Chs. vi. and vii. take us again into another atmosphere, more like Micah's own. The people, who attempt to defend themselves against Jehovah's charge of ingratitude on the plea that they are ignorant of His demands, are reminded that those demands are ancient and simple: justice, love as between man and man, and a humble walk with God, vi. 1-8. But instead, dishonesty and injustice are rampant everywhere, and the judgment of God is inevitable, vi. 9-16. The prophet laments the utter and universal degradation of the people, which has corrupted even the intimacies of family life, vii. 1-6. In the rest of the chapter the blow predicted has already fallen; in their sorrow the people await the fulfilment of Jehovah's purpose in patience and faith, pray to Him to restore the land which once was theirs on the east of the Jordan, and thus to compel from the heathen an acknowledgment of His power. He is the incomparable God who can forgive and restore, vii. 7-20. The accusations and laments of these two chapters come very strangely after the repeated promises of chs. iv. and v.; and if the whole book had been by Micah, it is hardly possible that this order should have been original. Probably these chapters were appended to Micah's book because of several features which they have in common with i.-iii.: notice, e.g., the prominence of the word "hear," i. 2, iii. 1, 9, vi. 1, 9, Most scholars agree with Ewald in supposing that these chapters--at any rate vi. i-vii. 6--come from the reign of Manasseh. The situation is that of i.-iii., only aggravated: the reference to Ahab, vi. 16, with whom Manasseh is compared in 2 Kings xxi. 3, points in the same direction. Even if written in this reign, Micah may still have been the author; but the general manner of the chapters and the individuality they reveal appear to be different from his. But, considering their noble insistence upon the moral elements in religion (esp. vi. 6-8) they are, if not his, yet not inappropriately appended to his book. The concluding section, however, vii. 7-20, is almost certainly post-exilic. The punishment has come, therefore the exile is the earliest possible date. But there are exiles not only in Babylon, but scattered far and wide throughout the world, vii. 12, and there is the expectation that the walls of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, vii. 11. As this took place under Nehemiah, the section will fall before his time (500-450 B.C.). This passage of promise and consolation is a foil to vi. 1-vii. 6, intended to sustain the same relation to that section as iv., v. to i.-iii.