Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 6:8

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" — Micah 6:8 (ASV)

He has shown you - Micah does not tell them now, as for the first time, which would have excused them. He says, “He has shown you;” He, about whose mind and will and pleasure they were pretending to inquire, the Lord their God. He had shown it to them. The law was full of it. He showed it to them, when He said, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12–13). They had asked, “With what outward thing shall I come before the Lord?” The prophet tells them “what thing is good”—the inward man of the heart: righteousness, love, humility.

And what does the Lord require (search, seek) of you? - The very word implies an earnest search within. He would say (Rup.), “Do not trouble yourself about any of these things—burnt offerings, rams, calves—outside of yourself. For God seeks not yours, but you; not your substance, but your spirit; not ram or goat, but your heart.” He continues: “You ask, what should you offer for yourself? Something other: yourself. For what else does the Lord seek of you, but you? Because, of all earthly creatures, He has made nothing better than you, He seeks yourself from yourself, because you had lost yourself.”

To do judgment - this chiefly means all acts of equity; “to love mercy,” all deeds of love. Judgment is what right requires; mercy, what love requires. Yet, secondarily, “to do judgment” is to pass righteous judgments in all cases; and so, as to others, “judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24); and as to oneself also. Judge equitably and kindly of others, humbly of yourself.

Thus: “Judge yourself in yourself without acceptance of your own person, so as not to spare your sins, nor take pleasure in them, because you have done them. Neither praise yourself in what is good in you, nor accuse God in what is evil in you. For this is wrong judgment, and so, not judgment at all. This you did, being evil; reverse it, and it will be right. Praise God in what is good in you; accuse yourself in what is evil. So you shall anticipate the judgment of God, as He says, “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:31).”

He adds, “love mercy”—being merciful out of love, “not of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). These acts together contain the whole duty to man, corresponding with and formed upon the mercy and justice of God (Psalms 101:1; Psalms 61:7). All that is due, in any way, is of judgment; all that is free toward man, although not free toward God, is of mercy.

There remains, “walk humbly with your God”; not bowing yourself only before Him, as they had offered (Micah 6:6), nor again walking with Him only, as did Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Job. Instead, walk humbly (literally, “bow down the going”) yet still with your God; never lifting yourself up, never sleeping, never standing still, but always walking on, yet always casting yourself down. And the more you go on in grace, the more cast yourself down, as our Lord says, “When ye have done all these things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

It is not a “crouching before God” when He is displeased (such as they had thought of), but the humble love of the forgiven. It is to “walk humbly” as the creature with the Creator, but in love, with your own God. Humble yourself with God, who humbled Himself in the flesh; walk on with Him, who is your Way. Neither humility nor obedience alone would be true graces, but rather to cleave fast to God, because He is your All, and to bow yourself down, because you are nothing, and your All is He and of Him.

It is altogether a Gospel precept, bidding us, “Be ye perfect, as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48); “Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36); and yet, in the end, to have “that same mind which was also in Christ Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation” (Philippians 2:5, 7, 9).

The offers of the people, stated in the bare nakedness in which Micah exhibits them, have a character of irony. But it is the irony of the truth and of the fact itself. The creature has nothing of its own to offer; “the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin” (Hebrews 10:4); and the offerings, as they rise in value, become not only useless but sinful. Such offerings would bring down anger, not mercy.

Micah’s words then are, for their vividness, an almost proverbial expression of the nothingness of all that we sinners could offer to God. A commentator notes: “We, who are of the people of God, knowing that “in His sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalms 143:2), and saying, “I am a beast with Thee” (Psalms 73:22), trust in no pleas before His judgment-seat, but pray; yet we put no trust in our very prayers. For there is nothing worthy to be offered to God for sin, and no humility can wash away the stains of offenses.

In penitence for our sins, we hesitate and say, ‘With what shall I come before the Lord? How shall I come, so as to be admitted into familiar intercourse with my God?’ One and the same spirit considers these things in each of us or of those before us who have been pricked to repentance: ‘What worthy offering can I make to the Lord?’ This and similar things we consider, as the Apostle says: “We know not what to pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:20). ‘Should I offer myself wholly as a burnt offering to Him?’ If, understanding spiritually all the Levitical sacrifices, I should present them in myself, and offer my first-born—that is, what is chief in me, my soul—I should find nothing worthy of His greatness.”

“Neither in ourselves, nor in anything earthly, can we find anything worthy to be offered to reconcile us with God. For the sin of the soul, blood alone is worthy to be offered; not the blood of calves, or rams, or goats, but our own. Yet our own blood too is not offered, but given back, being due already (Psalms 116:8). The Blood of Christ alone suffices to do away all sin.”

Dionysius states: “The whole is said in order to instruct us that, without the shedding of the Blood of Christ and its Virtue and Merits, we cannot please God, even if we offered ourselves and all that we have, within and without. And also, that so great are the benefits bestowed upon us by the love of Christ, that we can repay nothing of them.”

But then it is clear that there is no teaching in this passage in Micah that is not also in the law. The developments in the prophets relate to the Person and character of the Redeemer. The law too contained both elements:

1. The ritual of sacrifice, impressing on the Jew the need of an Atoner.
2. The moral law, and the graces inculcated in it: obedience, love of God and man, justice, mercy, humility, and the rest.

There was no hint in the law that half was acceptable to God instead of the whole, or that sacrifice of animals would supersede self-sacrifice or obedience. There was nothing on which the Pharisee could base his heresy. What Micah said, Moses had said. The corrupt among the people offered a half-service, what cost them least, as faith without love always does.

Micah, in this, reveals to them nothing new but tells them that this half-service is contrary to the first principles of their law: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good.” Sacrifice without love of God and man was not even so much as the body without the soul. It was an abortion, a monster.

For one end of sacrifice was to inculcate the insufficiency of all our good, apart from the Blood of Christ; that, do what we would, “all came short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But to substitute sacrifice (which was a confession that at best we were miserable sinners, unable by ourselves to please God) for any efforts to please Him or to avoid displeasing Him would be a direct contradiction of the law—antinomianism under the dispensation of the law itself.

Micah changes the words of Moses in order to adapt them to the crying sins of Israel at that time. He then upbraids them in detail, specifically with those sins that were patent—which, when brought home to them, they could not deny—namely, the sins against their neighbor.