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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Micah 5:1 - 5:1
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(Heb. Bib. 4:14). “Now wilt thou gather in troops, thou daughter of troops; they lay siege against us; with the staff they smite the judge of Israel upon the cheek.” With ‛attâh (now) the prophet's address turns once more to the object introduced with ‛attâh in Mic 4:9. For we may see clearly enough from the omission of the cop. Vav, which could not be left out if it were intended to link on Mic 5:1 to Mic 4:11-13, that this ‛attâh points back to Mic 4:9, and is not attached to the ve‛attâh in Mic 4:11, for the purpose of introducing a fresh occurrence to follow the event mentioned in Mic 4:11-13. “The prophecy in Mic 4:11-13 explains the ground of that in Mic 4:9, Mic 4:10, and the one in Mic 5:1 sounds like a conclusion drawn from this explanation. The explanation in Mic 4:11-13 is enclosed on both sides by that which it explains. By returning in Mic 5:1 to the thoughts expressed in Mic 4:9, the prophet rounds off the strophe in 4:9-5:1” (Caspari). The words are addressed to the daughter Zion, who alone is addressed with every ‛attâh, and generally throughout the entire section. Bath-gegūd, daughter of the troop, might mean: thou nation accustomed or trained to form troops, thou warlike Zion. But this does not apply to what follows, in which a siege alone is mentioned. This turn is given to the expression, rather “for the purpose of suggesting the thought of a crowd of people pressing anxiously together, as distinguished from gedūd, an invading troop.” The verb hithgōdēd does not mean here to scratch one's self or make incisions (Deu 14:1, etc.), but, as in Jer 5:7, to press or crowd together; and the thought is this: Now crowd together with fear in a troop, for he (sc., the enemy) sets, or prepares, a siege against us. In עָלֵינוּ the prophet includes himself in the nation as being a member of it. He finds himself in spirit along with the people besieged Zion. The siege leads to conquest; for it is only in consequence of this that the judge of Israel can be smitten with the rod upon the cheek, i.e., be shamefully ill treated (compare 1Ki 22:24; Psa 3:8; Job 16:10). The judge of Israel, whether the king or the Israelitish judges comprehended in one, cannot be thought of as outside the city at the time when the city is besieged. Of all the different effects of the siege of the city the prophet singles out only this one, viz., the ill-treatment of the judge, because “nothing shows more clearly how much misery and shame Israel will have to endure for its present sins” (Caspari). “The judge of Israel” is the person holding the highest office in Israel. This might be the king, as in Amo 2:3 (cf. 1Sa 8:5-6, 1Sa 8:20), since the Israelitish king was the supreme judge in Israel, or the true possessor of the judicial authority and dignity. But the expression is hardly to be restricted to the king, still less is it meant in distinction from the king, as pointing back to the time when Israel had no king, and was only governed by judges; but the judge stands for the king here, on the one hand with reference to the threat in Mic 3:1, Mic 3:9, Mic 3:11, where the heads and princes of Israel are described as unjust and ungodly judges, and on the other hand as an antithesis to mōshēl in Mic 5:2. As the Messiah is not called king there, but mōshēl, ruler, as the possessor of supreme authority; so here the possessor of judicial authority is called shōphēt, to indicate the reproach which would fall upon the king and the leaders of the nation on account of their unrighteousness. The threat in this verse does not refer, however, to the Roman invasion. Such an idea can only be connected with the assumption already refuted, that Mic 4:11-13 point to the times of the Maccabees, and no valid argument can be adduced to support it. In the verse before us the prophet reverts to the oppression predicted in Mic 4:9 and Mic 4:10, so that the remarks already made in Mic 4:10 apply to the fulfilment of what is predicted here. The principal fulfilment occurred in the Chaldaean period; but the fulfilment was repeated in every succeeding siege of Jerusalem until the destruction of the city by the Romans. For, according to Mic 5:3, Israel will be given up to the power of the empire of the world until the coming of the Messiah; that is to say, not merely till His birth or public appearance, but till the nation shall accept the Messiah, who has appeared as its own Redeemer.