Micahchapter 4
13 verses · BSBMicah book hub →
Speaks with:Isaiah 2×3Jeremiah 3×1Zechariah 14×1Jeremiah 31×1Isaiah 54×1Joel 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
From plowed Zion straight to the mountain of Jehovah's house established in the top of the mountains in the latter days, with peoples flowing to it: 'out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.' He judges between many peoples, and 'they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more' (Isaiah 2 sounds the same oracle). Micah adds his own village detail: every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, with none to make them afraid. The lame are gathered as a remnant, and Jehovah reigns in mount Zion for ever.
Context
Prophecy · Micah — Micah overview
- A. 1–5 The mountain of the LORD's house lifted above the hills
- B. 6–8 The lame gathered; dominion returns to the tower of the flock
- C. 9–13 Pangs like a woman in travail, then a horn of iron
The outline
A.The mountain of the LORD's house lifted above the hillsvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.The lame gathered; dominion returns to the tower of the flockvv. 6 to 8
Read vv. 6 to 8 →C.Pangs like a woman in travail, then a horn of ironvv. 9 to 13
Read vv. 9 to 13 →
The world behind this chapter
Micah 4The history
The opening oracle appears almost word for word in Isaiah 2, and the two prophets were contemporaries. Whether Micah drew on Isaiah, Isaiah on Micah, or both on an older oracle they shared is not settled and the text does not say; what is clear is that two prophets in the same generation were given the same picture.
The metalwork is village metalwork. A plough point and a pruning hook were the two most valuable iron tools a farming family owned, and both were made and remade at the local smith's forge; beating a sword into a plough point is a job an ordinary blacksmith could do in an afternoon. The image is of an economy converting itself, not of weapons being locked away.
Every man under his vine and under his fig tree is the standard picture of peasant security in that world, used elsewhere of Solomon's reign. A vine takes years to bear and a fig tree longer; sitting under your own means nobody has burned them, nobody has confiscated the land, and you expect to be there next year.
The threshing image at the end is a working animal. Grain was trodden out by oxen on a hard floor, and Micah pictures Zion given a horn of iron and hooves of bronze — a threshing ox rebuilt as a war machine.
What it meant to them
The chapter is placed immediately after the announcement that the temple mount will become a wooded ruin, and the contrast is the point. The same hill is both the ploughed field and the mountain the nations stream to.
The prophecy is not yet fulfilled. Micah names Babylon as the road there — a startling thing to say a century before Babylon mattered, when Assyria was the threat everyone feared — and says the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from that time forth and forever. The peace described comes when the King does.
Sources cited
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Micah 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 4 · A parallel passage
'Every man under his vine and under his fig tree' - the shalom-formula of the messianic age (also 1 Kgs 4:25); binds the vine strand to the fig-tree companion motif.
Zechariah 3:10→On that day, declares the LORD of Hosts, you will each invite your neighbor to sit under your own vine and fig tree.’”
MT-ASV
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.