Micah Describes The Coming Tribulations of Judah But Gives the Final Assurance That In The End YHWH Will Triumph (Micah 4:9-13).
The near future is seen as bleak. Judah and Jerusalem are seen as in despair, without any hope of assistance from their king or counsellors. Indeed they will endure birth pains and will be carried be forced to live in the open countryside, and even some of them in that arch enemy of God, Babylon.
But in the end God will rescue them from there, and deliver them from the hands of their enemies.
It is true that many nations will gather eagerly to see this upstart nation with its upstart God humbled, and watch in delight as their wishes are carried out, but what they are not aware of is that in fact YHWH has gathered those nations so that they might be threshed by the people of God who will be given iron horns and brazen hoofs, so that they can thresh the nations of the world and devote their wealth to YHWH.
We may ask why at this stage mention is made of Babylon. Surely we are dealing with Assyria? The answer is in fact based on what Babylon was in the eyes of Judah and Israel. Babylon was the initial city that raised itself against God (Genesis 11:1-9). It was the leading nation that sought to attack the covenant people (Genesis 14:1). It had become a mighty city full of claims about itself calling itself ‘the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldean's pride' (Isaiah 13:19); its king set himself up in opposition to the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14); it saw itself as ‘the Lady of the Kingdoms' (Isaiah 47:5), it said ‘I am and there is none beside me' (Isaiah 47:10) and was renowned for luxury, debauchery, idolatry and the occult (Isaiah 47:12-13). It was the centre of evil. It was the very opposite of Jerusalem.
Furthermore we know that exiles had already been carried off to Babylon (Shinar) (Isaiah 11:11), which to a prophet of YHWH must have been the worst fate imaginable. (Note Micah's ‘even to Babylon' - Micah 4:10). They were in the hands of God's Great Enemy, and of all the powers of evil. Thus the hope for the deliverance of God's people from Babylon is not anachronistic. Compare how Isaiah even moreso saw Babylon as the ultimate enemy even in Assyria's day (Isaiah 13-14).
So the future of God's people was not at present a happy one, but the one thing that they could be assured of was that in the end YHWH would triumph. Any failure was theirs not His.
“Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you, is your counsellor perished, that pangs have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?”
Micah visualises the pain of Judah as the advancing Assyrian armies destroy her cities one by one and commit wholesale atrocities. And he asks them why they are so disturbed. Do they not have a king? Do they not remember when they rejected YHWH as their king and thought that to have their own chosen king would solve all their problems (2 Samuel 7:5; 2 Samuel 7:7)? Are their counsellors not still alive, to whom they have listened rather than to the prophets? Why then are they in such anguish? Can it be that these are failing them?
Indeed in the end Hezekiah would plead with YHWH and Jerusalem itself would be spared (2 Kings 19:1-7). But that was still in the future, and even then it did not prevent the rape of Judah.
“Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go forth out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even unto Babylon. There will you be rescued; there will YHWH redeem you from the hand of your enemies.”
Thus because they have not trusted in YHWH they must go through their birth pains, and in the end the inhabitants of Zion will be carried off into the open countryside (the field) and will find themselves ‘even in Babylon', in Jewish eyes the worst of all possible fates. Because they have been evil they will be totally given up to all that is evil. There is a hint here of the Exodus when Israel left Egypt, and were in the wilderness, before they arrived in Canaan. It is an Exodus in reverse, but to an even worse nation, Babylon.
It was only because Hezekiah humbled himself before YHWH that this future was delayed. But he was warned that because he had failed in the matter of making a peace treaty with Babylon exile in Babylon for his sons and other leading Israelites was only a matter of time (Isaiah 39:6-7), and in fact under his son Manasseh some would be carried off to Babylon, including even Manasseh himself (2 Chronicles 33:11 - Assyria had made Babylon one of its seats of power). This prophecy by Micah was presumably made after that warning of YHWH concerning Babylon had been given to Hezekiah.
But it would not mean that all was lost, because YHWH would rescue them from Babylon, and redeem them from the hand of their enemies. And that is precisely what happened with Manasseh when he repented and sought YHWH (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).
Micah's words were even more completely fulfilled when Babylon became Israel's chief adversary and destroyed Jerusalem and carried off its inhabitants to Babylon over a hundred years later.
“And now many nations are assembled against you, who say, “Let her be defiled, and let our eye see our desire on Zion.”
It is clear that many nations round about resented Judah's revival of Yahwism under Hezekiah, with its exclusivism and closing down of high places for the gods of other nations. Thus they watched the Assyrian invasion with glee, and participated in it with them, and said, ‘Let her be defiled.' They wanted this proud nation with its pure God to be humbled and become like themselves, being forced to accept into their Temple the gods of Assyria. They longed to see their desire on Zion, its total humiliation.
The Assyrian army would originally have been composed of many nations, for subject nations would be required to provide their contingents, and these would have been expanded as the victorious Assyrian army incorporated more men into their ranks as the different nations were subjugated. Many would surrender without fighting (Micah 1:11) and it would therefore be seen as natural that many of their menfolk were conscripted into the army, while those who resisted more strongly would be subject to reprisal, but the need of the army for conscripts would never be forgotten. Thus by this stage the Assyrian army would have included many peoples from surrounding countries including Philistines, the new peoples of Samaria, and even men of Judah.
One lesson we can learn from that is that those who serve God faithfully will always discover that there are those who wish to see them humiliated.
“But they do not know the thoughts of YHWH, nor do they understand his counsel, for he has gathered them as the sheaves to the threshingfloor.”
But what these nations fail to recognise are the thoughts of YHWH. They do not understand His counsel. If they had they would not have been so pleased. For what they did not realise was that YHWH was gathering them as sheaves for the threshingfloor. He was gathering them so that they could be sifted and revealed to be chaff.
Not the contrast between Micah question about Judah's king and counsellors in Micah 4:9, with the recognition here that YHWH is the King and Counsellor Who really matters. He will lead Judah aright if only they will hear Him.
“Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass; and you will beat in pieces many peoples, and I will devote their gain to YHWH, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.”
So the nations need to beware. For YHWH is going to make the horns of Judah as iron, He is going to make their hoofs as brass. Here He is likening Judah to the oxen who trod the threshingfloor, who will be powerfully equipped for the job. And the result will be that just as the grain on the threshingfloor was crushed in pieces by the oxen's hoofs, so will the nations be trodden down by Judah. If only His people will trust Him and believe in Him, and will obey His covenant, and will therefore obey Him and arise and thresh the nations, they will crush in pieces many peoples (Psalms 2:8-12). But note that God will devote what they gain to Himself, and the substance that they obtain to the One Whose it is, the Lord of the whole earth. In their eyes that would mean it going into the Temple treasury.
There was fulfilment of this to some extent when the armies gathered against Jerusalem were smitten by the plague, and even moreso when the Jews were later roused to faith and gained periods of independence by defeating their enemies But it was even more true when God's people would go out with the word of truth to bring the nations in submission to Him, and they would bring their wealth under His control.
There is a reminder for us here that however serious the circumstances might appear, God is in control and has in mind the needs of His people.