Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Micah 2:12-13 | Date: March 10, 2024 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

We’ll continue our series on messianic prophecy. If you will, turn in your Bibles to the prophet Micah. It’s often been said that if you ask the congregation to turn to one of the minor prophets, you stop and take a coffee break while everybody finds it. At RBC, we know better than that, right? Okay, prophet Micah, chapter two. We’re getting a lot of messianic prophecy. As I mentioned, we took a series on messianic prophecy in the Psalms, and we looked at some scattered categories on that. And I mentioned that some of the Psalms themselves would be included in this category, but we’re waiting and doing those in the morning expositions. This morning was one of those, Psalm 22, clearly a messianic Psalm. But this evening, now we’re back to the minor prophets. We’re taking the prophets in roughly chronological order, and we go down to Micah. We’ll spend another couple of occasions with Micah, some rich messianic prophecies here, and then we’ll move on to the prophet Isaiah.

Micah chapter 2, and I’ll begin with verses 12 and 13. “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. He who opens the breach goes up before them. They break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.”

The prophet Micah is an eighth-century BC prophet. He’s a rough contemporary with Isaiah, but a little bit prior to Isaiah—a few years; our time may have overlapped just a little. He is a prophet to Judah, the southern kingdom, but he does prophesy concerning both the northern and the southern kingdom. We’ll see just a little bit of that this evening quickly. The northern kingdom—you remember both the northern and the southern kingdom were guilty of infidelity, unfaithfulness to the covenant, and so the prophets were sent to warn them of it, their covenant responsibilities, to warn them of the covenant curses that would come because of it. The northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel with Samaria in the north, fell in 722 BC to the army of Sennacherib, the Assyrian army. The southern kingdom lasted a little longer than that, but finally in 586 BC, the southern kingdom fell as well. The northern kingdom, when it fell, was never to be heard from again. But Micah is prophesying concerning both. He uses, by the way, the word Israel here in Micah’s prophecy. That word almost every time refers to the entire nation, not just the northern kingdom.

An Overview of Micah

For an overview of Micah, just to help get our bearings here, there are three blocks of material in Micah. It seems that what he’s done is given us—there’s not a structure as such where it’s one argument running through, so much as we have three blocks of material that are put together, and they are marked off in similar ways by the word “hear,” H-E-A-R, hear.

So look at Micah chapter one and verse two: “Hear, you peoples, all of you, pay attention, O earth.” So this begins our first block or section of material, and that’s Micah chapters one and two. Now look at chapter three, verse one: “Hear you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel.” So here we have the second block of material. And then look over at chapter 6 and verse 1: “Hear what the Lord says.” And so here in chapters 6 and 7 now we have the third section of material in Micah’s prophecy.

In Micah chapters 1 and 2, which we’ll be looking at this evening, he has an extended accusation against the people, and then a note of hope at the end. Chapter 1 in verse 2 again: “Hear you peoples, all of you, pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.” Now, we’re going to see in chapter 1, he’s prophesying particularly to Samaria, the northern kingdom, but when he says in verse 2, “Hear you peoples,” plural, that’s usually a reference to multiple nations. “All of you pay attention, O Earth, and all that is in it.” It gives you the sense already of something that we see frequently in the prophets, and that is they may be addressing a particular time and a particular event and something that’s going on that God will do, but that often has a further reaching view, often even in the eschaton, something to come in the far-reaching centuries to come—sometime the first advent of Jesus, sometime the second. This seems to be looking ahead like that when he’s prophesying to Samaria, but yet he addresses rhetorically, “you peoples, O earth, all of you listen up.” And so the message of judgment for sin that he’s giving to Samaria is something that’s going to apply eventually to all the nations of the earth.

Now in chapters one and two, all the way up through chapter 2 and verse 11, we have an extended section of accusations and warning of judgment that will come. First of all, in chapter 1, he has his warnings against Samaria, the impending fall that will come, that is fulfilled eventually. Sennacherib’s armies coming in 722, coming and destroying them and carrying them off, never to be heard from again. So chapter one in verse six: “Therefore, I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.” Well, you might not follow all of that imagery, but you get the idea that some severe judgment is coming against the northern kingdom.

And then chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, we have his warnings of judgment against Judah, the southern kingdom. There’s coming judgment for them as well, but it’s going to be further out. Chapter two, verse three: “Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, against this family, I am devising disaster from which you cannot remove your necks and you shall not walk haughtily for it will be a time of disaster.” And then verses 12 and 13 that we’ll look at in a little bit and we’ll focus on this evening, we have suddenly an abrupt change and it’s a note of hope. “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel.”

