CRITICAL NOTES.
Micah 4:9.] Zion will lose her king, wander into captivity, but will be redeemed from her enemies. King] Loss of royal government, the cause of lamentation, more painful to Israel than other people; the king a sign of God’s presence, &c.
Micah 4:10. Pain] Fig. of a woman with child (cf. Jeremiah 4:31). Out of the city, &c] Set forth the greatness and certainty of the calamity. There … thee] Emphatic declaration; the scene of distress, the place of deliverance.
Micah 4:11.] Distant sunlight overclouded by present cloud. Now] Nations gathered not to hear the law (Micah 4:2), but for war. Defiled] Like a virgin.
Micah 4:12. Gather them] To be punished in turn when they have answered his purpose, when fully ripe, like sheaves, lit. sheaf. However great the numbers of the foe, all are but as one sheaf ready to be threshed [Calvin].
Micah 4:13. Arise] Deuteronomy 25:4 Horn] To push the enemies (1 Kings 22:11). Gain] Goods collected by robbery (Judges 5:19). Lord] Not for Zion’s selfish ends (Isaiah 60:6; Isaiah 60:9). Whole earth] Who through subjugating the heathen has proved to be such (Psalms 93, 96).
HOMILETICS
THE SUFFERING AND TRIUMPH OF GOD’S PEOPLE.—Micah 4:9-13
Israel’s history, like human life, has its dark and its bright side. Before the glory promised is ever gained, sorrow and trial must be endured. This is—
1. A constant rule; and—
2. A necessary order in God’s discipline. But the scene of trial was to be the place of deliverance. The sufferings shall be over-ruled for the salvation of his people and the destruction of their enemies. Notice:—
I. The bitterness of the affliction. “Pangs have taken thee,” &c. Pangs with out remedy, and painful as a woman in travail.
1. The loss of kings. “Is there no king in thee?” A visible king was a protection, and a symbol of God’s presence to them. The loss was most serious and irreparable. It was a condition of helplessness and shame.
2. The loss of counsellors. “Is thy counsellor perished?” Kings and judges were their counsellors and guides; but they were bereft of wisdom to direct, left in the hands of the enemy, and governed by captive nations.
3. The loss of liberties. “Now shalt thou go forth out of the city,” which shall be captured; “dwell in the field” exposed to danger; and be carried “even to Babylon” into long captivity. This was a sad exchange of liberty and luxury for bondage and misery. But it is the picture of many a soul reduced to slavery, bereft of God and writhing in agony.
II. The comforts under the affliction. All is not lost, though they have neither king nor counsellor. God will make up for everything.
1. Affliction will end in good. “Jerusalem’s pangs are not as dying agonies, but as travailing throes, which after a while will be forgotten for joy that a child is born into the world.” Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalms 30:6; Psalms 73:24; Jeremiah 10:24).
2. Deliverance will be granted. “There shalt thou be delivered.” There, where sorrow is greatest and hope is faintest—even in Babylon, the most unlikely place, “the Lord shall redeem thee.” The utmost degree of affliction is often the nearest to the end, and help is not in the holy city, but in the stronghold of the foe. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” The Red Sea must be the scene of triumph to Israel, and the prison the place of deliverance to Joseph and Peter. This magnifies God’s grace and power. “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.”
3. Enemies will be subdued. “Thou shalt beat in pieces many people.” In their weakness, God will be their strength, and make them victorious over confederate nations. Their horns shall be iron, to push their enemies; and their hoofs brass, to tread them down. The destruction is universal and complete. All enemies shall be put under their feet, as conquered foes, or willing subjects. “Fear not, thou worm Jacob. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff” (Isaiah 41:13-15).
III. The spirit in which they should bear the affliction. If such be their prospects in the trial, how should they demean themselves?
1. They should cherish a patient spirit. “Why dost thou cry out aloud?” Calm fear and hush grief; though affliction be grievous at present, it shall afterward yield the fruits of joy and peace. Patience defeats the menace of the foe, but passion takes his part
“Patience doth conquer by out-suffering all” [Peel].
2. They should cherish a submissive spirit. “Be in pain,” &c. Grieve, but remember excessive grief, fretfulness, and rebellion, are unreasonable. Resistance is folly, submission is triumph.
