Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations. – Micah 1:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 31, 2020): Micah 1

What if you were never born? What difference would your absence in the world make? It is an impossible question for any of us to answer, and yet one that we like to ponder, especially at Christmas as we watch Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” George Bailey struggles to understand his purpose in life and contemplates ending his existence. But as the movie progresses, he begins to understand the difference that he has made in his little corner of the world. And that is the hope of all of us. That somehow, in some small way, we will make a difference. It is this idea that is also at the heart of the Christian faith. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his followers to be salt and light in a bland and dark world. They were to go and make a difference. Maybe one of the saddest situations is that we live, but never touch anyone else’s life; that we never make a difference.

At the heart of a mountainous region, there was an elongated hill with a long, flat top. The sides of the hill were steep, but far from being inaccessible. The hill was called the “Hill of Shomron” or the “Hill of the Watchtower.” Maybe at one time, there were vineyards on the flat part of the hill, or a garden, or a working farm, and a watchtower had been erected to watch over the events that took place on the top of the hill.

But in the ninth century B.C.E., maybe around the year 870, a king looked at the oblong hill and decided that it might be the perfect place where he could build his city. The king’s name was Omri, and he purchased the hill for two talents of silver. Then Omri began to develop his city. He allowed Aramean merchants to ply their trade on his streets, and the people started to come to live on the top of the elongated hill. Because the city was built in the center of an area known as Samaria, he called the city by the same name. And Samaria, the capital of Israel, was born.

Samaria had a troubled history. Much like the nation, the city seemed to be continually under attack. The hill gave the town a bit of an advantage, but the Kingdom of Israel was small, and it existed at the crossroads of the known world. And conquerors seemed to be continually led to its doors.

Micah prophesied about a hundred and thirty-five years after the city had been planted on the top of the “Hill of Shomron.” And what Micah saw was the dream of Omri being returned to its original state, a place where vineyards grew under the examining eye of a watchtower. If something didn’t change, it would be las if Israel had never existed. All that had transpired would disappear in the rubble of Samaria. And the city would go back to its’ original purpose, a vineyard on top of an elongated hill in the heart of the Samarian mountains.

Thirteen years after Micah’s prophecy, the Assyrians came and destroyed the city. For the next few hundred years, nothing existed on the top of the “Hill of Shomron.” Omri’s dream disappeared, never to be resurrected again.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Micah 2