The Cry of the Ostrich



Micah 1:8-9
8For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.
9For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

Well, isn’t that pleasant! I guess a better word would be horrifying. This is why I tend to think long and hard before I dive into a minor prophet. And minor seems apt here, as a melody played in a minor key is mournful in our ears. The chords are one note off harmonious. And our first instinct is to step away from such a picture. But we do that to our detriment. We must stand and face the truth. We are a sinful people.

Micah has prophesied the demise of the Northern Kingdom, but even more alarming is the fact that the sin which brought them to such a terrible end stands at the doorway of Judah as well. Because of that fact, Micah goes into mourning, with bare feet and clothed in rags (and perhaps shirtless). The sound that a ostrich makes in the night is loud, long, and can be heard for miles.

“The cry of the ostrich which is often emitted at night is a loud, dolorous, and stridulous sound, and in the stillness of the desert plains may be heard at a great distance”
(Tristram, Fauna and Flora of Palestine, p. 109 f., 233 f.)

The mental image that Micah draws is compelling and his alarm on behalf of the people of Jerusalem is warranted.

History records the words of Sennacherib, the King of Assyria when he invaded Jerusalem in 701bc.

“As for Hezekiah of Judah, I besieged forty-six of his strong fortified cities. I drove out as booty 200,150 persons, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and flocks beyond counting. Himself I shut up as a prisoner in his royal city Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.”

Hezekiah stands afraid of what will happen to him and his countrymen, as he knows full well what happened to their northern brothers. But it’s not enough to be afraid. In the end, Judah is captured by the Babylonians and carried into slavery as well. Repentance is the only answer to this situation and it took God's people 70 years to learn the lesson.

“Companions in sin are doomed to be companions in judgment. It is a solemn spiritual truth that we all do well to heed”.
Charles L. Feinberg. (The Minor Prophets, page 155)

It pains me to leave things there for a daily devotional and so I simply must include the fact that despite their sin, God continued to reach out to the nation of Judah and spared them from total destruction. He does the same for each of us, offering us the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. Our sin has not had the final victory, but instead that victory belongs to the God who loves us enough to die for us.

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