“By not opposing, thou dost ills destroy,
And wear thy conquered sorrows into joy” [Young].
3. They should cherish a spirit of hope. What a bright prospect opens up before them! Why doubt or despair? God will accomplish his word. Hope will sweeten trial, and, like the sun, paint the rainbow on the clouds. “Black though our side of the canvas be,” said Sir Harry Vane, in going to be executed, “the Divine hand paints a beautiful picture on the unseen side.”
THE DESTRUCTION OF ZION’S FOES.—Micah 4:11-13
Those who exult in Israel’s fall, and seek to defile and outrage her, will be disappointed. Inscrutable wisdom will correct the children with the foe, and then destroy the foe with the children.
I. They are frustrated in their design. “Let her be defiled,” &c.
1. They sought her injury. They desired to defile her with blood, and condemn her in guilt. The wicked delight in the fall and inconsistencies of God’s people. They often become tempters, then accusers; “first desecrators, then sanctimonious justiciaries,” says one.
2. They feasted their eyes on her misery. “Let our eye look upon Zion.” The world always hates the Church and rejoices in its sorrow. Edom delighted in the chastisement of Israel (Obadiah 1:12); and the sufferings of the martyrs were a spectacle to the heathen. Malice is blind to all virtue, and eyes can always see what hearts can wish. “Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it.”
II. They are crushed in their efforts. “Many nations are gathered against thee.” The powers of earth and hell are sometimes arrayed against the Church, but all in vain. They are against God when against his people. They may have wickedness to imagine, craft to devise, but are not able to perform (Psalms 21). God knows their thoughts, but they cannot defeat his purpose. Pharaoh’s counsel to extinguish issued in the increase of the chosen people. The wisdom, power, and counsel of man signify nothing, if they oppose the decrees of God. “He taketh the wise in their craftiness.” Learn—
1. The folly of designing against God.
2. The security of obedience to God.
III. They are ruined in their numbers. “Many nations” combined against Zion. The armies of Babylon, with their subject nations, the forces of Edom, Ammon, Moab, and others, who exulted in Judah’s fall, were types of the anti-Christian powers of the latter days. Neither numbers nor craft avail before God. They only ripen themselves for God to “gather them as the sheaves into the floor.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Micah 4:9-10. I. The moral condition of men. Kingless and restless, in captivity and misery. Unable to cope with sin, evil habits, and the world. Without the privileges of that city, whose builder and maker is God; exposed to danger, tumult, and the distractions of life. II. The purpose of God concerning men. To redeem, to govern, to guide, and to exalt above all misery and opposition. He will shortly bruise Satan under their feet, and every power of body and mind shall be consecrated to him.
Micah 4:11-12. The enemies of Zion.
1. Their number.
2. Their purpose,—to defile and rejoice.
3. Their spirit—proud and determined.
4. Their helplessness. “They know not the thoughts of God.”
5. Their ruin. “He shall gather them,” &c. God’s people begin, and he will finish, the work.
Gather them as sheaves. Persecutors.
1. Ripened by their own conduct.
2. Gathered by the providence of God.
3. Threshed by the judgments of God. “This prophecy received a primary and partial fulfilment in the victories of the Maccabees (1Ma. 5:1). But its adequate accomplishment is in Christ. It is to be applied to the work of the apostles, and apostolic men, missionaries of Christ, who are compared by St. Paul to oxen treading out the corn (1 Corinthians 9:9; 1 Timothy 5:18; cf. Isaiah 32:20). Their work is indeed one of bringing the nations into subjection (2 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 10:5; Ephesians 6:12); but it is in subjection to the law of love, in order that the good grain winnowed from the sheaves on the floor may be gathered into the garner of heaven” (cf. Psalms 149:8) [Wordsworth].
Micah 4:13. The very image of the threshing implies that this is no mere destruction. While the stubble is beaten or bruised to small pieces, and the chaff is far more than the wheat, and is carried out of the floor, there yet remains the seed-corn. So in the great judgments of God, while most is refuse, there yet remains over what is severed from the lost heap, and wholly consecrated to him [Pusey].
The Lord of the whole earth.
