Description
Preview of Micah Bible Atlas of maps
What you get in the Micah Bible Atlas of maps
- Atlas of 17 high resolution maps in 3D style
- 24 PDF pages of resources
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2 versions: high-resolution; optimized for mobile devices
Sample Micah maps
“You killed the country.” Boiled to a one-liner, that’s essentially Micah’s blunt message to political leaders and judges in Jerusalem, capital of the southern Jewish nation of Judah.
He didn’t tell them to change. He said God had already sentenced the nation to death.
Moses had warned their ancestors that if the nation didn’t live up to the agreement with God, they would lose the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 28:63).
Micah said it’s too bad, they messed up big time. So, God would give the Jewish homeland to ancestors of today’s Iraqi people, the Babylonians.
That’s odd because Assyria was the superpower of the moment. Babylon wouldn’t take down Assyria for a century, in battles beginning in 626 BC. That leads some to speculate that someone later wrote at least part of Micah’s book, as history presented as prophecy.
Babylonian invaders turned Jerusalem into a rock pile in 586 BC and then deported the Jewish survivors into an exile that lasted 50 years.
The crime
Micah told the leaders why they didn’t deserve to live in the Promised Land of Judah any longer.
- They worship “idols built with money paid to prostitutes” (1:7)
- “You eat my people for breakfast” (3:3)
- You “declare war on the poor” (3:4)
- “Judges settle cases for a bribe” (3:11)
- Merchants use “dishonest scales” (6:10)
- “Your violent rich people have blood on their hands” (6:12)
- “Your people lie with tongues tuned to lie” (6:12)
The time
With graphic word pictures, Micah tells one city after another what will happen to them.
The word pictures become clear when we translate the Hebrew names of the cities into their English meanings.
- Dust House Town will “roll in the dust” (1:10).
- City of Beauty will leave “naked and walking in shame” (1:11).
- Entitlement Town will “lose it all” (1:15).
Mercy ahead
In spite of Israel’s serial sin, God doesn’t quit on them.
He punishes them royally. But when they’ve paid the price, their sins are gone—stomped to death in the ground and buried “into the deepest sea” (7:19).
Micah says once again God will do incredible miracles, like those he did to free their ancestors from slavery some 700 years earlier, in the days of Moses.
Micah advises the people to take their punishment with confidence in God (7:7), counting on his love.
In a prayer at the end of the prophecy, Micah’s explains the reason for the endurance of God’s love.
“You’ll stay devoted to us,
Jacob’s kids.
You won’t stop loving us,
Abraham’s children.
You promised our ancestors long ago
That you’d love us and always stay true” (Micah 7:20).
But Micah makes it clear that God isn’t doing this just to keep a promise. He’s doing it because of who he is:
“What kind of God are you?
What God would pardon a sinner
And overlook sin—
Like the sin in what’s left of his people?
He doesn’t obsess over anger
Because he’d rather love instead” (7:18).
In addition to the Micah Bible Atlas
You might consider the atlases and leaders guides for
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