Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Ver. 3. " Therefore will He give them up until the time when a travailing woman hath brought forth, and the remnant of His brethren will return, together with the sons of Israel, Ver. 4. And He will stand and feed in the strength of Jehovah, in the \A majesty of the name of Jehovah His God, and they will dwell, for now will He be great to the ends of the earth." a Therefore" (lakhen): i.e. u because the great divine Ruler of Israel, from whom alone its redemption can proceed, will spring from the little Bethlehem, and therefore from the degraded family of

1 In the quotation of this verse in Matt. ii. 6, the substance is given freely from memory: Ketl av 'Befaiift, yq 'Ioi^ot, avhotpus ihotxt'arri el iv rolg qytficoaiv ' lov^x' \k aov yocp i^iKivoirctt qyovfiivos, oartg 'Koi^ctvii rov "huov pov, tqv * lopcty'h. The deviations from the original text may be accounted for from the endeavour to give the sense clearly, and bring out into more distinct prominence the allusion in the words to David. The yjj 'Iot/See, in the place of the Eplirata of the original, has sprung from 1 Sam. xvii. 12, where Bethlehem is distinguished from the town of the same name in Zebulun in the account of the anointing of David as king, as it frequently is in the Old Testament, by the addition of the word Judah; and yjj 'Iot/Sot, " land of Judah," is attached loosely in apposition to the name Bethlehem, in the place of the more precise definition, u in the land of Judah." The alteration of the expression, "too small to be among the thousands of Judah," into ovdotpu; i^ux'torn, x.t.X., does not constitute a discrepancy, but simply alters the thought with an allusion to the glorification which Bethlehem would receive through the fact of the Messiah's springing from it. " Micah, looking at its outward condition, calls it little; but Matthew, looking at the nativity of Christ, by which this town had been most wondrously honoured and rendered illustrious, calls it very little indeed" (C. B. Mich.). The interpretation of >zb#2 (among the thousands) by iv to1$ qyepoaiv (among the princes) was very naturally suggested by the personification of Bethlehem, and still more by the thought of the ijyov/xsuo; about to follow; and it does not alter the idea, since the families Calaphlm) had their heads, who represented and led them. The last clause, cans notpxuil, x.t.a., is simply a paraphrase of pfcOK'^, probably taken from ver. 3, and resting upon 2 Sam. v. 2, and pointing to the typical relation existing between the David born in Bethlehem and the second David, viz. the Messiah. The second hemistich of the verse is omitted, because it appeared superfluous so far as the immediate object of the quotation was concerned.

David" (Caspari). This is the correct explanation; for the reason why Israel is to be given up to the power of the nations of the world, and not to be rescued earlier, does not lie in the appearance of the Messiah as such, but in His springing from little Bethlehem. The birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, and not in Jerusalem the city of David, presupposes that the family of David, out of which it is to spring, will have lost the throne, and have fallen into poverty. This could only arise from the giving up of Israel into the power of its enemies. Micah had already stated clearly enough in what precedes, that this fate would fall upon the nation and the royal house of David, on account of its apostasy from the Lord; so that he could overlook this here, and give prominence to the other side alone, namely to the fact that, according to the counsel of God, the future Deliverer and Ruler of Israel would also resemble His royal ancestor David in the fact that He was not to spring from Zion the royal city built on high, but from the insignificant country town of Bethlehem, and that for this very reason Israel was to remain so long under the power of the nations of the world. The suffix attached to D3JPP points to ^^ in ver. 1; and?nj is applied, as in 1 Kings xiv. 16, to the surrender of Israel into the power of its enemies as a punishment for its sins. This surrender is not the last of many oppressions, which are to take place in the period before the birth of the Messiah (the Roman oppression), but a calamity lasting from the present time, or the coming of the judgment threatened in ch. iii., until the time of the Messiah's coming; and Dpn* points back not merely to ver. 1, but also to ch. iv. 9, 10. The travailing woman (yoleddh) is not the community of Israel (Theodoret, Calvin, Vitringa, and others), but the mother of the Messiah (Cyril, and most of the Christian expositors, including even Ewald and Hitzig). The supposition that the congregation is personified here, is precluded not only by the fact that in the very same sentence the sons of Israel are spoken of in the plural, but still more by the circumstance that in that case the bringing forth would be only a figurative representation of the joy following the pain, in which the obvious allusion in the words to the Messiah, which is required by the context, and especially by the suffix to Vrnrt? which refers to the Messiah, and presupposes that His birth is referred to in rnjj iTW, would

