God's Threefold Argument: Remember His Righteous Deliverance

Micah records Elohim's pathetical expostulation with His chosen people, the Jews, for their ungracious demeanor toward Him. Yet this divine rebuke carries grace throughout. Yahweh pleads the justice and equity of His cause through three arguments: attestation of creation itself (Verse 1), appeal to Israel's own memory, and commemoration of manifold blessings bestowed upon them.

Three fundamental blessings manifest Adonai's favor and aggravate Israel's ingratitude. First: redemption from a long, tedious, grievous, and vile bondage—deliverance itself. Second: the placing of a gracious administration over them through leaders like Joshua. Third: His watchful protection against malicious enemies, evidenced in His defeat of Balak and Balaam's conspiracy.

The gracious compellation "O My people" (am, people) imports three truths: a speech of claim and possession, a speech of love and affection, and a speech of recall and invitation. The command "Remember now" (zakhor, to remember) quickens memory with force. Yahweh kept His ancient mercies upon record, registered them in His holy Book, framed them into songs of commemoration, and founded the sacrament of Passover as perpetual remembrance.

These remembrances function as provocations of thankfulness, obligations to obedience, and encouragements to faith. The righteous deliverance from Balak's wicked intent contained strict prohibition, gracious inversion, and just retorsion—all that Israel might understand the righteousness of Adonai.