Right now, as I write this, the ground is still wet from yesterday’s rain. I’m grateful, because I don’t take rain for granted. Much of the state of California has suffered major drought in recent years. The reservoirs and rivers that supply water to Southern California, where I live, are at historic lows. Thankfully, last year was an unusually wet year. We had double the expected rainfall, and some are predicting we may get the same this year. In fact, we’re already ahead of the game because of a tropical storm that passed through several weeks ago. But it will probably take several such years to get water levels back to where they should be. We need the rain, badly — but all we can do is wait and see.

The people of ancient Israel and Judah would have understood. They lived in an arid climate where crops were dependent on getting the expected seasonal rains. Through the many dry months, the only moisture plants would get was the morning dew. And because people had no control over the weather, both the rain and the dew were symbols of divine blessing.

That’s the backdrop to what we read next in Micah:

The remnant of Jacob will be
    in the midst of many peoples
like dew from the LORD,
    like showers on the grass,
which do not wait for anyone
    or depend on man. (Micah 5:7, NIV)

Though God’s people had been decimated by war and exile, Micah and the other prophets repeatedly spoke of a remnant to be preserved by God. Bit by bit, long after Micah’s death and occurring over the span of many years, those who were left returned from exile. But it wasn’t a triumphant homecoming or a hero’s welcome. Nor could they simply move back into the homes they had left behind. Much of what they knew had been destroyed, the land had been resettled, and right off the bat there was tension with their new neighbors.

Most likely, the people felt small and beleaguered. So decades earlier, when Micah foresaw that the “remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples,” he was describing what would be a tense and uncertain situation calling for deep faith. How should that remnant understand their relationship to their neighbors?

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly given the context, Micah says they’re to see themselves as a blessing.

Again, the morning dew is a symbol of blessing. Consider, for example, Isaac’s blessing of Jacob (though he thought he was blessing his favorite son, Esau!): “May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness — an abundance of grain and new wine” (Gen 27:28). Remember too that in the wilderness, God gave his hungry people manna in the dew. Through the prophet Hosea, God promises his blessing to those who repent: “I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily” (Hos 14:5).

The remnant shouldn’t be surprised at the thought of being a blessing to their neighbors. When they were still in Babylon, God sent them a word of hope through the prophet Jeremiah. God both claimed responsibility for banishing them to Babylon and promised to bring them back–eventually. They would have to remain in captivity for decades. So God commanded the people to settle down, have kids, and to seek the peace and prosperity — the shalom — of Babylon, the conquerors, the ones who destroyed their homes and killed their friends.

I imagine that message didn’t go over terribly well with the exiles.

But the people had long ago lost their spiritual bearings. All the way back in Genesis 12, when God called Abraham to be the father of a nation, he promised not only to bless him but to bless others through him:

I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the people on earth will be blessed through you. (Gen 12:3)

God’s people, in other words, had always been blessed to be a blessing to others.

Not all of their neighbors, of course, would want to be blessed in that way, even if God’s people were so inclined. The presence of a people marked by their devotion to the one they claim to be the only true God will always be divisive. Relationships with neighbors will not always be friendly, no matter how much God’s people desire to make peace.

That’s why, from the very start, the curse is laid alongside the blessing: I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse. And the same tension, it seems, is also reflected in what Micah says next.