Micah 6:7 - Exposition

Thousands of rams, as though the quantity enhanced the value, and tended to dispose the Lord to regard the offerer's thousandfold sinfulness with greater favour. Ten thousands of rivers ( torrents , as in Job 20:17 ) of oil. Oil was used in the daily meal offering, and in that which accompanied every burnt offering (see Exodus 29:40 ; Le Exodus 7:10-12 ; Numbers 15:4 , etc.). The Vulgate has a different reading, In multis millibus hircorum pinguium ; so the Septuagint, ἐν μυριάσι χιμάρων [ ἀρνῶν , Alex.] πτόνων , "with ten thousands of fat goats," so also the Syriac. The alteration has been introduced probably with some idea of making the parallelism more exact. Shall I give my firstborn? Micah exactly represents the people's feeling; they would do anything but what God required; they would make the costliest sacrifice, even, m their exaggerated devotion, holding themselves ready to make a forbidden offering; but they would not attend to the moral requirements of the Law. It is probably by a mere hyperbole that the question in the text is asked. The practice of human sacrifice was founded on the notion that man ought to offer to God his dearest and costliest, and that the acceptability of an offering was proportioned to its preciousness. The Hebrews had learned the custom from their neighbours, e.g. the Phoenicians and Moabites, and had for centuries offered their children to Moloch, in defiance of the stern prohibitions of Moses and their prophets (Le 18:21; 2 Kings 16:3 ; Isaiah 57:5 ). They might have learned, from many facts and inferences, that man's self-surrender was not to be realized by this ritual; the sanctity of human life ( Genesis 9:6 ), the substitution of the ram for Isaac ( Genesis 22:13 ), the redemption of the firstborn ( Exodus 13:13 ), all made for this truth. But the heathen idea retained its hold among them, so that the inquiry above is in strict keeping with the circumstances. The fruit of my body; i.e. the rest of my children ( Deuteronomy 28:4 ).