..•lites of tin- ten tribes, and, in tl.., those that are left of the ten tribe* There is I and namelv, that M it urd that the ten tribes should appear to the principal for this is Dot imj introduced with <> are never the principal < the two of the men; nor it the hom of Israeli d above the hom Jadahin «Kt. iii. 18. Then f together with n developed rather from the idea of protecting] shielding, aa in Oen. xwii. 12, ilavii ther with, the children, the mothera being thought of m ning the children, as Hoe. & 14 and other j'.i clearly al Ooneeqnentlv the peraon screening the other ii the principal person, and not the one covered i L And n here, the brethren of the Meetiah, like thr of Jndah in Jer. iii- L8, which passage is generally so like the MM before 01 that it might be regarded as an exposition of it, are thoM who first receive the blessing coming from the nfettiah; and the loni of brad are aatonatfid with them ai t i whom this Mowing what the Messiah will do for brad when it has returned to God. He will feed it p-V simply belongs to the pictorial description, as in Isa. IzL 5) in the strength of Jehovah. The feeding, as a frequent figure for governing, reminds of David, w horn the Lord had called from the flock to be the shepherd of His people (2 Sam. v. 2). This is done in the strength of Jehovah, with which He is invested, to defend His flock against wolves and robbers (see John x. 11, 12). 1 This strength is not merely the divine authority with which earthly rulers are usually endowed (1 Sam. ii. 10), but PN3, i.e. the exaltation or majesty of the name of Jehovah, the majesty in which Jehovah

1 The word M feed" expresses what Christ is towards His people, the flock committed to His care. He does not rule over the church like a formidable tyrant, who oppresses his people by fear; but He is a shepherd, and leads His sheep with all the gentleness to be desired. And inasmuch as we are surrounded on all sides by enemies, the prophet adds, " He will feed in the strength," etc.; i.e., as much power as there is in God, so much protection will there be in Christ, whenever it shall be necessary to defend the church, and guard it against its foes (Calvin).

in thy palaces" in ver. 4, and leads to the thou Asshl ba fully i for irbtt it | kin„_

Aaahar is driven hark to his own border, and watched there, hut by the fact that he is fed in his own territory with the sword. This victorious conflict with the imperial power inn not be restricted to the spiritual victory of the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of the world, as Hengatenbeig supposes, appealing to vers. 10 sqq., according to which the Lord will make His people outwardly defenceless before it becomes fully victorious in Christ (Hengstenberg). For the extermination of the instruments of war announced in ver. 10 refers not to the period of the exaltation of the people of God into the world-conquering power, but to the time of consummation, when the hostile powers shall be overcome. Before the people of God reach this goal, they have not only to carry on spiritual conflicts, but to

0-15. Bot it* I: 1 conquer the nations in such a wa.v:l- will • ih fulfil the peace of Hil people by th. action of all the instruments of war, and the extermination of everything of an idolatrous nature, as well as by the ent of wrath upon all n; nations. Ver. 10.

I will destroy thy / out of the mid* of thee, and annihilate thy chariots. Ver. 11. And I shall destroy the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy fortresses. Ver. 12. And I shull destroy the witchcrafts out of thy hand; and cloudinterpreters shall not be left to thee. Ver. 13. And I shall destroy thy graven images and thy statutes out of the midst of thee; and thou wilt no more worship the work of thy hands.

14. And I shall root out thine idol-groves out of the midst of thee, and destroy thy cities. Ver. 15. And I shall execute cit means of defence, OTI^ written with as in Dent vii. 0 and I Eingi wii. 16, lit item of tit subordinate objects are mentioned u utmtrm, to the entire abolition of war an. 1 idolatry. We moat net in* im made by human hands and worship them, daring the stage of its development described In Ten. mil; hut mnstdi dngoiah between the thought and its formal dress. The grot heathen idolatry, to which brael was addicted under the Old Testament, is a figure denoting that more refined idolatry which will exist even in the church of Christ so long as sin and unbelief endure. The extermination of every kind°of heathen idolatry is simply the Old Testament expression for the purification of the church of the Lord from everything of an idolatrous and ungodly nature. To this there is appended in ver. 15 a promise that the Lord will take vengeance, and wrath, and fury upon the nations which have not heard or have not observed the words and acts of the Lord, i.e. have not yielded themselves up to conversion. In other words, He will exterminate every ungodly power by a fierce judgment, so that nothing will ever be able to disturb the peace of His people and kingdom again.

