WHEN IT COMES to matters of religion and spirituality, we live in a vastly different world than the one described in the Old Testament. In a country of such cultural and ethnic diversity as the United States, for example, we may count people of a variety of backgrounds and beliefs as our friends, neighbors, and co-workers without a second thought. Sure, we may gravitate toward and fellowship with like-minded people in our places of worship. But in a land of religious freedom and tolerance, we usually don’t then leave those places to go and do battle with people who worship differently.

But imagine instead a world in which, when nations go to war, it’s in part a test to see whose god is supreme. The winners get bragging rights and insult not only the losers themselves but the losers’ gods for being impotent. In such a world — the world of the Old Testament — Israel’s God acts not only for the sake of her honor, but his own. There is but one true God, and that God is the one to be feared.

Previously, we read verses from Micah 7 that took the form of a prayer by the prophet and people for God to once again shepherd them as promised. The prayer looks back to a time in which the borders of their homeland were wide and embraced the lush pastures of Bashan and Gilead east of the Jordan River; Micah’s Hebrew could be translated “as in the old days.”

Then, in the next verse, as if in direct response to that prayer about returning to the good old days, Micah gives us words from God than push even further back into history:

“As in the days when you came out of Egypt,
    I will show them my wonders.” (Mic 7:15, NIV)

This is, of course, a reference to their miraculous escape from Pharaoh centuries before. Not surprisingly, the exodus remained the central symbol of God’s saving power, a story to be told again and again throughout the generations and the pages of Scripture. God’s intervention was disastrous for Pharoah, who thought to trap the Israelites at the shores of the Red Sea, powerless to resist — and as a result of that arrogance, the entire Egyptian army drowned, chariots and all.

When God acts in this way, other nations are forced to recognize their own impotence, forced to submit to the might and majesty of the one true God. Thus, Micah envisions that when God at last shows his wonders as promised, the nations will be terrified:

Nations will see and be ashamed,
    deprived of all their power.
They will put their hands over their mouths
    and their ears will become deaf.
They will lick dust like a snake,
    like creatures that crawl on the ground.
They will come trembling out of their dens;
    they will turn in fear to the Lord our God
    and will be afraid of you. (vss. 16-17)

This is a poetic portrait of nations cowed by a conquering king, prostrating themselves in fear. They are suddenly stripped of any illusions about their own power and come crawling and trembling to the one true God. They fear him and they fear his people. Micah is describing once more the complete reversal of Judah’s fortunes; for a people in exile, stripped of their own power and illusions, it’s a future devoutly to be wished.

. . .

BUT WE HAVE to be careful not to take these verses out of context. One can easily imagine how a text like this could be used to support an arrogant brand of nationalism that seeks to dominate and oppress, even in the name of God. Is that a legitimate reading of Micah?

Christians, of course, must read such passages against what is revealed of God though the life, ministry, and teaching of Jesus, who taught that the character of the Father was reflected in a love of one’s enemies. But even without that background, the overall thrust of the book of Micah itself should caution us against reading the text in a way that justifies domineering behavior.

Judah and Jerusalem’s problem, after all, was that they themselves had long since stopped fearing God properly. They acted unjustly and took advantage of the poor. They paid priests and prophets to say what they wanted to hear, to keep up the illusion that they still had God’s favor and protection no matter what they did.

And over and over, the prophet said, No. Wake up: disaster is coming. Your religion is useless because it’s contaminated and insincere. What God wants is a people who reflect his character. What God wants is a people who walk in humility with him, who embody his justice and mercy.

What the prophecy about the nations trembling in fear presupposes, in other words, is that God’s people have come back to a proper fear of God themselves, the fear taught throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as the very foundation of wisdom and righteousness. They have been brought to their own point of shame and powerlessness, and have humbled themselves before God. To think otherwise, I believe, is to rip these verses out of Micah and drop them into a different and ill-fitting context.

And as we’ll see, it also contradicts what Micah will say next, the words used to bring the book to its conclusion.