John Calvin Commentary Micah 6:1-2

"Hear ye now what Jehovah saith: Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O ye mountains, Jehovah`s controversy, and ye enduring foundations of the earth; for Jehovah hath a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel." — Micah 6:1-2 (ASV)

Here the Prophet openly assumes that the people were sufficiently proved guilty. Yet they resisted with the most stubborn resistance, rejecting all admonitions without shame and without any discernment. He is therefore commanded to direct his discourse to the mountains and to the hills, for his labor among men had been useless for a long time now.

The meaning, then, is that after the Prophet had spent much labor on the people and produced no fruit, he is finally instructed to call the mountains and the hills to bear witness for God. Thus, the ungodliness and obstinacy of the people are made known and proved before the elements. But before he relates what had been entrusted to him, he prefaces his words to gain attention.

Hear ye what Jehovah says. The Prophets are accustomed, on very serious subjects, to make such a preface as Micah does here. It is indeed clear enough from the passage that his subject here is no ordinary one; on the contrary, he rebukes their monstrous stupidity, for he had been addressing the deaf to no avail.

Since the Prophet was about to declare no common thing, but to be a witness of a new judgment, this is why he bids them to be unusually attentive. Hear, he says, what Jehovah saith. What is it? He might have added, “Jehovah has very often spoken to you; He has tried all means to bring you to the right way. But as you are past recovery, vengeance alone now remains for you. He will no longer spend labor in vain on you, for He finds in you neither shame, nor meekness, nor docility.” The Prophet might have spoken to them in this way; but he says that another thing was entrusted to him by the Lord, and that is, to contend or to plead before the mountains.

And this reproach ought to have touched the hearts of the people most acutely, for there is an implied comparison here between the mountains and the Jews; as if the Prophet said, “The mountains are devoid of understanding and reason, and yet the Lord prefers to have them as witnesses of His cause rather than you, who exceed in stupidity all the mountains and rocks.” We now, then, perceive God’s design.

Some interpret mountains and hills metaphorically, as representing the chief men who then ruled. This manner of speaking occurs very frequently in Scripture. But regarding this passage, I have no doubt that the Prophet mentions mountains and hills literally, not figuratively. For, as I have already said, he contrasts the hardness of the people with rocks and intimates that there would be more attention and docility in the very mountains than what he had until now found in the chosen people.

And the particle את, at, is often taken in the sense of before: it also means 'with.' But in this place, I take it as ל, lamed, meaning 'before' or 'near,' as could be shown by many examples. But it is easy to gather that this is the Prophet's meaning from the next verse, when he says—

Hear, ye mountains, the controversy of Jehovah, how? and ye strong foundations of the earth, he says. He no longer speaks of hills here, but summons the whole world. As if he said, “There is not one of the elements that will not bear witness to the obstinacy of this people; for the voice of God will penetrate to the farthest roots of the earth and reach the lowest depths, yet these men will, at the same time, continue deaf.”

And he does not say, 'The Lord threatens you,' or 'denounces judgment on you'; but 'Jehovah has a contention with His people.' We now see, then, that there is no metaphor in these words, but that the Prophet merely shows how monstrous the people's stupor was, who profited nothing from the celestial doctrine delivered to them, so that the very mountains and the whole machinery of earth and heaven, though destitute of reason, had more understanding than these men.

And it is not unusual, we know, for the Prophets to turn their discourse to mute elements when there remains no hope of success with men. But our Prophet does not abruptly address mountains and hills as Isaiah does (Isaiah 1:2), and as Moses also had done,

Hear, ye heavens, what I shall say,
let the earth hear the words of my mouth, (Deuteronomy 32:1)

but he prefaces his discourse by saying that he had been specially commanded to summon the mountains and hills to God’s judgment. By then saying, “Hear ye what Jehovah saith,” he prepares the Jews to hear, as I have said, so that they might know that something uncommon and altogether unusual was to be announced—that the Lord, in order more fully to convict them of extreme impiety, intended to plead His cause before the mountains.

Arise, then, and plead before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. What sort of voice was this? Those who think that the judges are figuratively indicated here may be easily refuted, for Micah in the next verse mentions the substance of this pleading, namely, that the Lord expostulated with His people. We therefore see that God had no contention with the mountains, but that, on the contrary, the mountains were summoned so that they might understand God’s pleading—not against them, but against the people.

Hear then, ye mountains, Jehovah’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth—that is, the very rocks. There is nothing so hard in the world, he says, that will not be too dull to hear, for this pleading shall reach the lowest depths. Jehovah then has a controversy with His people, and He will plead, or contend, with Israel.