Prologue: The Darkness of Calvary (This is only my opinion.)How are we to interpret Mark's record, When the sixth hour came, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour (Mark 15:33)? The description in the Gospels of the darkening of the earth at noon, as Jesus was dying on the cross, is either factual or symbolic. Luke 23:44 records a solar eclipse, lasting three hours (not a few fleeting minutes). This, along with the fact that it occurred at the full Moon of Passover, when the Sun and Moon would have been on opposite sides of the sky, would have been astronomically impossible. Moreover, there are no contemporary records of a solar eclipse in Jerusalem in the likely years of the crucifixion (The Life of Jesus by Marcello Cravery, p.399; The Gospel of St Luke by G.B. Caird, p.253). One thing we do know, however, is that there had been a partial eclipse of the Moon on 25 April 31 AD. It was Wednesday evening, the start of Preparation Day (Luke 22:7-13). Click on the link for the details: http://navsoft.com/html/___death_of_jesus.htmlThough tradition has it that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, the fact that Cleopas claimed on a Sunday that two whole days (Friday and Saturday) had passed since our leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death and had him crucified (Luke 24:20,21) points to a Thursday crucifixion. Other considerations, mentioned in The Truth About Easter PDF, may strengthen that conviction. That being the case, a lunar eclipse would have coincided with Jesus's arrival in the garden of Gethsemane on Wednesday evening, 25 April 31 AD. Occurring well after sunset, the loss of light would have been noticeable. It did not pass without comment. When a detachment of Temple guards with lanterns and torches came to arrest Jesus, he said, This is your hour; this is the reign of darkness (Luke 22:53). What observation was most likely to be evoked by the Earth's shadow passing slowly over an uncommonly louring overseer of the sublunar Passover? A man of poetic and prophetic sensibilities like Jesus (Matthew 6:30; 8:12; John 11:10) would have seen the descending darkness as a harbinger of evil and God's judgment. Since their behaviour showed that they preferred darkness to light in handing him over (John 3:19), he was warning the religious leaders of the inevitability of judgment: Darkness is your reign, and dark will be your day. Peter would have been familiar with the words of the prophet Amos, I will make the sun go down at noon (Amos 8:9), a warning that God's judgment upon venal prophets would be no word from Him, silence, the eclipsing of their powers, the end of the old order. He might well have advised Mark (who wrote down the Gospel as he heard it from Peter) to shift the timing of the eclipse from Wednesday night to Thursday noon to make more ominous reading, and from the melancholy of a lunar eclipse to a more ill-boding and calamitous solar eclipse. The reign of darkness was palpable, as Jesus's life ebbed away.... But it was coming to an end for light-seekers (John 1:4,5,12; 20:30,31). The following commentary on Micah 3:6 suggests how it always ends calamitously for despisers of God's light.

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THEREFORE IT WILL BE NIGHT FOR YOU...

Micah3:6commentary http://preceptaustin.org/micah_3_commentary.htm

Therefore it will be night for you without vision, and darkness for you without divination. The sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will become dark over them. [Painting by Gustave Dor]

night
Psalms 74:9;Isaiah 8:20-22;Jeremiah 13:16;Ezekiel 13:22,23;Zechariah 13:2-4

without vision
Isaiah 29:10;59:10;Jeremiah 15:9;Amos 8:9,11,12NETMicah 3:6Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions; it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads.Therefore (term of conclusion) Pause and ponder "What's the therefore there for?" In view of the false prophets leading the people astray.Kaisersays that therefore "signals the commencement of the sentencing upon those who had violated the sacred and public trust given to them." Allenadds that Micah "prefaces the verdict with therefore, which attests its logic and justice. These who have abused their prophetic gifts are doomed to be deprived of them."
It will be night for you withoutvision(cf.Ps 74:9,Lam 2:9) Novisionmeans no word from God for these prophets! This declaration is taken by some commentators that Micah is in a sense acknowledging that these prophets have divine enablement to speak. But even if they did have that gift, it is clearly now voided by their misuse of it.Darkness for you withoutdivination. Darkness reinforces the decree of no revelation. The oxymoron of seers without spiritual vision. Micah is not giving his "okay" to their practice of divination (forbidden inDt 18:10), but simply saying that even their occult techniques will be futile and fruitless.

