But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all the peoples will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.- Mic_4:1-5.
1. The picture of disaster and ruin is followed (in the manner of the other prophets, especially Isaiah) by a vision of restoration. Zion, no longer ruined and deserted, is pictured by the prophet as invested with even greater glory than before; it has become the spiritual metropolis of the entire earth; pilgrims flock to it from all quarters; a “federation of the world” has been established under the suzerainty of the God of Israel. In that day the banished and suffering Israelites will be restored; and Jehovah will reign over them in Zion for ever. The prophet proceeds to contemplate the ultimate revival of the kingdom of David; but he returns to the present (or immediate future), and dwells on the period of distress which must be passed through before that revival can be consummated. “Now, why dost thou cry out aloud?” he exclaims; for he hears in imagination the wail of despair and pain rising from the capital at the approach of the foe (the Assyrian); the painful process must continue till the new birth has been achieved; the nation must leave the city, dwell in the field, and journey even to Babylon; there will it be delivered and rescued from its foes. But now-i.e., in the present (or immediate future)-many nations are assembled against Zion, eager to see her prostrate in the dust; they know not, however, Jehovah's purpose. He has assembled them only that they may be gathered themselves “as the sheaves into the floor,” and there “threshed” by the triumphant daughter of Zion herself. And yet, now, there is a siege imminent; and humiliation awaits the chief magistrate of Israel (the king). The ruler who is to be his people's deliverer will arise from another quarter, from the insignificant town of Bethlehem; and Israel will be “given up”-i.e., abandoned to its foes-until he appears and reunites the scattered nation. Then will Israel dwell securely: when danger threatens, capable men will be at hand, in more than sufficient numbers to ward it off; when the Assyrian essays to invade the territory of Judah, under the leadership of its ideal king he will be triumphantly repelled. Upon those of the nations who are disposed to welcome it, the “remnant of Jacob” will exert an influence like that of the softly-falling, beneficent dew; towards those who resist it, it will be as a fierce, destructive lion. Finally, Micah points to the inward notes of the nation's changed state, destruction of warlike implements, which will no longer be needed, and of idolatry, in which it will no longer find its delight.
We are labouring that the development of human society may be, as far as possible, in the likeness of the Divine society; in the likeness of the heavenly country, where all are equal; where there exists but one love, but one happiness for all. We seek the paths of heaven upon earth; for we know that this earth was given us for our workshop; that through it we can rise to heaven; that by our earthly works we shall be judged; by the number of the poor whom we have assisted; by the number of the unhappy whom we have consoled. The law of God has not two weights and two measures. Christ came for all: He spoke to all: He died for all. We cannot logically declare the children of God to be equal before God, and unequal before men.… We cannot admit that, instead of loving one another like brethren, men ought to be divided, hostile, selfish, jealous, city of city, nation of nation. We protest, then, against all inequality, against all oppression, wheresoever it is practised; for we acknowledge no foreigners; we recognize only the just and the unjust; the friends and the enemies of the Law of God.1 [Note: Life and Writings of Mazzini, vi. 99.]
2. Perhaps we do wrong to attempt to range the prophecies of Micah in an order of succession. Different visions of the future present themselves to his mental eye. He does not accurately distinguish the order in which the events were to occur; still less does he indicate the intervals of time which were to separate them. His prophecies were never intended to be a chronological chart of the history of the future. But the leading ideas of his prophecy are the regeneration of Israel through judgment, the establishment of the kingdom of Jehovah under the ideal king of David's line, the evangelization of the nations through that kingdom. In the main, they are the same as those of Isaiah. The prophet of the court and the prophet of the people are in fundamental agreement. Micah goes further than Isaiah, in predicting the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. The significance of that prophecy, in its original context, lies in its suggestion of the circumstances in which the Messiah was to be born, rather than in the prediction of the precise place of His birth; but its literal fulfilment was one of those signs connected with the birth of Jesus which were unmistakably significant alike to the simple and to the learned.
“Son of David” is the most characteristic, as it is the most traditional and historic, designation of the Jewish Messiah. It expresses the most representative type of Messianic expectation, if we understand by that term an anointed Jewish king who was to be the national deliverer. This conception had its roots in the days of Isaiah of Jerusalem, and revived in the age of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and even survived in attenuated form to the early days of post-Exilic Judaism. The Synoptic Gospels furnish clear evidence that the national expectations which were directed to a Davidic Messiah in the middle of the last century b.c. still prevailed in the days of Jesus. The very form of the Matthew and Luke traditions respecting our Lord's birth exhibits an endeavour to conform to the prevalent expectation that the Messiah would be of Davidic descent. The divergent pedigrees in the two Gospels trace the genealogy of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, from David. Both lay stress on Bethlehem as Christ's birthplace, in conformity with the oracle in Mic_5:2 1 [Note: O. C. Whitehouse, in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ii. 176.]
