Micah 5
The Authority of the Shepherd-King
(Micah 5)
Note: In most English translations, Micah chapter 5 begins, “Now muster your troops...” (Micah 5.1, ESV), “Marshal your troops now…” (NIV), “Now gather thyself in troops…” (KJV).
In most French translations, however, this verse is placed at the end of chapter 4 (Micah 4.14, following the verse numbering in the Hebrew Bible).
Consequently, the verse numbers of the French translations (the ones you will see on the screen) are always one number behind the English: v. 4 in English = v. 3 in French, v. 14 = v. 13, etc.
This should be taken into consideration if you attempt to follow the English manuscript and the sermon in French simultaneously.
This week we’re finishing the second series of prophecies the prophet Micah has given in this book. After pronouncing his judgment on his people and promising to preserve a remnant amongst them, to whom he will show grace, God has begun to promise to restore Jerusalem to its former glory. But this restoration won’t look the way the people expect. Part of it will happen now, and it will be a painful (but wonderful) process, as we saw two weeks ago. And the biggest part of it will happen after, at the end of the age, at the return of Christ, which means that the restoration will be total.
So the question remaining for Micah’s readers at this point is, How will that final restoration come?
Arnaud began last week by showing us the first four verses of chapter 5, and the important background for us to understand: the background of the covenant God had made with his people, which is the reason for his anger against their sin, but also for his faithfulness to bless them.
Although we wanted to take extra time to see this prophecy, it shouldn’t remain isolated from the rest. So we’re going to reread the first four verses, to remember the context, before moving on to the rest of the chapter.
This is a very complicated text, with a lot of obscure and difficult imagery, so I’ll tell you now where we’re going. We’re going to see a) that God has promised a Shepherd-King to save his people; b) that the Shepherd-King will exercise his authority through his people; and c) that the Shepherd-King will protect and purify his kingdom. There’s a lot to see here, and we’ll be moving fast, so make sure you keep your Bibles open.
The Shepherd-King (v. 1-5a)
Now 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.
It may be difficult for us to grasp just how monumental this prophecy is, because if you’ve ever been in church at Christmastime, and especially if you’ve grown up in church, you’ve heard v. 2-4 many, many times.
V. 2 shifts the scene from war-torn Jerusalem in v. 1 (which we saw two weeks ago) to a little town called Bethlehem, in the small district of Israel called Ephrathah. Bethlehem was a tiny town which was only significant for one reason: it was the birthplace of King David. Micah says that in this little town, another King will be born, and this King, contrary to David, is eternal, as we saw last week, and his reign will be total—to the ends of the earth.
I’ll go ahead and spoil this for you, if you weren’t here last time: he’s talking about Jesus Christ.
As we know if we’ve read the New Testament, Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem. It wasn’t his hometown—Jesus would grow up in Nazareth—but his earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, came to Bethlehem at the time of his birth. It’s incredible how God orchestrated it all; we find it in Luke chapter 2. Caesar Augustus, the emperor of Rome at the time, decreed that everyone in Israel had to return to the home of the ancestral head of their family to be registered in a census. Joseph was a descendant of King David, so he had to return to David’s hometown…which was Bethlehem.
So they arrive in Bethlehem, and Mary, who is nine months pregnant, goes into labor, and gives birth to a son, Jesus.
The fact that a baby was born in Bethlehem wouldn’t be particularly significant by itself—there may well have been other babies born in Bethlehem that day. But when we know the rest of the story, it becomes more and more evident that this kid is the one Micah was talking about. V. 3:
3 Therefore 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.
At this point, Micah begins using symbolic language—symbolic language to speak about spiritual realities. The exile that the people fear is still coming, but it won’t be just to Babylon and Assyria. The exile of God’s people is above all a spiritual exile: God will “give them up” to their rebellion. They will be exiled in Babylon, and they will come back from exile, but not long afterwards, the prophets will fall silent. They will feel exiled, not just from their home country, but from their God.
Until the birth of Christ. When Christ is born, and he begins his ministry, what will he say on repeat? “The kingdom is here.” And Micah is saying is that when the kingdom comes—when this ruler finally comes—the rest of “his brothers” will return to the people of Israel.
Who is this talking about? Who are Christ’s brothers? We know that Mary and Joseph had other kids—Jesus had brothers—but Micah’s not talking about them. Remember what Jesus said in Mark 3, when he’s teaching to a crowd, and his actual mother and brothers come to see him, and the crowd interrupts and says, “Hey Jesus, your mom and your brothers want to see you!”