And then chapter 3, we begin the second block of material. Verse 1: “Hear you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice, you who hate the good and love the evil?” And so in chapter three, we have three oracles against Judah’s leadership. It’s against her priests, it’s against her rulers, the governmental officials, and it’s against the prophets, and in particular false prophets who have come along in Judah. And he concludes in chapter three, verse 12: “Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins and the mountain of the house, a wooded height.”

And then chapter four, we’re still in the same block of material, the tone shifts abruptly again and we have this note of hope. This remnant will be restored and become a mighty nation. The Lord will rule from Jerusalem, verse one of chapter four: “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be reestablished as the highest of the mountains. It shall be lifted up above the hills and peoples shall flow into it.” And then it concludes with chapter 4 and 5, both an extended note of hope of God coming to reign. And chapter 5, verse 2, of course, has the famous Bethlehem prophecy, the ruler coming from David’s city, Bethlehem.

And then we come to chapter 6 and 7. We begin this third section of material. Chapter six, verse one: “Hear what the Lord says. Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.” Now in chapter six then, verses one to 16, again we have this prophecy of judgment that will come, and he explains the reasons for it. The reasons, of course, are because of Judah’s sins. Then in chapter 7, we have the prophet’s lament because of Judah’s sins and because of the consequences that will come from it.

And then in chapter 7, toward the end now, in chapter 7 and verse 8, the tone changes, and we have again a note of hope, and that is a victory over the enemies. Verse 18: “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgressions for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.”

So each section of the book is rather typical of what we have of the prophets, and that is, first of all, there’s this section of accusation and judgment, warning of judgment that will fall. There’s been covenant disobedience. Covenant curses will come as a consequence, just like you were told back in Deuteronomy. Moses warned you about this, Deuteronomy 28 and following in particular. Leviticus has that, Leviticus chapter 26. If you’re unfaithful to this covenant, the covenant curses will fall. And that’s often the first section of many of the prophets. But then also with that, you have on the heels of that very often a note that judgment is not the final word. And there’s the note of hope that comes that God is a God of mercy. He’ll be faithful to his promises and he will fulfill them. God will judge the sins of Israel, but that will not be the end and that will not be the last word.

Now, one of the interesting things about the way it’s laid out here is that in Micah chapters 1 and 2, this first section, and then the third section in chapters 6 and 7, largely it’s a message of judgment, followed by a brief message of hope at the end of each section. At the end of chapter 2, and then again at the end of chapter 7, a brief note of hope, wonderful notes of hope, and we’ll see those, but the largest part of these sections is given to judgment. When we come to this middle section in chapters 3 to 5, it’s weighted the opposite way, and that is we have in chapter 3 a message of judgment, but then almost all of chapters 4 and 5 is a message of hope, that God will come in mercy to the aid of his people. All right, so much for a broad overview of the book. That helps, I think, situate us to where we’re going to go.

Three Outstanding Messianic Prophecies

In Micah, we have three outstanding messianic prophecies. Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13 that we’ve already read, we’ll come back to in a moment. That is the shepherd king who opens the breach and goes before his people and leads them to freedom. Chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, we have this judge king who rules the nations in peace, and we’ll see that, Lord willing, next time. And then chapter 5 and verse 2, and the verses following, we have this ruler from Bethlehem who shepherds his people in safety, and he has a kingdom that spreads to the ends of the earth.

So those three outstanding messianic prophecies in Micah, there is implicitly another one at the very end of the book in the verses that I read, chapter 7, verses 18 and 19. The prophecy there is not explicitly of the Messiah, but it is implicit nonetheless, where you have this statement of the compassionate God who pardons iniquity, passes over the transgressions of his people, and of course that involves the work of Messiah as well. It’s just not explicit in that verse. By the way, that passage at the end of chapter 7, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity,” do any of you know that hymn? “Who is a pardoning God like thee? Who has grace so rich, so free?” Am I the only one? Kim knows it. All right. Craig knows it. All right. Well, maybe one day we can bring that in. Straight out of Micah.