3. The prophets of every age looked for a King to come. Each age, of course, expected him in the qualities of power and character needed for its own troubles, and the ideal changed from glory unto glory. From valour and victory in war, it became peace and good government, care for the poor and the oppressed, sympathy with the sufferings of the whole people, but especially of the righteous among them, with fidelity to the truth delivered unto the fathers, and, finally, a conscience for the people's sin, a bearing of their punishment and a travail for their spiritual redemption. But all these qualities and functions were gathered upon an individual-a Victor, a King, a Prophet, a Martyr, a Servant of the Lord.
Micah stands among the first, if he is not the very first, who thus focussed the hopes of Israel upon a great Redeemer; and his promise of Him shares all the characteristics just described. In his book it lies next a number of brief oracles with which we are unable to trace its immediate connexion. They differ from it in style and rhythm: they are in verse, while it seems to be in prose. They do not appear to have been uttered along with it. But they reflect the troubles out of which the Hero is expected to emerge, and the deliverance which He shall accomplish, though at first they picture the latter without any hint of Himself. They apparently describe an invasion which is actually in course, rather than one which is near and inevitable; and if so they can only date from Sennacherib's campaign against Judah in 701 b.c. Jerusalem is in siege, standing alone in the land, like one of those solitary towers with folds round them which were built here and there upon the border pastures of Israel for defence of the flock against the raiders of the desert. The prophet sees the possibility of Zion's capitulation, but the people shall leave her only for their deliverance elsewhere. Many are gathered against her, but he sees them as sheaves upon the floor for Zion to thresh. This oracle cannot, of course, have been uttered at the same time as the previous one, but there is no reason why the same prophet should not have uttered both, at different periods. Isaiah had prospects of the fate of Jerusalem which differ quite as much. Once more the blockade is established. Israel's ruler is helpless, “smitten on the cheek by the foe.” It is to this last picture that the promise of the Deliverer is attached.
Bethlehem was the birthplace of David, but when Micah says that the Deliverer shall emerge from her he does not mean only what Isaiah affirms by his promise of a rod from the stock of Jesse-that the King to come shall spring from the one great dynasty in Judah. Micah means rather to emphasize the rustic and popular origin of the Messiah, “too small to be among the thousands of Judah.” David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, was a dearer figure than Solomon, son of David the king. He impressed the people's imagination, because he had sprung from themselves, and in his lifetime he had been the popular rival of an unlovable despot. Micah himself was the prophet of the country as distinct from the capital, of the peasants as against the rich who oppressed them. When, therefore, he fixed upon Bethlehem as the Messiah's birthplace, he doubtless desired, without departing from the orthodox hope in the Davidic dynasty, to throw round its new representative those associations which had so endeared to the people their father-monarch. The shepherds of Judah, that strong source of undefiled life from which the fortunes of the State and prophecy itself had ever been recuperated, should again send forth salvation.
The word “Messiah” may be said to present, along with varying secondary elements, one main idea. It means, of course, “anointed,” and anointing had for the Hebrew people a sacramental significance. The sacred oil represented a Divine effluence, enwrapping the man over whom it was poured, making him holy. It was thus that the representatives of the Divine Ruler were set apart, consecrated. It was thus that Saul and David were, we are told, endued with the spirit of Jahweh. It was thus that the word was used of the appointment, with or without the use of oil, of a prophet. The Messiah of the Greek and Roman periods of Jewish history (who was to slay with the breath of His lips the enemies of the righteous and to rule in the coming age over those who should then be living and those who should be raised from the dead) was to be anointed, enwrapped, with the Divine Spirit.
The degree of supernaturalism attributed to the Messiah varied. He was always anthropically conceived. He was a Son of Man. If existing ideally in the Divine Mind from eternity, He belonged actually to the time-order, to history. The models upon which the conception of Him was built up were Moses, David, and, with reservations, the Babylonian and Persian kings. His differentia was that to His human equipment the Divine King on whom He leaned added, as a gift, wisdom and power such as were not given to common men. He was “sent,” or “raised up,” to right the wrongs of earth, to establish a state of things wherein righteousness and happiness should march together, to declare the will of God and to make that will dominant in the society over which He ruled.1 [Note: R. J. Fletcher, Dei Christus, Dei Verbum, 25.]
