_THE KING TO COME_
MICAH iv. 8-v
When a people has to be purged of long injustice, when some high aim
of liberty or of order has to be won, it is remarkable how often the
drama of revolution passes through three acts. There is first the
period of criticism and of vision, in which men feel discontent,
dream of new things, and put their hopes into systems: it seems then
as if the future were to come of itself. But often a catastrophe,
relevant or irrelevant, ensues: the visions pale before a vast
conflagration, and poet, philosopher and prophet disappear under
the feet of a mad mob of wreckers. Yet this is often the greatest
period of all, for somewhere in the midst of it a strong character
is forming, and men, by the very anarchy, are being taught, in
preparation for him, the indispensableness of obedience and loyalty.
With their chastened minds he achieves the third act, and fulfils all
of the early vision that God's ordeal by fire has proved worthy to
survive. Thus history, when distraught, rallies again upon the Man.
To this law the prophets of Israel only gradually gave expression. We
find no trace of it among the earliest of them; and in the essential
faith of all there was much which predisposed them against the
conviction of its necessity. For, on the one hand, the seers were so
filled with the inherent truth and inevitableness of their visions,
that they described these as if already realised; there was no room
for a great figure to rise before the future, for with a rush the
future was upon them. On the other hand, it was ever a principle of
prophecy that God is able to dispense with human aid. "In presence of
the Divine omnipotence all secondary causes, all interposition on the
part of the creature, fall away."[881] The more striking is it that
before long the prophets should have begun, not only to look for a
Man, but to paint him as the central figure of their hopes. In Hosea,
who has no such promise, we already see the instinct at work. The age
of revolution which he describes is cursed by its want of men: there
is no great leader of the people sent from God; those who come to the
front are the creatures of faction and party; there is no king from
God.[882] How different it had been in the great days of old, when
God had ever worked for Israel through some man--a Moses, a Gideon, a
Samuel, but especially a David. Thus memory equally with the present
dearth of personalities prompted to a great desire, and with passion
Israel waited for a Man. The hope of the mother for her firstborn,
the pride of the father in his son, the eagerness of the woman for
her lover, the devotion of the slave to his liberator, the enthusiasm
of soldiers for their captain--unite these noblest affections of
the human heart and you shall yet fail to reach the passion and the
glory with which prophecy looked for the King to Come. Each age, of
course, expected him in the qualities of power and character needed
for its own troubles, and the ideal changed from glory unto glory.
From valour and victory in war, it became peace and good government,
care for the poor and the oppressed, sympathy with the sufferings of
the whole people, but especially of the righteous among them, with
fidelity to the truth delivered unto the fathers, and, finally, a
conscience for the people's sin, a bearing of their punishment and
a travail for their spiritual redemption. But all these qualities
and functions were gathered upon an individual--a Victor, a King, a
Prophet, a Martyr, a Servant of the Lord.
Micah stands among the first, if he is not the very first, who thus
focussed the hopes of Israel upon a great Redeemer; and his promise
of Him shares all the characteristics just described. In his book it
lies next a number of brief oracles with which we are unable to trace
its immediate connection. They differ from it in style and rhythm:
they are in verse, while it seems to be in prose. They do not appear
to have been uttered along with it. But they reflect the troubles out
of which the Hero is expected to emerge, and the deliverance which
He shall accomplish, though at first they picture the latter without
any hint of Himself. They apparently describe an invasion which is
actually in course, rather than one which is near and inevitable; and
if so they can only date from Sennacherib's campaign against Judah
in 701 B.C. Jerusalem is in siege, standing alone in the land,[883]
like one of those solitary towers with folds round them which were
built here and there upon the border pastures of Israel for defence
of the flock against the raiders of the desert.[884] The prophet sees
the possibility of Zion's capitulation, but the people shall leave
her only for their deliverance elsewhere. Many are gathered against
her, but he sees them as sheaves upon the floor for Zion to thresh.
This oracle (vv. 11-13) cannot, of course, have been uttered at the
same time as the previous one, but there is no reason why the same
prophet should not have uttered both at different periods. Isaiah had
prospects of the fate of Jerusalem which differ quite as much.[885]
Once more (ver. 14) the blockade is established. Israel's ruler is
helpless, _smitten on the cheek by the foe_.[886] It is to this last
picture that the promise of the Deliverer is attached.
The prophet speaks:--
_But thou, O Tower of the Flock,_
_Hill of the daughter of Zion,_
_To thee shall arrive the former rule,_
_And the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Zion._
_Now wherefore criest thou so loud?
Is there no king in thee,[887] or is thy counsellor perished,_
_That throes have seized thee like a woman in childbirth?_
_Quiver and writhe, daughter of Zion, like one in childbirth:_
_For now must thou forth from the city,_
_And encamp on the field (and come unto Babel);_[888]
_There shalt thou be rescued,_
_There shall Jehovah redeem thee from the hand of thy foes!_
_And now gather against thee many nations, that say,_
"_Let her be violate, that our eyes may fasten on Zion!_"
_But they know not the plans of Jehovah,_
_Nor understand they His counsel,_
_For He hath gathered them in like sheaves to the floor._
_Up and thresh, O daughter of Zion!_
_For thy horns will I turn into iron,_
_And thy hoofs will I turn into brass;_
_And thou wilt beat down many nations,_
_And devote to Jehovah their spoil,_
_And their wealth to the Lord of all earth._
_Now press thyself together, thou daughter of pressure_:[889]
The foe _hath set a wall around us,_
_With a rod they smite on the cheek Israel's regent_!
_But thou, Beth-Ephrath,_[890] _smallest among the thousands_[891] _of
Judah,_
_From thee unto Me shall come forth the Ruler to be in Israel!_
_Yea, of old are His goings forth, from the days of long ago!_
_Therefore shall He suffer them till the time that one bearing shall
have born._[892]
(_Then the rest of His brethren shall return with the children of
Israel._)[893]
_And He shall stand and shepherd His flock_[894] _in the strength of
Jehovah,_
_In the pride of the name of His God._
_And they shall abide!_
_For now is He great to the ends of the earth._
_And Such an One shall be our Peace._[895]
Bethlehem was the birthplace of David, but when Micah says that the
Deliverer shall emerge from her he does not only mean what Isaiah
affirms by his promise of a rod from the stock of Jesse, that the
King to Come shall spring from the one great dynasty in Judah. Micah
means rather to emphasise the rustic and popular origin of the
Messiah, _too small to be among the thousands of Judah_. David, the
son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, was a dearer figure than Solomon son
of David the King. He impressed the people's imagination, because he
had sprung from themselves, and in his lifetime had been the popular
rival of an unlovable despot. Micah himself was the prophet of the
country as distinct from the capital, of the peasants as against the
rich who oppressed them. When, therefore, he fixed upon Bethlehem as
the Messiah's birthplace, he doubtless desired, without departing
from the orthodox hope in the Davidic dynasty, to throw round its new
representative those associations which had so endeared to the people
their father-monarch. The shepherds of Judah, that strong source of
undefiled life from which the fortunes of the state and prophecy
itself had ever been recuperated, should again send forth salvation.
Had not Micah already declared that, after the overthrow of the
capital and the rulers, the glory of Israel should come to Adullam,
where of old David had gathered its soiled and scattered fragments?
We may conceive how such a promise would affect the crushed peasants
for whom Micah wrote. A Saviour, who was one of themselves, not
born up there in the capital, foster-brother of the very nobles who
oppressed them, but born among the people, sharer of their toils and
of their wrongs!--it would bring hope to every broken heart among the
disinherited poor of Israel. Yet meantime, be it observed, this was a
promise, not for the peasants only, but for the whole people. In the
present danger of the nation the class disputes are forgotten, and the
hopes of Israel gather upon their Hero for a common deliverance from
the foreign foe. _Such an One shall be our peace._ But in the peace He
is _to stand and shepherd His flock_, conspicuous and watchful. The
country-folk knew what such a figure meant to themselves for security
and weal on the land of their fathers. Heretofore their rulers had not
been shepherds, but thieves and robbers.
We can imagine the contrast which such a vision must have offered to
the fancies of the false prophets. What were they beside this? Deity
descending in fire and thunder, with all the other features of the
ancient Theophanies that had now become so much cant in the mouths
of mercenary traditionalists. Besides those, how sane was this, how
footed upon the earth, how practical, how popular in the best sense!
We see, then, the value of Micah's prophecy for his own day. Has
it also any value for ours--especially in that aspect of it which
must have appealed to the hearts of those for whom chiefly Micah
arose? "Is it wise to paint the Messiah, to paint Christ, so much as
a working-man? Is it not much more to our purpose to remember the
general fact of His humanity, by which He is able to be Priest and
Brother to all classes, high and low, rich and poor, the noble and
the peasant alike? Is not the Man of Sorrows a much wider name than
the Man of Labour?" Let us answer these questions.
The value of such a prophecy of Christ lies in the correctives which
it supplies to the Christian apocalypse and theology. Both of these
have raised Christ to a throne too far above the actual circumstance
of His earthly ministry and the theatre of His eternal sympathies.
Whether enthroned in the praises of heaven, or by scholasticism
relegated to an ideal and abstract humanity, Christ is lifted away
from touch with the common people. But His lowly origin was a fact.
He sprang from the most democratic of peoples. His ancestor was a
shepherd, and His mother a peasant girl. He Himself was a carpenter:
at home, as His parables show, in the fields and the folds and the
barns of His country; with the servants of the great houses, with
the unemployed in the market; with the woman in the hovel seeking
one piece of silver, with the shepherd on the moors seeking the lost
sheep. _The poor had the gospel preached to them; and the common
people heard Him gladly._ As the peasants of Judæa must have listened
to Micah's promise of His origin among themselves with new hope and
patience, so in the Roman empire the religion of Jesus Christ was
welcomed chiefly, as the Apostles and the Fathers bear witness, by
the lowly and the labouring of every nation. In the great persecution
which bears his name, the Emperor Domitian heard that there were two
relatives alive of this Jesus whom so many acknowledged as their
King, and he sent for them that he might put them to death. But when
they came, he asked them to hold up their hands, and seeing these
brown and chapped with toil, he dismissed the men, saying, "From such
slaves we have nothing to fear." Ah but, Emperor! it is just the
horny hands of this religion that thou and thy gods have to fear! Any
cynic or satirist of thy literature from Celsus onwards could have
told thee that it was by men who worked with their hands for their
daily bread, by domestics, artisans and all manner of slaves, that
the power of this King should spread, which meant destruction to thee
and thine empire! _From little Bethlehem came forth the Ruler_, and
_now He is great to the ends of the earth_.
There follows upon this prophecy of the Shepherd a curious fragment
which divides His office among a number of His order, though the
grammar returns towards the end to One. The mention of Assyria stamps
this oracle also as of the eighth century. Mark the refrain which
opens and closes it.[896]
_When Asshûr cometh into our land,_
_And when he marcheth on our borders,_[897]
_Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds_
_And eight princes of men._
_And they shall shepherd Asshûr with a sword,_
_And Nimrod's land with her own bare blades_
_And He shall deliver from Asshûr,_
_When he cometh into our land._
_And marcheth upon our borders._
There follows an oracle in which there is no evidence of Micah's hand
or of his times; but if it carries any proof of a date, it seems a
late one.
_And the remnant of Jacob shall be among many peoples_
_Like the dew from Jehovah,_
_Like showers upon grass,_
_Which wait not for a man,_
_Nor tarry for the children of men._
_And the remnant of Jacob_ (_among nations_,) _among many peoples,_
_Shall be like the lion among the beasts of the jungle,_
_Like a young lion among the sheepfolds,_
_Who, when he cometh by, treadeth and teareth,_
_And none may deliver._
_Let thine hand be high on thine adversaries,_
_And all thine enemies be cut off!_
Finally in this section we have an oracle full of the notes we had
from Micah in the first two chapters. It explains itself. Compare
Micah ii. and Isaiah ii.
_And it shall be in that day--'tis the oracle of Jehovah--_
_That I will cut off thy horses from the midst of thee,_
_And I will destroy thy chariots;_
_That I will cut off the cities of thy land,_
_And tear down all thy fortresses,_
_And I will cut off thine enchantments from thy hand,_
_And thou shall have no more soothsayers;_
_And I will cut off thine images and thy pillars from the midst of
thee,_
_And thou shall not bow down any more to the work of thy hands;_
_And I will uproot thine Asheras from the midst of thee,_
_And will destroy thine idols._
_So shall I do, in My wrath and Mine anger,_
_Vengeance to the nations, who have not known Me._
FOOTNOTES:
[881] Schultz, _A. T. Theol._, p. 722.
[882] See above, pp. 276 ff.
[883] Wellhausen declares that this is unsuitable to the position
of Jerusalem in the eighth century, and virtually implies her ruin
and desolation. But, on the contrary, it is not so: Jerusalem is
still standing, though alone (cf. the similar figure in Isa. i.).
Consequently the contradiction which Wellhausen sees between this
eighth verse and vv. 9, 10, does not exist. He grants that the latter
may belong to the time of Sennacherib's invasion--unless it be a
_vaticinium post eventum_!
[884] See above, p. 32.
[885] This in answer to Wellhausen, who thinks the two oracles
incompatible, and that the second one is similar to the
eschatological prediction common from Ezekiel onwards. Jerusalem,
however, is surely still standing.
[886] Even Wellhausen agrees that this verse is most suitably dated
from the time of Micah.
[887] Those who maintain the exilic date understand by this Jehovah
Himself. In any case it may be He who is meant.
[888] The words in parenthesis are perhaps a gloss.
[889] Uncertain.
[890] The name Bethlehem is probably a later insertion. I read with
Hitzig and others הצעיר אפרת, and omit להיות.
[891] Smallest form of district: cf. English _hundreds_.
[892] Cf. the prophecy of Immanuel, Isa. vii.
[893] This seems like a later insertion: it disturbs both sense and
rhythm.
[894] So LXX.
[895] Take this clause from ver. 4 and the following oracle and put
it with ver. 3.
[896] Wellhausen alleges in the numbers another trace of the late
Apocalyptic writings--but this is not conclusive.
[897] So LXX. Cf. the refrain at the close.