All right. Back to Micah chapters 1 and 2. Again, in chapters 1 and 2, we have largely a note of judgment for Israel’s sins, a long extended denunciation of them. Chapter 1, basically it is about Samaria. Chapter 2, about Judah. Chapter 1, it is primarily sins against the Lord, their religious apostasy. And in chapter two, we have sins against the people. He speaks of injustice and land grabs and the wealthy abusing their privilege and judges being bought off and things like that. And because of all of these kinds of sins that have come in the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, the announced judgments will come. It is for the North: Assyria. God will use Assyria to bring punishment upon the northern kingdom of Israel. The Assyrian army came—this is 722 BC—finally decimated the northern kingdom. It also destroyed, Sennacherib also, or Sargon, destroyed many of the cities of Judah as well, and Jerusalem itself was under siege for quite a while, and there was a miraculous deliverance. Sennacherib records in his annals this event. In fact, there was a miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib. Sennacherib doesn’t record that in his annals, but he does record holding Jerusalem under siege. And he says, “I had him like a bird in a cage.” Well, that wasn’t the last word, but that’s the last word for him.

Well, that evidently is the setting when we come to chapter 2, verses 12 and 13. And here again, as I mentioned, the tone abruptly changes with an unexpected, out-of-nowhere message of hope. This is 2:12: “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. He who opens the breach goes up before them. They break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.”

Now the Lord here is pictured as the shepherd king who protects his flock, Israel. And so he goes up before them, verse 13, he breaks through the gate of the pen, he passes through, and he takes them with him. So it’s a picture then of the remnant, those who will survive the disaster, behind the Jerusalem gates, under siege, and now this Shepherd King leads them through, and they’re delivered. The record of this we read in 2 Kings chapter 19. You also read of it in Isaiah chapter 37, where Jerusalem was just helpless under the mighty army of the Assyrians, holding Jerusalem under siege, and Hezekiah, the king, prays to God, and God miraculously delivers, and the next morning they wake up, and there are 186,000 Assyrian troops that lay dead on the battlefield. Sennacherib does record something of that. He talks about, he says it was mice or something like that, I think. Whatever God used, the Assyrian army turned and went home, never to bother them again.

Well, that’s what lies in the background, evidently, in verse 13: “He who opens the breach goes up before them. They break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.” So Jerusalem was held captive, but they’re led out of the pen by the Lord, their shepherd. Now, one thing I’ve mentioned many times, this is that you have to keep in mind, this is standard issue in the Old Testament prophets—it’s referred to by a variety of kind of terminology, I like to call it prophetic foreshortening. And that is the prophet will speak in reference to a particular event, and he has that event in mind. He’s not overlooking that. But with that event in mind, it becomes a picture of a larger event in the future that God will do in a similar way so that this becomes a sampling of that that will come. And I think that’s what we have to see here as well.

In fact, chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, I think, do point to something that’s bigger. Judah is spared. They come out of this siege. Jerusalem is spared. But they’re just a mere shadow of its previous greatness. And the prophecy seems to imply more, and we’ll see some more hints of that as we go along. And this prophetic foreshortening idea is a recurring thing in the prophets. We have this recurring scenario, it’s a familiar scene in the Old Testament prophets, of Israel under siege, and often it’s Sennacherib and his armies, the Assyrian armies, against Jerusalem, or later it’s Babylon and their armies against Jerusalem, Judah carried off into captivity into Babylon, God bringing them back from the exile. In both of those cases, they become pictures of what God will do in the future. It’s spoken of as many nations coming against Jerusalem. You read about Assyria coming against, you read about Babylon coming against them, God promises deliverance. He delivers, but then it has a picture of something going bigger later on as well, and God intervenes with miraculous deliverance.

Again, that’s a familiar theme in the prophets: the regathering of Israel, a rescue from assault, Jerusalem’s deliverance from Sennacherib. I like to call it a down payment of what will come in the future. Later, the return from Babylon of those in exile becomes a picture of a greater return from a greater exile done through the work of Christ and so on. And in fact, about two centuries later, after Micah prophesied this, and that is long after Sennacherib’s armies and that deliverance, long after Babylon and the exile and the return from exile, long after that, the prophet Zechariah is still promising a return. They’ve already come back from Babylon, but that promise of returning is still there.

For instance, Zechariah chapter 10: “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them. For I am the Lord their God, and I will answer them. Then Ephraim shall be like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad, their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord. I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before, though I scattered them among the nations.” Notice the plural, the nations. “This is not just Babylon, though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, gather them from Assyria, I’ll bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them. He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. I’ll make them strong in the Lord, and they shall walk in his name, declares the Lord.”