t swdioasi |ht right of Jehorah I nd with it, but to sharpen its own conscience, ne unto theey iin<l with trlmt have I trained t/iee? A •1.)', i, I up out of th- teat with the question, what IL- bas that it 1; me tired of Him. The qu is founded upon clearly implied in the expression "7~s~- -*:, What ha.- I that thou me? ~X?, in the hijdoL to no harm, but has only conferred benefits upon them. Of these II mentions in v..;-. ■[ the bringing up out of Egypt and the guidance through the Arabian desert, as being the gre;. manifestations of divine grace, to which Israel owes its exalta-

It »5p Joes not fa antoanti- -0j the divine majesty. Tl,. of the high place is the God dwelling in the high place (Isa. xxxiii. 5. lvii. 15), or enthroned ID heaven ft, CXT, 8). It is only with sacrifices, the means the objections offered by Ewald, Hitzig, and others, to the genuineness of the - from Shittim to G worthiness of which has been

Micah introduces the tl. the il not to be taken bj itself, as an exclamaf u Hark! foioa of the Lord! " as in Isa. xiii. 4, xl. I in- breit), but must be connected with what follow-, in accordance with the -ts. Whilst the prophet tells the peopl r. 8 what Jehovah requires, he introduces the following threat with " voice of Jehovah," etc., to give th;er wnphlffil to the reproof, by intimating that it is not his own voice, but Jehovah's, which is speaking now. M To the city," i.e. to the chief city of the kingdom, viz. Jerusalem. The sentence which follows, and which has been explained in very different ways, has the same object. ~, a word borrowed from the Chokmah-literature (Proverbs and Job), both here and Isa. xxviii. 29, formed from l£ or the

have the more definite mirmdh in the parallel clause. Scales and a bag with stouea belong togethi are the si justice is widened still further. Whereas in the first clause the rich men of the capital (the suffix pointing back to T3J in ver. 9), who are also to be thought of in ver. 10, are expressly deal exemplification, lik •;::,: fa Lor. nm. [3 14 which Micah ha.l in his eye at the time. For the indmdoali/m.LT oi the panbhment, which folio* ipon I. vi

This trouble the people bring upon themselves by their ungodly conduct. With this thought the divine threatening is rounded off and closed. Ver. 16. "And the,, observe the statutes of Omri, and all the doings of the house of Ahab, and so ye walk in their counsels; that I may make thee a horror, and her inhabitants a hissing, and the reproach of my people shall ye bearr The verse is attached loosely to what precedes by Vav. The first half corresponds to vers. 10-12, the second to vers. 13-15, and each has three clauses. "««*!, as an intensive form of the piel, is the strongest expression' for 100, and is not to be taken as a passive, as Ewald and others suppose, but in a reflective sense: "It (or one) carefully observes for itself the statutes of Omri instead of the statutes of the Lord" (Lev. xx. 23; Jer. x. 3). All that is related of Omri, is that he was worse than all his predecessors (1 Kings xvi. 25). His statutes are the Baal-worship which his son and successor Ahab raised into the ruling national religion (1 Kings xvi. 31, 32), and the introduction of which is attributed to Omri as the mplj because of fft&fy the gleaning, and not with any allusion to the fact that the gleanii ral day-, ai Hitzig supposes, but because what is stated applies to all gatherings of

.ly in Prov. x. 8 and the passage us is hurrah also the thought, arhich requires no such strength Jt is an emphatic repetition of the suhj The mat man m vil with the king and judge, by desiring it, and expressing the d in the most open manner, and thereby

And even the best men form no exception to the rule. 1. •• Their best man is like a briar; the upright man more than a hedge: the day of thy spies, thy visitation Cometh, then will their confusion follow. Yer. 5. Trust not in the neighbour, rely not upon the intimate one; keep the doors of thy mouth before her that is thy bosom friend. Ver. 6. For the son despiseth the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a mans enemies are the people of his own house." nniD, the good man among them, i.e. the best man, resembles the thorn-bush, which only pricks, hurts, and injures. In If* the force of the suffix still continues: the most righteous man among them; and IP before n^DBD is is not to rejoice over Zion. *, for, not « if:" the verb rt^pAo&l is rather to be taken conditionally, " for have I fallen;" n<iphal being used, as in Amos v. 2, to denote the destruction of the power and of the kingdom. The church is here supposed to be praying out of the midst of the period when the judgment has fallen upon it for its sins, and the power of the world is triumphing over it. The prophet could let her speak thus,

og the future in spirit, as baring aln will be • ■ the assurance of the pi in the name of the church iddreta to / n, to confirm two clauses; for we may easily supply to yOm 4* it" or u will be" = come. The daughter Zion is addressed Ccf. ch. iv. 8) not as a church, but as a city, as the centre and I ntatiw of the kingdom of God. As such, she is compared to a vineyard, as in Isa. v. 1-7. xxvii. 2-4. Pla, lxxx. 9, 10. The word gddt'r, which is generally used for the hedge or wall around a vineyard, points to this (see Isa. v. 5; Num. xxii. 24; Eccles.

