I DIDN’T GROW up anywhere near snow. As a kid, I never went skiing or sledding; the closest I ever got was sliding down a weed-covered hill on a flattened-out cardboard box. Not bad. But as I understand it, that’s not the same as careening joyfully — and perhaps with a dash of terror — down a snowy hillside, out of control. A physicist will tell you that there’s a little thing called momentum involved here. Once a body is in motion, it will stay in motion unless some countervailing force (including friction) intervenes. And in the case of skiers picking up speed as they shoot downhill, you’d better hope that the other force isn’t a tree.

We use the word momentum to refer to non-physical situations as well. If you’re a procrastinator like I am, you know that there are things you put off doing because they seem too big, too long, or too complicated. But once you get started, once you build a little momentum, your perception shifts; suddenly, the job seems much more doable.

And we might think of a kind of momentum in organizational settings as well. Once things start being done a certain way, particularly when questionable decisions and moral shortcuts are involved, they can snowball.

It’s important to remember that prophecies like Micah’s don’t simply target the unethical or ungodly behavior of a few bad eggs. The nation is corrupt because its systems are corrupt. The systems, in turn, are corrupt because their leaders are corrupt. And in a monarchy like Israel or Judah, the corruption starts at the top, with the character and behavior of the king and the integrity of his court.

Listen to how God, through Micah, ends the covenant lawsuit of chapter 6. Verse 16 levels one more accusation at the people before returning to the final verdict:

You have observed the statutes of Omri
    and all the practices of Ahab’s house;
    you have followed their traditions.
Therefore I will give you over to ruin
    and your people to derision;
    you will bear the scorn of the nations. (Mic 6:16, NIV)

Omri and Ahab were father and son, the sixth and seventh kings of Israel. Omri is the less well-known of the two. His major claim to fame was to build the city of Samaria. His son Ahab is probably best remembered in tandem with his wife Jezebel and their ongoing feud with the prophet Elijah.

What does Micah’s oracle mean when it accuses the people of Judah of following in Omri and Ahab’s footsteps?

Idolatry, of course, is one possibility. 1 Kings 16 accuses Omri of great idolatry, then accuses Ahab of worse. This was in part because of Jezebel, a Sidonian princess who gave royal sanction to the cult of Baal, prompting the famous showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal atop Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). Indeed, the situation became so bad that 1 Kings 21 declares, “There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife. He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the LORD drove out before Israel” (vss. 25-26).

But that statement is made in the context of a chilling account of Ahab’s flagrantly unjust behavior as king. Ahab wanted a particular plot of land near his palace to plant a garden. The land belonged to a man named Naboth. Ahab offered him a fair price, but Naboth refused to sell, saying “The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors” (1 Kings 21:3).

Ahab went home sulking like a child. When Jezebel saw this, she scolded him — not for being immature, but for failing to wield his royal power to seize what he wanted. She took it upon herself to arrange for Naboth to be wrongfully accused of blasphemy and stoned to death. Ahab, when he heard that Naboth was dead, should have been horrified at what Jezebel had done in his name. Instead, he simply went down and took possession of Naboth’s vineyard.

Imagine the momentum incidents like this create. Well, if I’ve already done that, then… Corruption snowballs. Things will keep moving in the same direction unless stopped by some other force.

Like divine intervention.

IN THE MINDS of Micah’s hearers, Omri’s name would have been associated with Samaria, the northern capital whose destruction had already been prophesied in chapter 1, whose moral plague had already spread to Judah and Jerusalem. Ahab would have been symbolic of a corrupt ruler, a prototype of the kind of injustice of which the people of Judah now stood accused.

The final verdict, unfortunately, was that Jerusalem would become a ruin like Samaria. Judah’s failure and destruction would become an embarrassing proverb, the subject of gossip among the nations.

Micah takes no pleasure in this. He grieves for what will happen to his people. But as we’ll see, even as he continues to lament all their wicked and untrustworthy ways, he still hopes in and waits upon God.