If you happen to read the Message translation of Matthew’s beatitudes, you’ll notice that instead of saying “blessed” the word is “happy.”

According to the scholarship of the mid-20th century, Micah 6:1-8 is—like similar passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos—a “covenant lawsuit.” The name of the literary genre is taken from the Hebrew word rib (pronounced, “reev”), frequently translated “debate” or “controversy” or, in most of these passages, “complaint” or “case.” Such language conjures up the image of God as plaintiff and Israel as defendant, gathered before some court that would (imagine this) have authority over both. Personally, I think such a literal reading of the “lawsuit” form stretches the theology farther than it will go, but my point for the moment is that a rib is the sound of God complaining.