Micah 6:5 O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal… This chapter is a pathetical expostulation of God with His chosen people, the Jews, for their ungracious demeanour and miscarriage towards Him. This expostulation is carried in a gracious manner. God pleads the justice and equity of His cause by a threefold argument. 1. By an attestation of the dumb and senseless creatures (ver. 1). 2. An appeal and reference to themselves. 3. A commemoration of many blessings bestowed upon them.He insists upon three fundamental blessings, by all which He manifests His favour towards them, and aggravates their impiety and ingratitude against Him. 1. A redemption from a long and tedious bondage; from a grievous and miserable bondage, and from a vile and base bondage. 2. The placing of a gracious administration over them. 3. He watches over them, against all attempts of their malicious enemies. He defeated Balak and Balaam's conspiracy. And this makes up the full sum and measure of God's goodness to His people. I. THE COMMEMORATION ITSELF. Here is a gracious compellation. "O My people." It imports three things. It is a speech of claim and possession. It is a speech of love and affection. It is a speech of recall and invitation. Here is a forcible quickening of memory. "Remember now." God appeals to His ancient mercies. He kept them upon record; registered them up in His holy Book; framed them into songs of commemoration; put them into the form of an oath; founded the sacrament of the passover as a commemoration. These remembrances are provocations of thankfulness, and obligations to obedience, and encouragements to faith. II. THE BENEFIT OR BLESSING TO BE COMMEMORATED. 1. Of the danger that beset them. Notice the ground of it; the manner of it; the matter of the conspiracy. 2. The issue out of this danger. The answer to Balak contains God's gracious deliverance of His people from Balak's malicious and wicked intendment. In it there is a strict prohibition, a gracious inversion, a just retorsion. III. THE END AND PURPOSE OF THIS GRACIOUS DELIVERANCE. That ye may understand the righteousness of the Lord. (George Stradling, S. T. P.) Parallel Verses KJV: O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the LORD. |
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