Micah 4:1

But in the last days it shall come to pass, [that] the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains,.... It appears by the adversative but, with which these

But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.

MICAH CHAPTER 4 The establishment of Christ’ s kingdom, ,2; the peace of it, . The restoration, , and victory of the church, . But: this particle, which ushers in the following promise, doth also bid us look to somewhat before spoken, of a very different complexion; that was news of a total and a long-continued desolation, but this is of a happy restitution, which doth refer both to a temporal deliverance out of Babylon’ s captivity, and to a spiritual deliverance out of ignorance, superstition, and all other ways of false worship. This latter is the principal, the former is typical, and so shall we consider them. The last days; or the latter days, at the expiring of the seventy years’ captivity, (near two hundred years from Micah’ s time,) as type of the days of the Messiah’ s kingdom, which are most usually called the last days. The mountain of the house of the Lord; the city Jerusalem; or, more particularly, the mountain on which the temple did stand, called the house of the Lord; the hieroglyphic of the church of Christ in gospel times. Shall be established; literally, and in the type, fulfilled when the second temple was built by the Jews returned out of captivity. Spiritually, and in the antitype, accomplished when Christ did establish his church by the preaching of the gospel, and laid the foundations of it so that the gates of hell should never prevail against it, and made it this promise. It shall be exalted above the hills; as the mountain or hill on which the temple stood was by this honoured above other mountains and hills, so shall it, after desolation and reproach of seventy years, be honoured with the temple rebuilt upon it for God’ s true worship, whereas on other hills the heathens worship idols. So the gospel church and the way of worship to God shall excel all modes of religion. People; the Gentiles as antitype, those who came up with Israel out of Babylon, said to be servants and maids, , above seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven, many, if not all, of them proselyted to the Jewish religion, and a type, as well as first-fruits, of the Gentiles to be converted in the times of the Messiah. This number we are sure of; as for that Josephus reports of four thousand and seventy four of a mixed multitude, we look on with no more credit given than to his report of four million six hundred and twenty-eight thousand of Judah and Benjamin, Antiq. lib. 11. cap. 4. Shall flow unto it; come in freely, continually, and in multitudes, which in the type was fulfilled, partly at the return out of Babylon, and partly in after-days when Darius Hystaspes favoured the Jews and encouraged them, as Josephus reports, Antiq. lib. II. cap. 4, consonant with ; and we have reason to believe that God so disposed Darius’ s mind to favour them, that it might occasion some to embrace the Jewish religion.

Micah 4:1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, [that] the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.Ver. 1. But in the last days it shall come to pass] God reserveth his best comforts till the last, as that ruler of the feast did his best wine, John 2:10, and as the sweetest of the honey lieth at the bottom. These last days are the Gospel days, Hebrews 1:2, times of reformation, Hebrews 9:10, of restitution, Acts 3:21, called the world to come, Hebrews 2:5, that "new heaven and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," 2 Peter 3:13, that new Jerusalem, that is all of gold, Revelation 21:18, Ezekiel’ s new temple, larger than all the old Jerusalem, and his new Jerusalem, larger than all the land of Canaan, Ezekiel 40:41-49. Let Popish buzzards blaspheme that description of the temple and city; calling it (as Sanctius doth once and again) insulsam descriptionem, a senseless description; so speaking evil of the things that they know not, Judges 1:10. We believe and are sure, John 6:69, that God hath provided some better thing for us than for those under the law, Hebrews 11:40, viz. that great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh, 1 Timothy 3:16, who should again restore the kingdom to Israel, the spiritual kingdom to the Israel of God; as is here foretold in the self same words with those of Isaiah, Isaiah 2:1-2, whence he is not ashamed to take it. That the mountain of the house of the Lord] The Church, 1 Timothy 3:15, called elsewhere the mountain of the Lord, and his holy hill, Psalms 15:1; Psalms 24:3; Psalms 48:2 Isaiah 30:17, both for its sublimity, Galatians 4:26, and firmness, Psalms 46:3; Psalms 125:1 : winds and storms move it not; no more can all the power and policy of hell combined prevail against the Church, Matthew 16:18. She is ανικητοςκαιακινητος, a kingdom that cannot be shaken; and may, better than the city of Venice, take for her posy Immota manet. May she stand immovable. Shall be established in the top of the mountains] Constituetur firmiter, She shall be established more securely, shall be strongly set upon a sure bottom, upon munitions of rocks; yea, upon the Rock of Ages, Matthew 15:18 Jeremiah 31:35 Isaiah 33:16. Some by "the house of the Lord" here understand the Church; and by the mountain of this house, Christ, whereon it is built, and whom Daniel describeth by that great mountain that filled the whole earth, that stone cut out without hands that smote in pieces the four monarchies, Daniel 2:35. And hence it is that this mountain of the Lord’ s house is exalted above the hills: the Church must needs be above all earthly eminences whatsoever, because founded upon Christ; who therefore cannot be exalted, but she must be lifted up aloft together with him.