Vineonqasam Divination was a pagan parallel to prophesying (Dt. 18:10,14-15 first occurrence.) Qasam is a seeking after the will of the gods, in an effort to learn their future action or divine blessing on some proposed future action (Josh 13:22). It seems probable that the diviners conversed with demons (1Cor 10:20). The practice of divination might involve offering sacrifices to the deity on an altar (Nu 23:1ff.). It might also involve the use of a hole in the ground, through which the diviner spoke to the spirits of the dead (1Sa 28:8). At other times, a diviner might shake arrows, consult with household idols, or study the livers of dead animals (Ezek. 21:21).Divination was one of mans attempts to know and control the world and the future, apart from the true God.It was the opposite of true prophecy, which essentially is submission to Gods sovereignty(Dt. 18:14).Micah 3:6Therefore it will be night for you without vision, And darkness for you withoutdivination. The sun will go down on the prophets, And the day will become dark over them.
7 The seers will be ashamed And thedivinerswill be embarrassed. Indeed, they will all cover their mouths Because there is no answer from God.
11 Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, Her priests instruct for a price And her prophetsdivinefor money. Yet they lean on the LORD saying, "Is not the LORD in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us."
Zechariah 10:2For the teraphim speak iniquity, And thedivinerssee lying visions And tell false dreams; They comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep, They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.Allen- The sinister figure ofnightis a multiple metaphor which alludes to calamity afflicted by God as well as to the loss of prophetic enlightenment. Shades will gather and smother in their gloom that good light which has been put to evil ends.Matthew Henry- They kept others in the dark, and now God will bring them into the dark.
TheProverbsdescribe the consequence of a people who don't have a word from God and are therefore indarkness:Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law. (Pr 29:18)Kaiser comments- The Hebrew verb pra [no restraint], was used earlier inEx 32:25when Moses saw that the people at the golden calf were running wild [or were unrestrained] and no doubt influenced its use here. The point is this: abandon the revelation or Word of God, even for forty days, as Israel did at the mount, and people become ungovernable and cast off all restraint! The absence of Gods Word is fatal to any people.Micah concludes that the sentence (unable to see spiritual things) will match the crime (their false visions and divination). It is indeed ironic that the revelations of the false prophets will be cut off at night (NET = "night will fall, and you will receive no visions"), the time they often received their "visions!" (cf. NLT paraphrase - "Darkness will cover you, making it impossible for you to predict the future.")Davis- The judgement does not consist in blazing fire or foreign invasion, but in silence and darkness. Compare the words ofGodthrough His prophetAmos...Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing theWordsof the LORD. People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east. They will go to and fro to seek theWordof the LORD, but they will not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)The sun will go down on the prophets- As noted above "The coming of night (and darkness in the following line) symbolizes the cessation of revelation." (NET)Constable- The sun, a symbol of God who bestows blessings and favor, would set on their day, and they would have to live in the darkness of His disfavor.
And the day will become dark over them(NLT = "your day will come to an end") Darkness is a metaphor for divine judgment and even death (Job 10:21,Pr 20:20, cf. Jesus' words inMt 8:12,22:13,25:30)Criswell The false prophets will say anything for a man who feeds them. When disaster comes, unlike Micah (Micah 3:8), they will have no answer from God (Micah 3:7).Waltke By taking away their gift (cf.Jdg. 16:20[Ed: One of those truly tragic passages Samson losing his gift and not even knowing it!];2Sa 17:14), he removes the source of their illicit gain... As other poets liken the loss of knowledge to darkness (cf.Ps 82:5;69:23), Micah compares their loss of clairvoyance to the setting of the sun. Davishas an interesting application We might pause to ponder this. Some might say that God cant withdraw his word today thanks to Gutenberg; after all, we have Scripture, the Word of God, in writing and fifty-eight kinds of study Bibles available from evangelical publishers. But God can still take away his word. He may take away the desire for it or interest in it. Who can doubt that this judgement may well be upon the church, the evangelical church, in the West? Our people know more about Britney Spears than the book of Ezekiel. In my part of the USA most professing Christian men know more about Southeastern Conference football than they do about the Psalms.

We abuse and then lose the Word of God.