Strand 2: Micah 5

When Micah heard God’s word the people of Judah had seen a minor godly revival. Hezekiah their king lead reforms and when the Assyrians lay siege against Jerusalem, God kills the 185 thousand strong army during the night. However they are not secure for long, and the judgment that God has promised through Micah comes around a century later when the Babylonians take the Jews into exile.

A thousand years before as Moses leads the new Israelite nation to the borders, God tells them that they will not be faithful, and that the curses of the Sinai covenant will come down harshly. God will banish the people to another land, but then when the people turn back to God, he will return them to their land and they will receive the blessings of the covenant.

These promises of Judgment are repeated in Michal, but as chapter two says, God will still save a remnant of the people. God’s message comes to a climax in chapter five. As the enemy lays siege to Jerusalem once more, they are this time victorious and even smite the “Judge of Israel”, a description probably of their king. But God does not forget, and promises a new ruler from David’s town Bethlehem. He is to be a shepherd king, godly, who provides peace and security to his people. This ruler must be Jesus, the messiah, son of God and rightful king of the whole world.

But what of the remnant? When the Jews return to their land in the sixth century BC, God does not send them the promised new ruler. And when Jesus finally comes, he does not bring the Jewish nation the physical peace they were after. Paul as he writes to the Jewish and Gentile church of Rome helps us understand why. In Romans 11:5 he first explains that saving a remnant is part of God’s grace and not of anything the Jews could do. But saving a remnant is not enough for God. As he promised to Abraham, all nations would be blessed. Israel was hardened so that as verse 25 says, the fullness of the Gentiles could come in.