IV. (1) But in the last days.—There is again a sudden transition. As the third chapter commenced with a startling denunciation, following immediately upon the predicted blessings of the restored kingdom, so upon that chapter, closed in deepest gloom, there now rises a vision of glorious light. The first three verses are almost identical with the second chapter of Isaiah, Micah 4:2-4; and it has been almost an open question which of the two prophets is the original author of them, or whether indeed they both adopted the words from an older prophecy current at the time. Dr. Pusey takes very decided ground, saying, “It is now owned, well-nigh on all hands, that the great prophecy, three verses of which Isaiah prefixed to his second chapter, was originally delivered by Micah. . . . No one now thinks Micah adopted that great prophecy from Isaiah” (Minor Prophets, p. 289). This last statement, however, is far too sweeping; all that can be correctly said is that the preponderance of opinion is in favour of Micah being regarded as the original writer. In the top of the mountains—i.e., the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be spiritually elevated above all else, visible and invisible, and it shall be established for ever.

CHAPTER IV In the commencement of this chapter we have a glorious prophecy of the establishment and prosperity of the Messiah's kingdom; its peaceful character, increasing spiritual and political influence, ultimate universality, and everlasting duration, 1-4. Then breaks in a chorus of his people declaring their peculiar happiness in being members of his kingdom, 5. The prophet resumes the subject; predicts the restoration and future prosperity of Israel, 6-8; and exhorts them not to be discouraged at their approaching captivity, as they should in due time not only be delivered from it, but likewise be victorious over all their enemies, 9-13. These last verses, which evidently contain a prediction of the final triumph of Christianity over every adversary, have been applied to the conquests of the Maccabees; but the character and beneficial results of their military exploits, as far as we have any account of them, correspond but in a very faint degree to the beautiful and highly wrought terms of the prophecy. The first three verses of this chapter are very similar to the commencement of the second chapter of Isaiah; and the fourth, for beauty of imagery and elegance of expression, is not unworthy of that prophet. NOTES ON CHAP. IV Verse 1. - 4. But in the last days it shall come to pass] These four verses contain, says Bp. Newcome, a prophecy that was to be fulfilled by the coming of the Messiah, when the Gentiles were to be admitted into covenant with God, and the apostles were to preach the Gospel, beginning at Jerusalem, Lu 24:47; Acts 2:14, c., when Christ was to be the spiritual Judge and King of many people, was to convince many nations of their errors and vices, and was to found a religion which had the strongest tendency to promote peace. Bp. Lowth thinks that "Micah took this passage from Isaiah" or the Spirit may have inspired both prophets with this prediction; or both may have copied some common original, the words of a prophet well known at that time. The variations (few and of little importance) may be seen in the notes on the parallel passages, Isaiah 2:2, c. to which the reader is requested to refer.

1–4. The Ideal of Happiness realized 1. But] The Auth. Vers. has done its best to soften the abruptness of the transition from Micah 3:12 to Micah 4:1. It understands the meaning to be something like this:—In spite of this awful prospect of judgment, God has a bright future in store both for Jerusalem and for Israel. In the Hebrew, however, the passage Micah 4:1-4 is simply added on to Micah 3:12; there is no properly adversative particle prefixed; the contrast is rather implied than expressed. It seems as if Micah’s mind was so filled up by the thought of judgment, that there was hardly any room for the thought of national regeneration. When the image does present itself to his imagination, it is only as by a lightning-flash, which soon passes away, and leaves the horizon as gloomy as before. There is nothing in Micah like a developed doctrine of the latter days, such as we have to some extent in Isaiah. in the last days] Hebr. b’akharith hayyβmξm. This rendering is misleading; the Messianic period described in the following verses has no ‘last days;’ it is without an end (Isaiah 9:7). Render, therefore, in stricter accordance with the Hebrew, in the days to come (lit., ‘in the sequel of the days’); and comp. Jeremiah 23:20, ‘The anger of Jehovah shall not turn back, till he have executed, and till he have carried into effect the purposes of his heart: in future days ye shall duly consider it’ (Henderson’s translation), also Deuteronomy 4:30; Deuteronomy 31:29, and the phrase in an Assyrian historical inscription ana akhrat yumi = ‘for future days.’ A similar mistake has been made in 1 Timothy 4:1, where ἐνὑστέροιςκαιροῖς is rendered in Auth. Vers. ‘in the latter times;’ the Revised Version corrects, ‘in later times.’ the mountain of the house of the Lord] i.e. not merely mount Moriah (as in Micah 3:12), but by synecdoche for Jerusalem (comp. end of Mic 4:2). in the top] Rather, at the head. The lower mountains radiating, as it were, in all directions from it. “A similar physical change is anticipated for Jerusalem in Zechariah 14:10, and for the valley of Jehoshaphat, in connexion with the ‘day of Jehovah,’ in Joe 3:12. Ezekiel, too, speaks of having been transported in an ecstatic state to ‘a very high mountain’ (Ezekiel 40:2), evidently alluding to this passage.” The rendering of Auth. Vers. implies an image too hyperbolical to be accepted without compulsion.

But (And) in the last days it shall come to pass - God’s promises, goodness, truth, fail not. He withdraws His Presence from those who receive Him not, only to give Himself to those who will receive Him.

Zion the center of the universal religion of the future, Micah 4:1-5.These five verses furnish the first sublime picture of the glory of the Messianic era. 1.