Micah 7:11-20
Micah 7:11
In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day
shall the decree be far removed.
Then after the 70 year captivity is completed, Judah will
go back to Jerusalem under the decree of Cyrus and rebuild the walls and then
about 50 years later the walls would be rebuilt much stronger under the
authority of Nehemiah. The decree
of the 70 year captivity by God shall also be a thing of the past as Jerusalem
will once again have life in it till Messiah comes and then it would be leveled
by the decree of Christ in 70 A.D.
Micah 7:12
In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria,
and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river, and from
sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.
Those that were taken from the ten northern tribes were
taken to Assyria and placed in many different areas of the kingdom.
When Babylon conquered Assyria many Jews who were sent there 205 years
prior would have had children’s children who might have returned to Jerusalem
and those who were sent to the fortified cities of the Medes would also have
returned. The fortress was from
Egypt to the river Euphrates. Sea
to sea was the Persian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
Mountain to mountain would have been Mt. Carmel to the other mountains in
Lebanon where they fled for safety.
Alexander the Great even repatriated many of the Jews from Greece back to Judah.
Micah 7:13
Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of
them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.
Here Micah pronounces the fate of both Judah and Samaria.
The land will become desolate for the reason of the people that dwell
there and the fact of their rebellion and idolatry and their failure to return
to the LORD. They will be desolate
as all human beings will be removed from the land.
Micah 7:14
Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine
heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them
feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
Here the people are desiring that God would be willing to
shepherd his people one again with the rod which was used by shepherds to guide
the flocks into the paths that would not lead into danger.
For he is our God; and we are the
people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his
voice, (Psalm 95:7)
Just as David saw the people of Israel as God’s flock, here the people
want to be known once again as the obedient flock of God.
Gilead, Bashan and Carmel were three places known to be very fruitful and
filled with rich pastures. Carmel
was where Nabal lived and Elijah visited many times.
They wanted it to be like the days of old where there was a united
monarch and one kingdom of Israel and the people lived in peace and safety.
Micah 7:15
According to the days of thy coming out of the land of
Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things.
The exodus out of Egypt was probably the greatest event
in Israel’s history because it revealed several things about God.
It revealed his might by defeating the strongest nation on earth, his
sovereignty in that now false gods could never defeat the one true God, and it
revealed his love for Israel which was his inheritance.
The remnant of people are longing to have themselves in such a manner
again when God was their guard and not their judge.
Micah 7:16
The nations shall see and be confounded at all their
might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf.
When the nations saw the mighty wonders of God they would
be amazed and embarrassed. The
Egyptians were the mightiest nation on earth and their army was drowned in the
Red Sea. Two stubborn kings were
given over to the Israelites, King Bashan and Og.
Joshua then conquered the land of Canaan as the tribes eventually moved
into their assigned areas. When the
foreign nations who put their faith in false gods will see the power and
sovereignty of God, they will be perplexed and will be rendered powerless and
prostrate. The ears being
deaf means they will not speak about these things nor will they allow others to
speak of them. Just as Moses was a
great prince in Egypt, there is not one mention of him on any of the stone
memorials found from antiquity because Pharaoh Amenhotep IV did not want to go
down in history as the Pharaoh who was defeated by God and Moses.
Micah 7:17
They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move
out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our
God, and shall fear because of thee.
And the LORD God
said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all
cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
(Genesis 3:14) Just as
the serpent was judged by God and was made to eat dust for the rest of his life,
so will the enemies of Israel be brought so low that they would be eating dust
and never be a threat to anyone again.
The worms wiggle and tremble when the earth is moved around them and the
same situation will be when the enemies of Israel hear of God, they will also
tremble before him and fear what he might do to them.
Micah 7:18
Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and
passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not
his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.
Micah asks the question about who can compare to a God
like this that also pardons iniquity and passes by transgression.
To “pass by” is a phrase which means to not pursue or go after the
transgression or to pursue the penalty which should have been exacted.
One must realize one thing that God is able to do these things because in
view here is eternal salvation.
Those in Christ have had their iniquities pardoned.
Blotting out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the
way, nailing it to his cross;
(Colossians 2:14) The penalty
for transgressing God’s law will not be pursued because he has removed our sins
in Christ.
As far as the east is from the west, so
far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
(Psalm 103:12) The
remnant in view are those who are in Christ and have received salvation.
Esaias also crieth concerning
Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a
remnant shall be saved: (Romans
9:27) This is from Isaiah
10:21-23. God’s anger is not
forever towards his children. When
a person becomes saved they are no longer at war with God and his anger against
that person is stanched forever.
Therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
(Romans 5:1) God also
delights in mercy as Jonah that very well.
And he prayed unto the LORD, and
said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?
Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God,
and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the
evil. (Jonah 4:2)
Micah 7:19
He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he
will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of
the sea.
Whereas God was angry but his anger is turned into
compassion as people become saved because God never has anger toward his true
children, only toward the unbeliever.
God judgeth the righteous, and God
is angry with the wicked every day.
(Psalm 7:11) To “subdue” our
iniquities means that they will be conquered through the blood of Christ before
the sins conquer us and send us to eternal damnation.
For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
(Hebrews 8:12) Our
iniquities will never be remembered by God because they were all totally
forgiven in Christ. Our sins have
been cast into the depths of the sea where they will never be brought up to the
surface. The same principle is
found in Isaiah 38:17.
Behold, for peace I had great bitterness:
but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for
thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
(Isaiah 38:17) If one
can find the back of God, then one can find our sins.
Micah 7:20
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to
Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
Here Micah mentions the fact of the covenantal loyalty
that God has made to the fathers.
The messianic line and the spiritual line coming from Abraham will be fulfilled
till the last one is saved on the last day.
The name of Jacob is a representation of all the true and upright people
among the nation of Israel. Those
who were saved like Joshua, Moses, David, Solomon and others.
The mercy to Abraham was to keep the spiritual line safe through the
tribe of Judah so the Messiah would eventually come and then on Pentecost the
final evangelization of the world would begin.
To this day when people are becoming saved, we see God’s loyalty to the
covenant he made with Abraham back in Genesis 12:1-3: