Four prophets prophesied in the same period: Hosea, Isaiah, Amos, and Micah (Pesachim 87a).

Six hundred thirteen precepts were told to Moses. Micah came and stressed three, as it is written: “Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God”(Micah 6:8) (Makkot 24a).

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying:
Zion shall be plowed as a field,
And Jerusalem shall become heaps,
And the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest (Jeremiah 26:18).

He lived in the late eighth and early seventh century B.C.E., a younger contemporary of Isaiah. Like an adoring disciple, Micah borrows from his master; he also extracts verses from the book of Psalms and from second Samuel. This derivative inclination should not diminish the stature of the prophet, for Micah, when all the awards for prophetic greatness are handed out, must be included with Israel’s most luminous prophets.
He fights for social justice, expressing particular concern for the oppression of the poor by the rich. In the process, he engages his calumnious adversaries in dialogue, revealing to the world Israel’s internal conflicts with an honesty and candor that is more than refreshing. Among the nations of the world Micah’s frankness is unique!
Not only does Micah rehearse the same ills predicted by his worthy prophetic predecessors for Samaria and Judah, but he anticipates the birth of a shepherd king in Bethlehem (Micah 5:1), a verse which is seized by the New Testament author Matthew (Mt. 2:6) as predictive of the birth of Jesus.
He is a prophet of Israel, but like Isaiah, he crosses into the world of universalism. There may be no higher point in the biblical compendium than the sixth chapter of this noble prophet. What does God want? Micah suggests, the history of Israel and a host of commandments notwithstanding:
It hath been told thee, O man, what is good,
And what the Lord doth re- quire of thee:
Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God (Micah 6:8).
This religious formula has been embraced and emblazoned upon the walls of many institutions of all faiths and traditions concerned with the fate of humanity.
The change is subtle, but Micah shifts from the particular interests of a nation facing devastation to a world pursuing the abstract subjects of love, justice, and peace. Ironic then, that the last three verses of the book (Micah 7:18-20) are employed during the observance of Tashlich (the “casting away” of one’s sins into a body of water) on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashonah. This unusual custom, begun at least a millenium after Micah was written, evinces the reach of this magnificent seer of Israel, who saw everything within his world, and almost as much without.