1. God the supreme ruler of the world. Not merely the God of Israel, but ruler “of the whole earth.”
2. All things governed in the interests of the Church. The nations subject to Zion, not for selfish aggrandisement, but for her good and his glory (Isaiah 60:6; Isaiah 60:9; Isaiah 23:18).
3. The glory of victory should be given to God. All gains of merchandise, all achievements of intellect, all success of spiritual efforts, spring from him, and should be consecrated to him. Holiness to the Lord should be written on all things we do.
Micah 4:9-13. Of the struggles of God’s congregation. They must be maintained:
1. Under heavy sorrow, in secure expectation of their final redemption (Micah 4:9-10).
2. Under the mighty assaults of the foe, in sure confidence that the Lord sits upon the throne (Micah 4:11-12).
3. In constant self-examination. For although the victory must certainly be given to God’s cause (Micah 4:13), nevertheless, until Christ is born in the congregation (and in each individual, Micah 4:1), the result of every contest is deserved disaster and disgrace (Micah 4:13) [Lange].
The whole chapter sets forth—
1. The glory;
2. The peace;
3. The dominion; and,
4. The victory of the Church.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Micah 4:1-2. Last days. God’s promises are dated, but with a mysterious character; and for want of skill in God’s chronology, we are prone to think God forgets us, when, indeed, we forget ourselves in being so bold to set God a time of our own, and in being angry that he comes not just then to us [Gurnall].
Micah 4:3. War. There must be peace when the art of war is laid by as useless, and shall be learned no more. That will be a blessed time, indeed, when the art military shall be out of date, and (being itself the greatest interrupter of learning) shall be learned no more. When soldiers shall turn husbandmen and vine-dressers. When a man casts away his sword we may well conclude he intends to be quiet. Thus the Lord gives quiet to nations which have been engaged in war, by causing wars to cease [Caryl].
Micah 4:4. Peace of country life.
“In all things grew his wisdom and his wealth,
And folk beholding the fair state and health
Wherein his land was, said that now at last
A fragment of the Golden Age was cast
Over the place, for there was no debate,
And men forgot the very name of hate.” [Wm. Morris.]
Micah 4:6-8. As the pleasures of the future will be spiritual and pure, the object of a good and wise man in this transitory state of existence should be to fit himself for a better, by controlling the unworthy propensities of his nature and improving all his better aspirations; to do his duty, first to God, then to his neighbour; to promote the happiness and welfare of those who are in any degree dependent upon him, or whom he has the means of assisting; never wantonly to injure the meanest thing that lives; to encourage, as far as he can, whatever is useful and tends to refine and exalt humanity; to store his mind with such knowledge as it is fitted to receive, and he is able to attain; and so to employ the talents committed to his care that, when the account is required, he may hope to have his stewardship approved [Southey].
Micah 4:9. King.
“Kings are like stars—they rise and set—they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.” [Shelley.]
Micah 4:8-10. The kingdom shall come. Observe, it is a kingdom that is to come to us; we are not to go to it. Also, it is not to be a kingdom of the dead, but of the living. Also, it is not to come all at once, but quietly; nobody knows how. “The kingdom cometh not with observation” [Ruskin].
Micah 4:10-11. It belongs, in truth, to the Church of God to suffer blows, not to strike them. But at the same time let it be remembered that the Church is an anvil which has worn out many a hammer [Beza].
Micah 4:12. Thoughts of the Lord. To those, the eyes of whose understandings are enlightened, and the avenues of their hearts opened to discern and adore the perfections of God, how manifold are the instances which occur of the providence of God interfering to direct the course of human events towards a salutary end; to make afflictions of men the by-path to enjoyment; out of evils, temporal and transitory, to produce substantial and permanent good [Bp. Mant].
Micah 4:13. Hope doth three things: it assures good things to come; it disposes us for them; it waits for them unto the end, each of which will be of singular use to fit us for pious sufferings [Polhill].
Arise. When God has conquering work for his people to do, he will furnish them with strength and ability for it; will make the horn iron and the hoofs brass: and, when he does so, they must exert the power he gives them, and execute the commission; even the daughter of Zion must arise and thresh [Matt. Henry].