How does he respond? Mark 3.33-35:
33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
What is he talking about? Paul explains it in Romans 8.29:
29 For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
You see, when Micah says “the rest of his brothers will return”, he’s not talking about a physical return from a physical exile, but a spiritual return from a spiritual exile. He’s talking about conversion, the work in our hearts that the Holy Spirit of Christ does to turn us away from sin and back to Christ, back to his people.
So now that we know whom he’s talking about—Jesus Christ—we can begin to see what he’s going to do. V. 4:
4 And 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.
5 And he shall be their peace.
He will shepherd his flock in the strength and majesty of God. He will give them everything they need—their spiritual food, and their spiritual protection, and the growth they will need to follow him.
Not only that, he promises that they shall dwell secure—no matter where they are, no matter what situation they find themselves in: the great enemy of God’s people, Satan, will not conquer them. The Shepherd-King will protect his people. (We’ll keep coming back to this as we move along.)
The Authority of the Kingdom (v. 5-9)
What comes next is not a change of subject. Micah says that the Shepherd-King will be the peace of God’s people, and he goes on to explain what that peace will look like. He continues (v. 5b):
When the Assyrian comes into our land
and treads in our palaces,
then we will raise against him seven shepherds
and eight princes of men;
6 they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of Nimrod at its entrances;
and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian
when he comes into our land
and treads within our border.
There’s a lot of symbolism here, so let’s not get lost in the pictures.
First, “the Assyrian”. We saw the enemy of God’s people last week represented by “Babylon”; here’s it’s “the Assyrian”. This makes sense: Babylon would defeat the southern kingdom of Judah and bring them into exile; Assyria would defeat the northern kingdom of Israel and bring them into exile. Of course the people didn’t know this yet; but they knew enough to know that Assyria was a threat.
After, we have the land of Nimrod in v. 6. Nimrod was the first great warrior on earth, according to Genesis 10.8; he was the ruler of several early territories, including Babel and Nineveh. In other words, the enemy of God’s people won’t just be an enemy, but a formidable enemy.
So that’s our first clue that these verses are symbolic: Assyria is a contemporary enemy of Israel, but Nimrod is a past figure the Israelites would have known well. Micah’s using scary pictures of scary enemies to stand in for all of the enemies of the kingdom of God, especially the spiritual forces which are constantly at war against God and his people. In other words, he’s showing us the stakes…and he’s saying that the Shepherd-King will deliver his people from them all.
Now, who are the “seven shepherds” and the “eight princes (or leaders, depending on the translation) of men”? We’ll get into this more in a minute, but we can summarize it really simply by rephrasing it like this: God will send the perfect number of protectors and leaders (seven symbolized perfection, and eight symbolized “more than enough”) for his people. So who are these protectors? Who are these “shepherds”?
Well, on more than one occasion Christ called himself “the Good Shepherd” (John 10.11, 14); and he gave his apostles the authority to continue his shepherding work after him. They did, and they established the church…and then they gave the same charge to the elders in the churches they had planted. 1 Peter 5.1-3:
So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
So you see, the people the Shepherd-King is promising to deliver, and the people through whom he is promising to rule, is none other than his church. We can see it really clearly in v. 6: THEY shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword. What does the “sword” symbolize in the New Testament? The Word of God.
They shall shepherd…and HE shall deliver us. The Shepherd-King will exercise his reign through the church.
Now you may be listening to this and thinking, Hang on—I’m part of the church. I don’t feel like I’m reigning over anything. It doesn’t feel like we have any kind of authority at all.
Not so fast. Continue on to v. 7:
7 Then the remnant of Jacob [again, when you see “the remnant of Jacob”, think “the church of Christ”] shall be
in the midst of many peoples
like dew from the Lord,
like showers on the grass,
which delay not for a man
nor wait for the children of man.
8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations,
in the midst of many peoples,
like a lion among the beasts of the forest,
like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,
which, when it goes through, treads down
and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
9 Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off.
So he gives two images here for God’s people that seem contradictory. In the first image, God’s people—‘the remnant of Jacob”—are like dew, like rainfall on the grass. Men can’t control their effect—the rain comes from God, and God decides when it falls—but it is a blessing. (Remember, this is an agrarian society in the Middle East: rain meant life for their crops.) So God’s people will be, he says, a source of blessing in the midst of many peoples.
This is a great picture of what we see Christ doing in the church. Christ’s last recorded act in the gospel of Matthew is to send his disciples out to preach the good news of the gospel to all nations (Matthew 28.19). Through the church, the good news of salvation through faith in Christ is carried out through all the world.
At the same time, not everyone will want to accept it. The second image, which seems at odds with the first, says that God’s people will be scattered among many nations, and be like lions who devour sheep and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver. Not exactly a picture of blessing.