That’s all perhaps two centuries after Micah. So this deliverance from Assyria and later, the deliverance from Babylon and the return from exile, and this future one, whatever that is, they are all of a piece that God has done for his people, and they are involved in the prophecies. Now, we have some eschatological implications here in this passage as well, but all of this can be found in other of the prophets and can be found back as far as Deuteronomy chapters 28 to 30, when Moses makes his prophecy at the end of his life.

Three Designations

All right, let’s look more closely then at this, verses 12 and 13. In verse 12, the Lord is pictured as a shepherd of his people. “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, and I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.” And then verse 13 gives Exodus terminology. Remember, keep in mind the Lord leading Israel out of Egypt with the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire. Verse 13: “He who opens the breach goes before them. They break through the path and pass the gate. Going out by it, their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.”

Now notice this in verse 13, that the leader here, who’s clearly the Lord, is given three designations. “He who opens the breach,” there’s one—”he who opens the breach goes before them. They break through and pass the gate going out by it.” “Their king,” there’s the second—”their king passes on before them.” “The Lord,” there’s the third one—”the Lord at their head.”

The first one then, he who opens the breach. Walter Kaiser just translates this in a more catchy kind of a way: the breaker, the breaker, he who breaks through the breach, and he breaks through the pent up. So the imagery is the sheep are in a pen, and it could be viewed one of two different ways. The sheep are in the pen, the shepherd lies at the gate to keep the sheep in, but also to keep predators out, and finally the shepherd gets up, and he opens the gate, and the sheep go out into pasture. I don’t think that’s quite the imagery here; I think this is more violent than that, this breaker who opens the breach, and so I think this idea of they’re pent up in, and he smashes through the enemy or the resistance and leads his people into freedom. But either way, in verse 13, we have Messiah as leader carrying out the promise, the regathering that’s promised in verse 12.

The second designation, he who opens the breach or the breaker, second is their king. “He who opens the breach goes before them, they break through and pass the gate going out by it, their king passes on before them.” Well, their king, that of course is the center of Israel’s hope. That goes back to 2 Samuel chapter 7 that we have seen, the Davidic promise. The king that will come over Israel, it’s repeated often in the messianic prophecies that we’ve seen as far back as Genesis 49, the Judah prophecy; we saw it with Balaam in Numbers 24 and so on.

So we have the breaker, we have the king, their king, and then third, the Lord, that’s Yahweh. “He who opens the breach, goes up before them, they break through and pass the gate, going out by it, their king passes before them, the Lord, at their head.” Now the parallelism here, their king seems to be the Lord, and so we have then a divine king passing through Israel, and this matter of a divine messiah is something that we will see very often in the messianic prophecies. We’ll see it here in Micah chapter 5 and verse 2: “His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” And here, then, this divine Messiah is at their head, leading his people into rescue.

So Jerusalem is being oppressed. The shepherd king breaks open the blockade, leads his people through the opening, and where all of Israel’s kings previously had failed, this king will lead them to final triumph. So the deliverance from Sennacherib and his armies, the return from Babylon from that exile, all of that is just a down payment and a precursor of this larger regathering yet to come, a still greater exodus from a greater exile led by Messiah, the shepherd king of his people.

Now again, this is a common theme in the prophets, this regathering from the far nations of the world—Zechariah says that, that they will come back and God will lead them into freedom. Now presupposed in all of this is that God will again scatter Israel, scatter the people; that of course took place in AD 70, but that will not be the last word. He has made a promise to Abraham, to David, and he will break through when this gathering comes against them and Messiah will bring deliverance. And so this passage then speaks of Messiah as a divine liberator and a champion who comes for his people.

Now, as I’ve mentioned in the other times that we have talked, there’s the question of the interpretations of it. I take this in a rather straightforward way. I think it speaks of—it assumes, it presupposes—a regathered Israel and a time at the end when they are under attack and that God will bring deliverance. Others will see this in a more spiritualized sense, that’s the people of God under attack generally, the church under fire, and in the last days, God will come, the Messiah will come and bring deliverance for his people. It’s not my purpose tonight to argue either way on that, but here what I want to see is that we have another outstanding messianic prophecy of this divine Messiah, the Shepherd King, who will come and lead his people into freedom in the final days.

All right, I think that’s all that I’ll do with this. Next time we will look at chapter 4, verses 1 and following of this kingdom where we have the Messiah as the king judge over all the nations and leading them and they listening to his word. All right, let’s stand and be dismissed in prayer.