Commentari biblici

Chaps. 4 and 5 belong together, though the connexion is not always clear. They appear to have been revised subsequently to their first composition, and the original draft of the prophecy seems to have contained Micah 4:1-4; Micah 4:11-13, Micah 5:1-4; Micah 5:7-15. The student will do well to read these passages together in the first instance, before proceeding to the study of the prophecy in its present form. The fundamental idea is, that Israel will certainly be restored to prosperity, because the promise cannot be broken; but that a period of sore trial must precede this. The transitions are abrupt, and will be indicated below. The prophet begins (Micah 4:1-4), with the well-known description of the coming golden age, which we find again (with one verse less) in Isaiah 2:2-4. It has been much disputed which prophecy is the earlier. But Isaiah cannot have copied the verses from Micah, for the prophecy to which it is appended in Micah (chap. 3) was delivered in the time of Hezekiah (see Jeremiah 26:18). It is possible that both Isaiah and Micah took the prophecy from an older work; some affinities have been traced with Joel (comp. esp. Joel 3:10; Joel 3:18). Similar quotations from older prophecies are believed to occur in Isaiah 15, 16, Jeremiah 49:7-22.

1–4. The Ideal of Happiness realized

1. But] The Auth. Vers. has done its best to soften the abruptness of the transition from Micah 3:12 to Micah 4:1. It understands the meaning to be something like this:—In spite of this awful prospect of judgment, God has a bright future in store both for Jerusalem and for Israel. In the Hebrew, however, the passage Micah 4:1-4 is simply added on to Micah 3:12; there is no properly adversative particle prefixed; the contrast is rather implied than expressed. It seems as if Micah’s mind was so filled up by the thought of judgment, that there was hardly any room for the thought of national regeneration. When the image does present itself to his imagination, it is only as by a lightning-flash, which soon passes away, and leaves the horizon as gloomy as before. There is nothing in Micah like a developed doctrine of the latter days, such as we have to some extent in Isaiah.

in the last days] Hebr. b’akharith hayyâmîm. This rendering is misleading; the Messianic period described in the following verses has no ‘last days;’ it is without an end (Isaiah 9:7). Render, therefore, in stricter accordance with the Hebrew, in the days to come (lit., ‘in the sequel of the days’); and comp. Jeremiah 23:20, ‘The anger of Jehovah shall not turn back, till he have executed, and till he have carried into effect the purposes of his heart: in future days ye shall duly consider it’ (Henderson’s translation), also Deuteronomy 4:30; Deuteronomy 31:29, and the phrase in an Assyrian historical inscription ana akhrat yumi = ‘for future days.’ A similar mistake has been made in 1 Timothy 4:1, where ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς is rendered in Auth. Vers. ‘in the latter times;’ the Revised Version corrects, ‘in later times.’

the mountain of the house of the Lord] i.e. not merely mount Moriah (as in Micah 3:12), but by synecdoche for Jerusalem (comp. end of Micah 4:2).

in the top] Rather, at the head. The lower mountains radiating, as it were, in all directions from it. “A similar physical change is anticipated for Jerusalem in Zechariah 14:10, and for the valley of Jehoshaphat, in connexion with the ‘day of Jehovah,’ in Joel 3:12. Ezekiel, too, speaks of having been transported in an ecstatic state to ‘a very high mountain’ (Ezekiel 40:2), evidently alluding to this passage.” The rendering of Auth. Vers. implies an image too hyperbolical to be accepted without compulsion.

2. many nations …] ‘Many,’ in contrast to the single nation (as yet hardly reckoned as such) at whose mouth the Gentiles receive instruction. The picture of Jerusalem as the religious metropolis of the world is familiar to us in the prophets (comp. Isaiah 11:10; Isaiah 60:3, Jeremiah 3:17, Zechariah 2:11; Zechariah 8:22-23). The Christian reason, enlightened by the course of Providence, sees that the picture is ideal.

of his ways] Rather, out of his ways. Comp. Psalm 94:12, ‘teachest out of thy law.’ God’s ‘law’ and God’s ‘ways’ are revealed in full to the prophets, and they bring out ‘here a little, and there a little’ according to the needs of the time.

the law] Auth. Vers., however, is misleading. The Hebrew simply has Tôrâh, which means ‘direction’ or ‘instruction,’ and is “the suitable term for the authoritative counsel given orally by the priests (Deuteronomy 17:11) and prophets to those who consulted them on points of ritual and practice respectively.” Comp. above, on Micah 3:11, and Prof. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 292, 3. Not that the Tôrâh of the latter days is to be restricted within the old boundaries; the Spirit is to ‘guide into all the truth,’ and probably the best equivalent (if we do not insist on an unnatural uniformity of rendering) would here be revelation.

3. among many people] Rather, between many peoples.

rebuke] Rather, be umpire for. How remarkable, the constant reiteration in the prophets of the ultimate extinction of war, to which this passage adds the substitution of arbitration!

they shall beat their swords …] In Joel 3:10 we have the same image reversed. Comp. also Micah 5:9, Hosea 2:18, Zechariah 9:10.

4. every man under his vine …] Comp. 1 Kings 4:25, 2 Kings 18:31. The old agricultural ideal. The depression of the peasantry, owing to the growing concentration of wealth, naturally made a peasant-prophet like Micah look forward with hope to a reaction, when each family should have its own allotment of land. This verse is omitted in Isaiah 2; it would no doubt have been unsuitable in that connexion.

5. Transition. For all people will walk …] Rather, For all peoples walk, &c. The ideal time described in Micah 4:1-4 is still far distant. ‘The nations abroad all worship gods of their own; let us therefore all the more steadily walk in the name of our God.’ The ‘name’ of God is that side of His nature which can be revealed to man (sometimes spoken of, even in the Old Testament, as a Divine Person, e. g. Isaiah 30:27; Isaiah 59:19); and to walk in this name means to live in mystic union with God as He has revealed Himself, and under His protection. ‘To walk for ever and ever’ is opposed to the temporary ‘walking’ of the idolaters. ‘The everlasting God’ (Isaiah 40:28) confers the attribute of everlastingness on His people.’ Comp. Isaiah 45:16-17 (contrast between the destruction of the idolaters and the ‘everlasting salvation’ of Israel).

6, 7. Prophecy of restoration

6. In that day] i.e. in the Messianic age (Micah 4:1).

will I assemble, &c.] A similar promise has been made in Micah 2:12. There the emphasis is laid on the closing of the national schism; here, on the remedy to be applied to the physical and moral misery of the exiles. In both cases, it is only a remnant of the nominal Israelites which is restored. Comp. the imitation in Zephaniah 3:19.

7. And I will make … a remnant] i.e. I will treat Israel, in spite of her ‘halting’ condition, as the ‘remnant’ to which the Messianic promises belong.

shall reign] Strictly, will have become king; i.e. will have assumed the royal functions, without the dubious intervention of a merely human representative. So Isaiah 24:23; Isaiah 52:7.