,

Surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don't expect it and often feel they don't deserve it. That sounds like verse 18 to me. Delights in mercy. And here I can read the end of President Nelson's October 2022 Liahona article. This is what he says. The covenant path is a path of love, that incredible hesed, that compassionate caring

for and reaching out to each other. Feeling that love is liberating and uplifting. The greatest joy you will ever experience is when you are consumed with love for God and for all his children. Loving God more than anything or anyone else is the condition that brings true peace, comfort, confidence, and joy. The covenant path is all about our relationship with God, our hesed relationship with Him. When we enter a covenant with God, we have made a covenant with Him who will always keep his word. He will do everything he can without infringing on our agency to help us keep ours. My dear brothers and sisters, we have been called at this pivotal time in the history of the earth to teach the world about the beauty and power

of the everlasting covenant. Our heavenly father trusts us implicitly to do this great work. I'm just really inspired by that. And a prophet who can take these truths that have been taught 2,800 years ago, a lot of centuries ago, and show us just how relevant this is for us in our day. I love to think of God, how merciful he is, and the fact that he's so loyal to us because of this covenant we have made. There's a lot of people who sin and think, have I gone too far? Have I looked at pornography too much? I can never be forgiven again. Have I lied so often that I can never be forgiven? Have I done damage so great that it can never get healed? Or maybe people are fine themselves, but they have family members that they're just

aching over. People who were baptized and grew up in the church, maybe even covenanted in the temple, but have since left the covenant path. And we wonder, are they so far gone now that God can't call them back? That I think the promise here of the prophets is that no, you or they are never so far gone that the light of that love that he has that stems from his covenant with us can't reach

us and them. No matter how long it takes, no matter what he's gone to do, he's never going to be unfaithful to that covenant loyalty that he has. He'll reach out. He'll humble us if he needs to. He'll do whatever it takes to call and plead. And as soon as we turn to him, sincerely repenting and wanting to make that relationship whole again, he will delight in forgetting all that happened and welcoming us back as if it never happened and just hurling those sins into the sea to be forgotten forever. Wow. Absolutely perfect. John, what a great day. I understand Jonah more and I love Micah. Yeah. That verse 18, what is God like? Here's an answer, a beautiful answer. Yeah.

Along with what Josh, we just read from President Nelson. I can't wait to go read that article. Who is a God like unto thee? Yeah. I love it. We want to thank Dr. Josh Sears for being with us today. What a wonderful day. We'll certainly have him back. We're grateful for him. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorenson, and we hope all of you will join us next week on Follow Him. We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Crystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.