The Book of Micah with Brit-Am/Hebrew Awareness Commentary
Continued from Micah ch.7. part 2.
Micah 7:
10 Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
"Where is the LORD your God?"
My eyes will look upon her;
now she will be trampled down
like the mire of the streets.
11 A day for the building of your walls!
In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
Disaster will overcome the enemy. Israel will be built up.
12 In that day they shall come to you
From Assyria and the fortified cities [ari Matsor]
From the fortress [Matsor] to the River,
From sea to sea,
And mountain to mountain.
The Exiled Israelites will return from their places of Exile. A portion of them will come in the same way as they were exiled, via Armenia and Kurdistan ("Matsor"), an d Syria, as well as by way of the sea.
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their deeds.
The Commentary "Daat Mikra" (Moshe Zeidel) on Micah opines that the Land(s) Israel had been exiled to and will leave shall be desolate.
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock of your inheritance,
who dwell alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them graze in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
with your staff. in Hebrew "be-shivte-ca."
The word "shevet" in Hebrew can mean either "staff" or "Tribe."
The Identity of Israelite Tribes and who belongs to them may play a role in the Future Redemption.
a garden land. In Hebrew "Carmel." This in the north of present-day Israel in the neiborhood of Haifa, territory of Zebulon. It was once a forested region and an area of grazing livestock. Mount Carmel is the place where Elijah performed his miracles
and brought first down from heaven.
I-Kings 18 relates how Elijah challenged the foreign pagan priests of Baal. These had been brought to israel by Jezebel the Phoenican-Canaanite daughter of the King of Tyre and wife of Ahab King of Israel. 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah (a pagan goddess) were summoned to Mount Carmel. An altar was built for Baal. Wood was laid on the altar. A bull was slaughtered and cut into pieces that were laid on the wood. Elijah then invites the priests of Baal to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They prayed from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridiculed their efforts.
"At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, 'Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.'"
They responded by cutting themselves and adding their own blood to the sacrifice and continued praying until evening without success.
Elijah in his turn built an altar from twelve stones. He dug a trench around it, laid wood on it, slaughtered another bull, cut it up, and lay it on the wood. He then had the sacrifice and altar drenched with water filling also the trench. He askd God to accept the sacrifice. Fire fell from the sky, and eat up the the sacrifice, as well as the stones of the altar, and the earth and water in the trench. Elijah then had the priests of Baal be put to death.
God will guide HIS people back to Bashan and Gilead. These are the regions of Jordan, Syria, and part of Iraq. They have suffered much ecological damage due to the overgrazing by the Arabs of sheep and goats.
They shall be rehabilitated.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
I will show them marvelous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;
Just as when the Israelites came out of Egypt great miracles were done for them so too will it be in the future.
17 they shall lick the dust like a serpent,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their strongholds;
they shall turn in dread to the LORD our God,
and they shall be in fear of you.
The Almighty will have returned and made His Presence felt among the Israelites. The peoples of the Earth will see this and at first mock the Hebrews.
After that they will be afraid.
They will bow down so low their mouths will taste the dust of the ground.
Not only will they fear the god of Israel but also the People of Israel.
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
God loves us. The God of Israel will forgive us our sins if we return unto HIM!
19 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.
All the bad things we have done will be forgotten. W will be healed of our transgressions both physically and spiritually.
Our place of habitation will also be recovered and made better and restored despite the abuse we have visited on them.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.
God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning the Children of Israel.
God keeps his promises.
The blessings will be fulfilled even more than the partial manner in which some of them to some degree already have been.
TO BE CONTINUED.