But if we think about it in the context of preaching the gospel, it makes sense. We know from experience that not everyone will see the gospel as a blessing.
There are few things I love more than bacon—and half the pleasure is in the smell. Waking up in the morning to the smell of fresh, frying bacon makes me want to break out in worship.
When my wife smells frying bacon, it makes her sick to her stomach.
A similar thing happens when the church preaches the gospel. The apostle Paul described God’s people as “the aroma of Christ” in 2 Corinthians 2.15-16. He says,
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.
The church proclaims the gospel, and those whom God chooses to save will recognize the gospel as good news, and will accept it. The gospel is for them a fragrance of life—fresh dew on the grass.
But in his wisdom, God chooses to let some people continue in their rebellion against him, and for those people, the good news is folly. It’s ridiculous. It’s madness. For them, the gospel is a fragrance of death—a lion that devours.
You see, we must not be fearful of sharing the gospel, even if we’re positive that the person in front of us will find it abhorrent. But at the same time, we should not be discouraged when people don’t respond to the gospel the way we hope they will.
The gospel is good news—the most incredibly, marvellously good news in existence. The church’s mission is to go and make disciples of all nations: to proclaim the gospel all over the earth so that people will turn to Christ in faith and follow him and worship him.
But over 700 years before Christ came, God already promised through the prophet Micah that things won’t always go that way. If the church brings a blessing for some, it also brings a curse for others.
We have a hard time accepting that we can never make the gospel attractive enough: it will always be the stench of death to some. The fact that the gospel doesn’t produce the effect we hoped for does not mean the gospel has failed. It means it’s working differently than we hoped, or more slowly than we hoped, but it never fails.
Why? Because God’s Shepherd-King, Jesus Christ, reigns over all of creation; and he never fails to do his will in the world he created.
So we must not fear to share the gospel, and we must not be discouraged when the gospel doesn’t produce the effect we hoped for. It is always doing its job, exactly as God wills it.
the holiness of the Kingdom (v. 10-15)
So the Shepherd-King is coming to deliver his people from their exile and for exercise his reign through them. And next we see that since the Shepherd-King exercises his authority through his people, he takes it upon himself to make them holy.
V. 10:
10 And in that day, declares the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;
11 and I will cut off the cities of your land
and throw down all your strongholds;
12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes;
13 and I will cut off your carved images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
14 and I will root out your Asherah images from among you
and destroy your cities.
15 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey.
Essentially, what we see described here is an emptying of one thing in order to make room for another. There are several different kinds of “cleanses” one can undergo, but this text made me think of the cleanse my gastroenterologist prescribed for me last year.
It was awful. You drink several liters of a disgusting concoction that basically makes you very sick for a long time. I’ll spare you the details (you’re welcome), but in the end, you find your body emptied of everything. You have nothing left.
However, when you’ve emptied your body of the bad things that have collected there, you can start filling it up with the good. The doctor didn’t say, “Do this cleanse, and continue to eat the same things you did before.” With the cleanse, she prescribed a specific diet of specific foods I needed to eat every day.
The cleanse was one of the worst experiences of my life. But when I got through it, and started eating what I was told to eat, I felt better. Not just better than I did during the cleanse, but better than I had in years. I’ve had some chronic digestive problems since I was a teenager, and for six months now, those problems have almost entirely disappeared.
Why? Because I went through the suffering of getting rid of the bad, in order to make room for the good.
That is what God describes here, but on a spiritual and a moral level—in short, it is a cleanse of all the sins he has been accusing his people of since the beginning of this book.
Look at the list.
• He will get rid of the horses and chariots—in order words, instruments of war, of violence against other human beings (v. 10).
• He will get rid of the cities and strongholds—the places of corruption on the part of the leaders of the people (v. 11).
• He will get rid of sorcery and fortune-telling—one of the means of the devil’s influence, both in Micah’s time and today (v. 12).
• He will get rid of all the symbols of idolatry: the carved images and pillars and statues and “Asherah images”—as we’ve seen more than once, idolatry is the biggest affront to God’s good rule over his people (v. 13-14).
Everything that has brought this people to this point, where they are under the threat of God’s judgment, every sin that has plagued them for so long, will be removed.
And in the exile, it seemed like that happened. The corrupt leaders were deposed; the people were taken away from their idols and their pagan temples. They no longer had the opportunity to sin in the same way as before. Of course this wasn’t the case for everyone—some people surely chose to worship the gods of the Babylonians and the Assyrians. But when we see Daniel and his friends refuse to follow the same pagan rituals as the Babylonians; when we see the people return to Jerusalem after bring freed, and rebuilding the walls and rebuilding the temple, what we’re seeing is the renewed faith of the people. They have turned back to God, after having turned their backs on him for so long.
