Where Is Significance Found?

Micah 5:1-15
1Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.
2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
3Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.
4And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
5And he shall be their peace.

Three hundred years before Micah writes these words of prophetic warning and promise, a king is born in Bethlehem. That king was David, of the Tribe of Judah. David brought a short-lived time (80 years) of greatness to the nation of Israel which was quickly replaced with idolatry and turmoil after the death of David’s son, Solomon. Now Micah writes of his own time by hearkening both back to the time of David and forward to the time of the Messiah, 1,000 after David and 700 years after Micah. Bethlehem had a notable history. Benjamin, a son of Jacob, was born near the town; his mother, Rachel, was buried here. Ruth gleaned the fields of Boaz at Bethlehem; here King David was born. Yet Bethlehem had remained a small town, too small to be named among the more than one hundred cities belonging to the clans of Judah.

Bethlehem was a tiny little village that the text would indicate had fewer that 1,000 residents. Small and inconsequential would be an apt description. But God does not care about what we consider “great” and often chooses that which is tiny in our eyes to fulfill His magnificent plans. Bethlehem was just such a location – twice. First for King David, and then for Jesus Christ. But the area would undergo severe punishment from God in between David and Jesus.

Micah gives the setting for this remarkable messianic chapter in the opening verse. He calls upon his people to prepare for an attack and a siege, the impending siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701bc. The enemy would “strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek,” that is, humiliate him in his office. King Hezekiah was forced to pay tribute to the Assyrians. Other kings of Judah were humiliated by the enemy. Manasseh, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah were all hauled off to Babylon in shackles. The shameful and painful exile followed, a thousand miles away from home. Conditions did not improve much after the return from Babylon. The people of Judah had to submit to the power of Persia, then to Alexander and the Greeks, finally to Rome. The scepter of ruling power had departed from Judah. All that was left of a once great nation was a stump of Jesse, the royal family of King David.
Spaude, C. W. (1987). Obadiah, Jonah, Micah (p. 144). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Pub. House.

Despite the insignificance of the village in which Jesus would be born, one cannot help but be moved by the description of His eternal reign. He shall stand and shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they shall dwell secure, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth. And He shall be their peace. That is the Infant born in Bethlehem, declared by the angels as He is glorified in His arrival upon the earth. He is the one who brought eternal peace into the lives of God’s people through His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. And He is the Gentle Shepherd who remains with us even now through His Holy Spirit. Micah cracks this prophecy open and sheer light pours out, into our lives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Image
Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses. First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". The...
Read more

Excusez-moi

Image
2 Kings 23:31-37 31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was twenty-fiv...
Read more

Narrow Door

Image
Luke 13:22-30 22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them , 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at tabl...
Read more