Be in pain, and labor to bring forth - (Literally, Writhe and burst forth,) as if to say, “thou must suffer, but thy suffering and thy joy shall be one. Thou canst not have the joy without the suffering. As surely as thou sufferest, thou shalt have joy. In all sorrow, lose not faith and hope, and “thou shalt be sorrowful, but thy sorrow shall be turned into joy” John 16:20. Cyril: “Good daughter, be very patient in the pangs, bear up against your sorrows,” so shall the birth be nigh. Yet for the time she must “go forth out of the city” into captivity. “And thou shalt dwell in the field,” houseless, under tents, as captives were accustomed to be kept, until all were gathered together to be led away; a sore exchange for her former luxury, and in requital of their oppression Amos 6:1-14; Micah 2:8-9.
And thou shalt go even to Babylon - Not Babylon, but Assyria was the scourge of God in Micah’s time. Babylon was scarcely known, a far country 2 Kings 20:14. Yet Micah is taught of God to declare that thither shall the two tribes be carried captive, although the ten were carried captive by Assyria. “There (see the note at Hosea 2:15) shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.” God’s judgments, or purifying trials, or visitation of His saints, hold their way, until their end be reached. They who suffer them cannot turn them aside; they who inflict them cannot add to them or detain them. The prison house is the place of deliverance to Joseph and Peter; the Red Sea to Israel; the judges were raised up, when Israel was mightily oppressed; Jabesh-Gilead was delivered when the seventh day was come 1 Samuel 11:3, 1 Samuel 11:10-11; the walls of Jerusalem were the end of Sennacherib; Judah should have long been in the very hand and grasp of Babylon, yet must its clenched hand be opened.