Micah 2:11

"If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people."

Some of the more radical paraphrases of this verse give something of the shocking implications of this verse. Scoggin has, "This people wants a preacher who is a lying wind-bag, someone who will talk for wine and whiskey!"[23] Clark was correct in the discernment that the situation depicted in this verse is today visible all over the world. "There remains today a willing audience for anyone who panders to the vices of the age under the guise of proclaiming God's truth."[24]

The verses of this sub-section (Micah 2:6-11) have the utility of authenticating the prophecies of captivity for God's people, following invasion and destruction of their capitals. It is simply amazing that some of the critical commentators miss this; in fact, all of them miss it. They freely admit, of course, that this little section is perfectly included in Micah as a part of the prophet's genuine message, but denying his reference to invasion, destruction, and captivity as prophecies, insisting that those "prophecies" were inserted at a later time by interpolators, editors, redactors, etc. What an impossible inconsistency lies in such views! The feature of this section is that the false prophets and leaders of the people opposed, contradicted, and tried to prevent the prophet from delivering his message from God, because the doom the prophet mentioned had already taken place? Certainly not. Impossible! The whole passage, therefore, has the utility of proving that Micah's denunciations were indeed true prophecies, not merely pretended prophecies imposed upon the text by some later scribe.

In this first major division of Micah (Micah 1-2), this is the second exhibition of such a built-in proof of its authenticity. In Micah 1, it will be recalled that the behavior of the prophet himself, who went about naked, rolled in the dust, wailed like a screaming jackal, and screeched like ostriches, etc. - that behavior proved that it was a future event referred to by his denunciations.

Now, such internal evidences as these are incontrovertible. They constitute a corpus of solid evidence impossible to fake. Moreover, it is the type of evidence that the humblest and least pretentious among men will certainly see and appreciate. It is the type of evidence which a man following the plow would never overlook, but at the same time the kind of evidence to which the scholarship of the world is totally blind! How wonderful are the ways of the Lord! A fool could see it, but some can't!