be far away. The meaning nl tins word is very difficult to find, and can hardly be settled with any certain: j i planation of dUfj as s% sw imj n Nrael by

. snd is not suggested by the context. So, again, the iMMftm mII the goal set t: the bound i, be a far distant one | •.. n will the boundaries o4 tin bad f Ismtl lis in |Im Km ■.rt.nu-e, if be advanced to the remotest and separation from the nations. 1 his law will be far aw will be removed or set as*:

hat has already reed, and whose walls have been rebuilt (ver. bui. f the walls of Zion

:»e further definitions aalize the idea of the lands and provinces, the correlative members

I taan. ^ hen the day shall have come for the building the walls of Zion, the land of Israel will not be too tril.es. The simple re:i districts in the k i of Jo lah are mentioned, i Judah resembling those name 1. M to the whole of Lrael, or ratlier to the i the whole Da!

Bis abundant goodness, more than the church lias asked. M the days of thy L' i>/j>t left! / was it to see wtmden, Ver. L6. Xations rcill see it, be a I of all tluir strength: thsy will lay the hand upon the mouth, their ears will bee \. 17. They will lick dust like I like the reptiles of the earth they come trembling out of their castles: they will go trembling to Jehovah our 6 before thee will 1 The wonders (niphlauth; cf. Ex.

iii. 20, xv. 11; Ps. lxxviii. 11; with which the Lord formerly smote Egypt, to redeem His people out of the bondage of that kingdom of the world, will the Lord renew for His people. In v~s>* the nation is addressed, whilst the suffix of the third pers. attached to WOK points back to l^y in ver. 14. The miraculous deeds will make such an impression, that the heathen

:v natural one, that the nan I not < from tl village into the lxx»k, but pawed from the book to the

I I Helcesei, Elcesi), a \ nail one indeed, and containing in its ruins hardly any traces of ancient buildii but one which is well known to the Jews, and was also pointed out to me by my guide," — inasmuch as he does not simply base his statement upon the word of his guide, but describes the place as well known to the Jews. This Jewish tradition of the name from * itionable aa the coo nee

; what, is known of the circumstances of his life. The notio-s in I. Epiphan. com g his miracles and hi 0. Stn truth. Even the period of his life is so much a matter of dispute, that some suppose him t'. prophesied under Jehu and Jehoahaz, whilst others believe that he did not prophesy till the time of Zedekiah; at the same time it is possible to decide this with tolerable certainty from the contents of the book.

the in lah mentioned in ch. i. 15 and ii. 2, can onlv S inacherib's expedition, since h< the only one who trust in Him. They are known \>y Him. u To know is just the same as not to neglect; or, led in a positive xvi. 19. An i because the Lord is a refuge to J II. will put an end to the oppressor of Hi^ people, viz. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and that with an overwhelming flood. Sheteph, overwhelming, is a figure denoting

simi! resses the ai. ith which the well to t bich j I the Assyrian in his nee in bit own l,",><1 fortune,

off" Strauss). With! i turns to JodaL The are not ippl to tin- A— yri.u whom Abar-

Nineveh. For the figure of the yoke, cf. Lev. XXVI. 13, Jer. xxvii. L\ xxviii. 10, Eiek. xxxiv. 27, etc.; and for the fart itself, x. 2 7. The words do not refer to the people of the ten tribes, who were pining like slaves in exile (Hitzig); for Xahum makes no allusion to them at all, but to Judah (cf. ch. i. 15), upon whom the Assyrians had laid the yoke of tribute from the time of Ahaz. This was first of all shaken off in the reign of Hezekiah, through the overthrow of Sennacherib; but

ts. ■ who brings the glad v m, peace and salvati-n: here both in one. The summons to keep feasts, etc., | Is from the prophet himself, and is, as l'r-inus agahv ah will re-es: the has not the force of the kipkilj reductr tuere, either 1

Jehorah will so return to the eminence of His p- who arc nil r -1 I bj that this eminence shall become the eminence of Israel, f God; in otiier w<

