Micah 7:18-19 vs. “His Mercy Is More”

Matt Boswell & Matt Papa · checked 2026-08-01

What we checked

PassageMicah 7:18-19 chapter ↗

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

AlbumChurch Songs · 2016

Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)

Teaching or experienceteaching (states truths)

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Every verse is a question about who God is, which is Micah 7:18's own move and the prophet's own name
Never says it is quoting: no reference, no translation, nothing framed as scripture
Declines the pseudo-verse. The sea here has no bottom or shore; it is never called a sea of forgetfulness
The writers' documented account credits the hook sentence to a Newton sermon rather than to the Bible, which is an honest paper trail most songs never provide
The chorus is entirely about God's mercy, and the sins appear in it only to be outnumbered

⚠ Cautions

No reference or translation is given, so a listener has nothing in the song to check the sea image against
The question about remembering no wrongs is nearest Jeremiah 31:34. Micah's God pardons and passes over; the passage never speaks of forgetting
New every morning is Lamentations 3:22-23's territory (see this site's Great Is Thy Faithfulness proof). At least three books are in play and the song names none
Micah's doxology is spoken by a remnant under judgment that has admitted the sin was its own (7:9). Sung as general comfort, the words float free of that admission

Verse Proof

Micah 7:18-19

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance— who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion? He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

Micah prophesied to Samaria and Jerusalem in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (1:1). Chapter 7 opens with his lament over a society where the faithful have vanished and officials rule for bribes (7:1-4), and by verse 8 the speaker sits in darkness, telling an enemy not to gloat: “Because I have sinned against Him, I must endure the rage of the LORD” (7:9, BSB). Verses 18-19 close the book. Their opening question is the prophet's own name, since Micah is a shortened form of Micaiah, “who is like Yahweh?”, and the pardon they celebrate is promised to “the remnant of His inheritance,” a surviving people that has just said the sin was its own.

What the song says, described not quoted

Each verse of the hymn is built on a question about God. The first asks what kind of love could hold no record of wrongs, says the all-knowing God keeps no running total, and pictures the sins thrown into a sea that has no bottom and no shore. The second asks what kind of patience could keep waiting while people wander, and describes God calling the weak, the vile and the poor home. The third asks what kind of kindness could cover what the singer owed, with Christ's blood as the payment and His life as the cost of a debt no one could afford. Every question lands on the same answer, and the chorus repeats it: praise belongs to the Lord, whose mercy is stronger than darkness, new every morning, and greater than the many sins it covers. No verse is cited anywhere in the song, no translation is named, and nothing is introduced as a quotation.

The hook sentence has a documented source, and the source is not Micah. Papa's own song page prints the John Newton sermon it came from: “Our sins are many, but His mercies are more: our sins are great, but His righteousness is greater: we are weak, but He is power.” The refrain compresses Newton's first clause into meter, and the writers show their work. Micah 7:18-19 supplies the imagery around that sentence. The sea the sins are thrown into is verse 19's sea, deepened: the text says “depths,” the song removes bottom and shore, and both mean the sins go where they cannot be fetched back. The question-shape of every verse is also the passage's shape, since verse 18 opens by asking who is a God like this. Two lines lean on other books. The opening question about remembering no wrongs is nearest Jeremiah 31:34, because Micah's God pardons and passes over but is never said to forget. And the chorus's new-every-morning belongs to Lamentations 3:22-23.

· Not a quote: The song cites no verse, names no translation and presents nothing as scripture. Its refrain sentence is documented as John Newton's. Its sea image tracks Micah 7:19. The passage contradicts nothing it says about God.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

Micah's sea has depths, not forgetfulness. The famous phrase has no verse, and this song never sings it.

Why it matters

For many congregations this hymn is now the main road to Micah 7:18-19, and most singers arrive already carrying a phrase for the sea verse: the sea of forgetfulness. That phrase is in no translation of Micah 7:19 and in no translation of anything else. This page's toggle will show you the first half live, since BSB, WEB and KJV all end the verse in the depths of the sea and none of them mentions forgetting. The song does not use the phrase. But because it sets God's not-remembering and the sea one line apart, a listener who half-knows both can leave more certain than ever that the welded phrase is a verse, and it is worth knowing in advance that only the halves are.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song fixes your attention on God.

The dwelling tag is God, and the arithmetic is unusual for a modern hymn. Every verse is a question about God's love, patience or kindness, and the chorus is a statement about His mercy. The singer's sins are named in every refrain, but only as the quantity mercy exceeds. So what repetition plants is a comparison that keeps both terms: looping this song will not teach you that your sins are few, only that they are outnumbered, which is the posture of Micah 7:9's speaker, who admits the sin and waits for the pardon in the same breath. That is a healthy sentence to have memorized. Read verses 18-19 alongside it sometimes, for the one thing the song's comparison cannot carry alone: the reason the mercy is more is that God delights in it.

Helpful comparison

Trace the famous phrase and it dissolves. In the three translations this site carries, Micah 7:19 ends with sins cast “into the depths of the sea” in all of them, and the word forgetfulness appears in none. GotQuestions states it plainly: the phrase is not in scripture. What people call the sea of forgetfulness is Micah's sea welded to the remember-no-more texts, Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 8:12, a fusion made in sermons and inherited as if it were a verse.

That makes this a different finding from this site's Mighty to Save proof. “Mighty to save” is in some Bibles at Zephaniah 3:17 and in all of them at Isaiah 63:1, so it has an address once you name a translation. “Sea of forgetfulness” has no address at all. One phrase belongs to a translation; this one belongs to nobody. The song's first verse shows exactly how the fusion happens, holding the forgetting and the sea one line apart, and then declines to complete it.

One smaller observation. The chorus calls mercy stronger than darkness, and the chapter the sea verse closes has a darkness line of its own: the speaker of 7:8 sits in darkness with the LORD as his light. The song never points there, but the neighborhood is real.

Sources

Matt Papa & Matt Boswell — His Mercy Is More (Live) · (the recording checked for this proof; oEmbed returns author_name “KeithandKristyn Getty,” the writers' label channel, with the video billed to Matt Papa & Matt Boswell)
Matt Papa — His Mercy Is More, song page · (the songwriter's own page: the John Newton sermon quoted in full as the song's source, and the note that the song first appeared on Papa's Church Songs project)
Matt Papa — Church Songs (discontinued project page) · (the self-released EP's track list, with His Mercy Is More as track two)
Last.fm — Matt Papa, Church Songs · (EP released 27 October 2016)
Hymnary.org — His Mercy Is More · (Boswell and Papa, © 2016, CCLI 7065053; Micah 7:18-19 among the indexed scripture references, alongside Jeremiah 31:34 and others)
The Gospel Coalition — Hymn of the Day: Our Sins They Are Many, His Mercy Is More · (the lyric as published, © 2016 Messenger Hymns; read to describe the song's content for this proof)
The Berean Test — His Mercy Is More · (an independent review linking the first verse's forgetting to Hebrews 8:12 and the sea image to Micah 7:18-19)
GotQuestions — What is the sea of forgetfulness? · (“The phrase sea of forgetfulness is not actually in Scripture”; the concept assembled from Micah 7:19 with other forgiveness texts)
Biblehub — Strong's 4318, Mikah · (the name Micah as a shortened form meaning “who is like Yahweh?”)

Corrections

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