What is the meaning of Micah 5:12? I will cut the sorceries from your hand • The LORD announces a decisive intervention: “I will cut off sorceries from your hand” (Micah 5:12). • “Cut off” pictures a clean, permanent removal—similar to Josiah’s purge of “mediums and spiritists” (2 Kings 23:24). • By targeting what is “in your hand,” God exposes personal complicity and demands surrender of every occult practice. Believers in Ephesus responded in kind, burning their magic scrolls (Acts 19:19). • Scripture consistently treats sorcery as rebellion: it is outlawed in De 18:10-12, listed among the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5:20, and condemned in Revelation 22:15. • The purpose is covenant fidelity. God alone deserves trust and worship (Exodus 20:3-4); anything else invites judgment like that pronounced on Babylon’s sorceries (Isaiah 47:9-13). and you will have no fortune-tellers • The promise shifts from removing practices to eliminating practitioners. The LORD will leave the land bereft of diviners—He “makes fools of diviners” (Isaiah 44:25). • Without fortune-tellers, the people must seek God’s voice, not illicit substitutes. Isaiah warns, “Should the people not consult their God?” (Isaiah 8:19). • This cleansing anticipates the Messianic age when “I will remove the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land” (Zechariah 13:2), echoing Micah’s vision. • New-covenant episodes confirm the same standard: Paul silences a fortune-telling slave girl (Acts 16:16-18), and Revelation excludes “sorcerers” from the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:8). • God’s goal is a community free from all counterfeit guidance, living by His revealed word alone (Psalm 119:105; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). summary Micah 5:12 promises that the LORD Himself will eradicate both occult practices and their practitioners among His people. By cutting off sorceries and removing fortune-tellers, He safeguards pure devotion, eliminating every rival source of spiritual power or guidance. The verse calls believers to renounce all forms of the occult, rely wholly on God’s word, and anticipate the complete righteousness of Christ’s coming kingdom. |
    |