Moresheth

Biblical Text

In Scripture, Moresheth appears as the hometown of the prophet Micah.

• Micah 1:1: The opening of the book of Micah introduces him as "Micah the Morasthite." It states that the word of the Lord came to him in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
• Micah 1:14: The name Moresheth-gath (KJV "Moreshethgath") appears here. Many scholars take it as a name for Moresheth. The verse belongs to a passage (Micah 1:10-16) that laments the disasters coming upon various towns of Judah.
• Jeremiah 26:18: When Jeremiah faced the threat of death after prophesying the destruction of the temple, certain elders spoke in his defense. They cited a precedent: in the days of Hezekiah, "Micah the Morasthite" had prophesied that "Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps" (Micah 3:12), yet the king did not put him to death.

Background

Moresheth is thought to have been a small town in the low hill country of western Judah. This region lay between the Judean highlands and the coastal plain and appears to have been near the Philistine city of Gath. Some explain the name Moresheth-gath as reflecting this geographical relationship. The town's exact modern location has not been determined. A widely known view identifies it with a site near Lachish and Mareshah, but other candidate sites have also been proposed.

Micah 1:10-16 is built on wordplay, announcing judgment by linking the names of the region's towns with similar-sounding words. Some interpreters read the "presents" of 1:14, often rendered "parting gifts," as a dowry given to a daughter at her marriage, and see a wordplay based on the similarity in sound between the name Moresheth and a Hebrew word meaning "betrothed woman." Opinions differ, however, on the precise original meaning of the place name. The passage is commonly understood against the background of Assyria's attacks on the towns of western Judah.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Moresheth does not appear as the setting of any event in its own right. In Scripture the place name serves to identify who Micah was. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah, who ministered in Jerusalem. Micah, however, is presented as coming from a provincial town rather than the capital, and his prophecies are marked by criticism of the powerful who seize land and of Jerusalem's leaders (Micah 2:1-2; 3:9-12).

In Jeremiah 26, the prophecy of Micah the Morasthite is cited again about a century later. This scene shows that a prophet's words were remembered by later generations and served as a basis for their decisions.

Interpretation and Caveats

• Scripture does not directly state that Micah was a farmer or that he was poor. The description of him as "a prophet from a rural farming background" is an inference drawn from Moresheth's status as a small provincial town and from the content of his prophecies.
• The prophecy concerning Bethlehem in Micah 5:2 is quoted in Matthew 2:6. Some sermons connect it with Micah's own background in a small town. The prophecy itself, however, concerns Bethlehem, not Moresheth.