YHWH Will Gather The Remnant of Israel Like A Shepherd Gathers His Sheep And Leads Them Home (Micah 2:12-13).
As regularly happens on the prophets Micah now follows the bad news with good news. This was a common practise with Isaiah. For the prophets had a twofold purpose, to deal with the sins of the people, and to enable them to recognise that in spite of all their failure God would ensure their future. He would bring His people back to Himself.
‘I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you.
I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.
I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah,
As a flock in the midst of their pasture,
They will make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.
While he has been warning the rich and the powerful of the captivity that awaited them, he also wanted to assure the people that that would not simply be the end. For God's promises were sure. Many Israelites might disappear into the great beyond, but they are not to think that they are lost sight of by God.
For God intends one day to bring back many of those in exile, as a sheep gathers His flock, and there He will feed them and they will make a great noise because they are men. What He has done will not be hidden. These words need not have the Babylonian captivity in mind. Micah had watched even his own townsfolk taken into exile. He could not doubt that some of them would return under God's gracious hand. The sheep of Bozrah were plentiful and well-favoured. Compare here Isaiah 40:11.
‘The breaker out is gone up before them,
They have broken forth and passed on to the gate,
And are gone out of it,
And their king is passed on before them,
And YHWH at the head of them.'
The picture is a triumphant one. Just as YHWH the great Escapist, had broken them out of Egypt and had gone up before them, so that they too were able to break out, He now enables them to break out of wherever they are settled, passing out through the gate, for nothing can hold Him in, and going with them out of the city. They will go forward with their King passing on before them, with YHWH at their head.
The picture is the typically Isaianic one concerning God as the great Deliverer. See for example the constant movement from present sin to glorious future in Isaiah 1-5, and the constant references to God as bringing righteousness and salvation. And compare Isaiah 52:12.