Micah5chapter 5

Micah 5:1

The chapter opens mid-siege, Jerusalem gathered in troops against an enemy already at her gates, and the judge of Israel struck with a rod upon the cheek, the public humiliation of the nation's own ruler. Several of the older commentators, Henry among them, hear an echo forward to the smiting the true King himself would receive at his trial (Matthew 27:30), a reading offered without turning the verse into a formal prediction. The immediate reference stands in Micah's own day, the judge brought low just before the promise of a very different ruler in the next verse.

Micah 5:2

Bethlehem Ephratah, too small to be counted among Judah's thousands, is named as the ruler's birthplace seven centuries before his birth, the verse the chief priests quoted back to Herod when the magi asked where the Christ should be born (Matthew 2:5-6, verified). Ephratah distinguishes this Bethlehem from the Zebulun town of the same name (Joshua 19:15) and ties the ruler to David's own city, the small clan from which the great king himself had come (1 Samuel 17:12). Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting reaches behind mere ancient lineage to a claim of preexistence, which the older commentators, Calvin and Keil among them, press at full strength as a witness to the ruler's deity.

Micah 5:3-4

Therefore he will give Israel up for a time, until she that travails brings forth, and the remnant of his brethren returns to join the children of Israel, the interval between the ruler's promised coming and Israel's full restoration named but not measured. The travailing woman is read two ways in the tradition, some hearing Zion herself in the pains of exile before her children are regathered, others hearing the birth the previous verse has just promised; the bench names both without forcing a single referent. He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and shall be great unto the ends of the earth, a reign the text will not confine to Israel alone.

Micah 5:5-6

The ruler is called this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian invades, the deliverer identified with the deliverance itself rather than merely bringing it. Seven shepherds and eight principal men are raised up against the invader, a number the bench reads as more than sufficient rather than a fixed roster, some tying it to historical leaders of Hezekiah's own resistance and others to the general promise that help will never be lacking. Assyria and the land of Nimrod, the ancient kingdom founded in Assyria's own territory (Genesis 10:8-11), are wasted in return, the aggressor made to suffer what he intended to inflict.

Micah 5:7-8

The remnant of Jacob is pictured two ways in successive verses, first as a dew from the Lord and showers upon the grass, refreshment that comes without waiting on any man, and then as a lion among the beasts of the forest, treading down and tearing with none to deliver. The older writers read both images of the same remnant rather than two different groups, the same people a blessing to those who receive them and a judgment to those who resist. The pairing gives the remnant's future among the Gentiles both its gentlest and its fiercest face in the space of two verses.

Micah 5:9-11

Victory over every adversary opens directly into a catalog of purging, the Lord promising in that day to cut off the horses out of Israel's own midst and destroy her chariots, stripping away the very military hardware a nation trusts in place of God. The cities and strongholds follow the horses and chariots, political security built on walls and garrisons cut down along with the mounted force. The bench reads triumph and purging as one act rather than two, the Lord winning the battle for Israel precisely by removing what Israel had been tempted to win it with herself.

Micah 5:12-15

The purge turns from weapons and walls to the occult and the idol, witchcrafts and soothsayers cut off, graven images and standing images destroyed, and the groves, the wooden Asherah poles set up beside so many altars, plucked up entirely, so that nothing rivaling the Lord is left standing in the land. The chapter closes outward rather than inward, vengeance executed in anger and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard, judgment falling on nations that never received the revelation Israel was given. The whole sweep from verse 9 to verse 15 leaves Israel purified of every false confidence before the peace the ruler brings can be fully realized.