But it’s no surprise to keep reading and find out that this purification didn’t last forever. The leaders became corrupt again; the people were drawn to idolatry again. The corruption and idolatry were softer than before—maintained mainly by the religious leaders by the time Christ came—but it was still there.
So either this prophecy was wrong, and God failed…or this prophecy was actually about something bigger.
Which of course it is. God promises that “in that day”—that is, the day of the Shepherd-King’s return to renew the earth and judge sin—he will purify his people perfectly.
He will purify them, firstly, of their dependence on worldly power (v. 10-11): their dependence on horses and chariots and strongholds, military might. They will no longer depend on their own strength, but on God alone.
He will purify them of false spirituality (v. 12): turning to tricks and flights of fancy and demonic power for strength. They will know that the only true spirituality, the only true spiritual power, is found in God alone.
And he will purify them of idolatry (v. 13-14): from that point on, it will be absolutely and forever unthinkable to worship any other god. They will worship God alone.
And on top of all of that (v. 15), he will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey—those nations and people who, typically, set themselves up as enemies of God’s people. All sin will be removed from his people, and all threats will be removed from God’s people.
The Shepherd-King will protect his flock by ruling over their holiness, and he will protect his flock by gaining victory over their enemies.
That sounds wonderful, and we wish we were there now. We wish we were like Christ today. We wish we thought like him and spoke like him and acted like him. And sometimes we are so weighed down with our own imperfections that we despair over how far we seem to be from that goal. It seems such a long way away.
But this should encourage us: if we are in Christ, if God has granted us faith, then necessarily, that process has begun.
I met Christ when I was twenty-one years old, and although I still know I have a very long way to go, I can definitely say that I am not at all the same person today I was twenty years ago. The things I used to want, I don’t want them anymore. I’m still “myself”—I still love movies and books and music, I still have the same basic personality—but my orientation, the focal point of my life, has shifted. I’m becoming more like Christ.
I’m no longer as dependent on my own strength to succeed as I used to be (and, consequently, I’m no longer terrified all the time of not being strong enough). I’m no longer as susceptible to look for alternative means of pleasure or fulfillment. I am no longer the god of my own life—and thank God for that, because I was a terrible god!
It’s not perfect yet. I have to fight every single day to remember that because Christ lived, died and was raised for me, my sin is dead and I am clothed in his righteousness and I am declared perfectly just by God because Christ was just for me. I have to fight every day to remember that the mistakes I still make are proof that I still need God to make me more like Christ every day, that these mistakes are tools in God’s hand to help me depend on him more and trust him, and not myself, for my salvation. I still have a very long way to go, and sometimes when I consider how much farther I have to go, I’m tempted to despair.
But when I look back, at the person I was before Christ, the difference is night and day. At lot’s still not perfect, but so much has changed. I can look at the course of the last twenty years, then come back and read v. 10-14 of Micah 5, and I can see God doing all that in me.
And if you have had faith in Christ for any length of time, you can see it to. Probably not the same things as me, and maybe not as many (because I’m older and I’ve had more time), but you can see it too. Think back on who you were before Christ. On the things you loved. On what was most important to you. If your faith is real, then some of those things may still be struggles for you…but a lot of them have changed.
Because that’s what he does. That’s what he promised to do. And God always keeps his promises.
Jesus Christ came to deliver us from our spiritual exile. He reconciled us to God through his life, death and resurrection, and now he exercises his reign through his church, through the proclamation of the gospel. And since Christ has given us this mission of presenting him to the world, he will make us holy. He will make us pure.
All these promises are ours, if we belong to his people—if we have placed our faith in him for the forgiveness of our sins.
But it’s possible today that you don’t even know Christ, and if that’s the case, my prayer for you is that the words of God in the book of Micah might do two things. The first is that they might frighten you a little. Micah paints a picture, not of an innocent little baby in a manger (the thing we think of when we hear the word “Bethlehem”), but of who that baby would grow up to be. He shows us that Jesus Christ is far mightier than we imagine—the eternal ruler who is victorious against all nations and against all enemies—and that if we reject him, his wrath is turned against us.
At the same time, I hope these words draw you to him. If Christ’s message is judgment on those who reject him, it is eternal blessing for those who turn to him in faith. It is the invitation to belong to his people, and to flourish forever in his presence, to know you are protected and cared for by the Shepherd-King. There is no prerequisite, no criteria required to belong to him. Just faith that he is who he says he is, and trusting in him for the forgiveness of our rebellion against him.
We’ll give you a moment to repent of your sins and turn to him in just a moment, and we’ll have plenty of time to stay with you and talk about it if you decide to do so. But first, let’s pray.