He will exalt the nation once more to the lofty eminence of its divine calling (3 used in the same manner as in 1 Sam..")•'.). This will He do, because plunderers have plundered;aq, evacuare) them (the Israelites), and destroyed their vines, cast them to the ground; that He may avenge the reproach cast upon His people. The plunderers are the heathen are also ornament.- 1 with crowns ami red fringe!, car: hining sons and moons: add to Us

D illumined by the rays of the sun above they would re all the appearance of flames as th thither with

Compare also the description of the Assyrian warriots given by Layard in his Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 048.

qoeco, or is ike name of the i wrdeatitute of any tenable foundation, and » ao better tna& u. *ndtneu*> ^orar«i, (etd^d up, ' and h. Tbe objection offered to oar explanation, aid only be admnmbir assntfiateiy followed by - a misinterpretation of the following word*, whicb do not cony a portion of tbe porpoae of God.

Medea and Chal laeanj, of whose immense Hap* of gol-i *»«r treasures, even the prophet Nahuro place is ir. KVl pointing back to in this i is the dwelling-place which was also

: lace for the young lions?'* By the apposition the thought is led, that the city of lions was not only a rest- place, but also afforded a comfortable living. Trtt is to be taken in connection with the following DP*: in the very place where; and Kdlakh signifies sima>lf to walk, to walk about, not " to take exercise," in which case the hal would stand for piel. The more precise definition follows in T UK) piCV, without any one

the manner in which a hostile army enters Nineveh and fills the city with corpses. \ • r. 2. M The cracking of whips, and n of the rattling of wheels, and the horse in galloping, and chariots

Thr ■ dirt upon an] ttive expression for the with deeds, equivalent to insult or abuse (ef. Jer. xiv. 2\). To make it 'XT, the object of sight, i.e. to give up to open shame, TrapaheiyfiaTt^eiv (Matt. i. 19). •Wh, a pausal form of be abl* to great;

suffix, which may easily be BOpplied from the context, 'i Corresponding I nDH in I parallel clause are TOg rKi equivalent to an innumerable multitude. To then there were to be added the auxiliary tribes: Put, i.e. the Libyans in the broader sense, who had spread th* m^elves c I the northern part of Africa as far as Mauritania (see at Gen. x. 6); and m =L'hdb}uiru the Libyans in the narr nse, probably the Libyagyptii of the ancients (see at Gen. x. 13). In ^r~" - (cf. Ps. xxxv. 1 1 Xahum addresses No-Amon itself, to give greater life to the description. Notwithstanding all this might, means of n of the Ian and >till furtl nother km^ of A ho had been chosen by the peopl 1 vpt, ho besie

Ashdml with nil hi^ n follows a difficult and nuitil.it..1 passag*-, in which Rawlinson (f\ve 6

Car supremacy in Hither A ia d I from the brief notices in the old Testament el Ki: it 4) concegP"

Vers. 11-13. The same, or rather a WOT than No- gists (as J. Biimuller observes, p. 245) have hitherto failed to fill up the gape in the history uf Egypt, and have been.still less successful in restoring the chronology; for hitherto we have not met with a single well-established date, which we have obtained from a monumental inscription; nor have the monuments enabled us to assign to a single Pharaoh, from the 1st to the 21st, his proper place in the years or centuries of the historical chronology."

Anion suffered, is now awaiting Nineveh. Ver. 11. u Thou also wilt he drunken, shaft be hidden; thou also wilt ■ nemy. Ver. 12..1// thy i with earl'/ >U into the Jiiouth of the the •■ tnd ore thrown quite open to ti fire the goblet of divine wrath, as at Ob. L6 ~':~'-: ™ might mean, u thou wilt be hiding tl ' but although this might nred hv i comparison both with ch. i. 8 and ii. L2, and also with the parallel paasa I y will drink, and be u if they ha I 'ill further in a I 'U wilt seek r From die enen

SoL iv. 18), which fall into the mouth of the < when • • The tertua. ii the facility lly warrioi f. 18a, where the people are compared to women, the point of comparison is not the cowardliness of the warriors, hut the weakness inability to offer air tanee into which the nation of the Assyrians, which was at other times so warlike, would be reduced through the force of the divine judgment inflicted upon Nineveh (compare Isa..\i.\. 1G; Jer. 1. 37, li. 30). T.?**? belongs to what follows, and is placed first, and pointed with cakeph-katon for the sake of emphasis. The gates of the land are the approaches to it, the passes leading into it, which were no doubt provided with cables. Tuch (p. 35) refers to the mountains on the north, which Pliny calls impassable. The bolts of these gates are the castles, through which the approaches were closed. Jeremiah transfers to Babel what is here said of Nineveh (see Jer. li. 30).