Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go [even] to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.
Ver. 10. Be in pain and labour to briny forth, &c.] Be sensible of thine ensuing captivity, and take on; but yet with hope of a gracious deliverance in due time. See Trapp on " Mic 4:9 " It is no less a fault to despise the chastening of the Lord than to faint when thou art rebuked, Hebrews 12:5. The hypocrite in heart heapeth up wrath, saith Elihu, and why? he crieth not when God bindeth him, Job 36:13. The wicked, saith Hannah, are silent in darkness, and shall therefore lie down in sorrow, 1Sa 2:9 Isaiah 50:10. This is not patience, but pertinace, the strength of stones and flesh of brass, Job 6:12. It is not valour, but apathy, stupidity, and indolence, much complained of in Scripture, and threatened with a succession of sorrows, Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus 26:28, seven more, and seven more, and seven to that. Three times in that chapter God raiseth his note of threatening, and he raiseth it by sevens, and those are discords in music. Such sayings will be heavy, songs, and their execution heavy pangs; worse than those of a woman in travail.
For now shalt thou go forth out of the city] This now occured not out of a hundred years after. Foul weather seldom rotteth in the air. Time weareth not out God's threatenings, Nullum tempus occurrit Regi, nedum Deo: Time can be no prejudice to the Ancient of days; sooner or later his word shall be accomplished. When the sins of the Amorites are full they shall be sure of their payment. The bottle of wickedness, when once filled with those bitter waters, will sink to the bottom.
And thou shalt dwell in the field] Sub dio, under daylight, having no canopy over thee but the azured sky; so little account is made of poor captives: if they may have the open air to breathe in, though they lie without doors, it is better than a stinking dungeon, or to be shut up close under hatches among the excrements of nature, as Barbarossa's Christian prisoners taken in Greece were; so that all the way as he went home with them to Constantinople, every hour almost some of them were cast dead overboard.
And thou shalt go even to Babylon] There to dwell among plants and hedges, making flowerpots for a foreign prince. "There they dwelt with the king for his work," 1 Chronicles 4:23 .
There shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee] This "there" is as emphatic as that "yet" so often repeated Zechariah 1:17. See Trapp on " Zec 1:17 " It seemed improbable to many, and to some impossible, that ever they should return out of Babylon. But God effected it, to the great astonishment of his poor people, who were like them that dream, Psa 126:1 and could scarcely believe their own eyes. God loves to deliver those that are forsaken of their hopes. Ad nos ergo transferamus promissionem istam, saith Gualther upon the text. Let us apply this promise to ourselves; and as often as we are pinched with poverty, or tormented with diseases, or cast out into banishment, or are in any great danger by water or land, or under terrors of conscience, let us think we hear God thus speaking to us, "There shalt thou be delivered: there will I redeem thee."