Trust Him — KEN D. MILLER

9 Now why do you cry aloud?
    Is there no king in you?
Has your counselor perished,
    that pain seized you like a woman in labor?
10 Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion,
    like a woman in labor,
for now you shall go out from the city
    and dwell in the open country;
    you shall go to Babylon.
There you shall be rescued;
    there the Lord will redeem you
    from the hand of your enemies.

11 Now many nations
    are assembled against you,
saying, “Let her be defiled,
    and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”
12 But they do not know
    the thoughts of the Lord;
they do not understand his plan,
    that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.
13 Arise and thresh,
    O daughter of Zion,
for I will make your horn iron,
    and I will make your hoofs bronze;
you shall beat in pieces many peoples;
    and shall devote their gain to the Lord,
    their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. – Micah 4:9-13 ESV

Micah has given the people of Judah a glimpse into the future, providing them with a hope-filled description of God’s redemptive plan concerning them. Now, he rather abruptly brings them back to earth with a reminder of their more pressing fate. They still had the looming reality of God’s pending judgment hanging over their heads. Their centuries-worth of sin and rebellion against God had to be punished.

So, Micah paints a foreboding picture of just how difficult and dark those days will be. He fast-forwards the timeline again, providing them with a prophetic glimpse into the not-so-distant future and describes the horrific scene of the Babylonians invading Jerusalem. He describes the people crying out in pain and anguish as they watch the destruction of their beloved city. They have no one to lead them. Their king has been taken captive. Their army has fallen. All the prophets and priests who had promised them that everything would be okay, have been exiled as slaves to Babylon. And the book of 2 Kings confirms the accuracy of Micah’s prediction.

By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone. Then a section of the city wall was broken down. Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, the soldiers waited for nightfall and escaped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s garden. Then they headed toward the Jordan Valley.

But the Babylonian troops chased the king and overtook him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered. They captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah. They made Zedekiah watch as they slaughtered his sons. Then they gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon. – 2 Kings 25:3-7 NLT

The devastation and destruction will be horrific. Nothing will remain untouched or spared from the wrath of the Babylonian army as it pillages and plunders the city of all its treasures. Again, the book of 2 Kings provides detailed confirmation as to the accuracy of Micah’s words.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned down the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city. Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side. – 2 Kings 25:9-10 NLT

Micah compares the pain of the people to that of a woman in the midst of childbirth. This imagery is meant to link the very real pain they will experience as a result of God’s judgment with the future joy they will feel when God redeems them from their captivity in Babylon.

This section of Micah’s book is filled with a rather strange admixture of present and future scenes. He is compressing the timeline in such a way that it is difficult to know what is going to happen when. But Micah is not trying to provide the people of Judah with a detailed calendar of dates or give them a hard-and-fast outline of coming attractions. He is trying to let them know that God is in complete control of every detail concerning their past, present, and future. God exists outside of time. He knows the future just as well as He knows the past. He was intimately familiar with every detail concerning the coming Babylonian invasion. And He was just as aware of every circumstance surrounding the return of a remnant of His people from Babylon to Judah 70 years later. And Micah combines all these events into one seamless whole, in an effort to assure the people of Judah that everything was in the sovereign hands of God.

…for now you must leave this city
    to live in the open country.
You will soon be sent in exile
    to distant Babylon.
But the Lord will rescue you there;
    he will redeem you from the grip of your enemies. – Micah 4:10 NLT

In Micah’s day, Judah had no shortage of enemies who longed to see her demise. In spite of their disobedience and sin, the people of Judah had enjoyed a certain degree of success. As a nation, they had continued to play a prominent role in the oftentimes volatile affairs of the Middle East. Over the years, they had made a great many enemies who would love nothing better than to see them destroyed. And when the Babylonians finally invaded Judah, these nations not only rejoiced, they took advantage of the situation, claiming the former territories of Judah as their own.

But Micah assures his countrymen that these enemies of Judah were overlooking one very important fact.

But they do not know the Lord’s thoughts
    or understand his plan.
These nations don’t know
    that he is gathering them together
to be beaten and trampled
    like sheaves of grain on a threshing floor. – Micah 4:12 NLT

When the time for Judah’s fall finally came, these nations would see an opportunity to take advantage of the circumstances. But they would be ignorant of God’s much larger and longer-term plans concerning Judah. And they would be completely oblivious to His plans for them. But, once again, Micah compresses the timeline, inserting events that will take place in the “latter days.” Here he is describing the judgment of God against the nations of the earth that will take place at the Second Coming of Christ. The prophet Zechariah provides a detailed account of what will happen to all those who stand opposed to God and His chosen people when Christ returns.

And the Lord will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On that day they will be terrified, stricken by the Lord with great panic. They will fight their neighbors hand to hand. Judah, too, will be fighting at Jerusalem. The wealth of all the neighboring nations will be captured—great quantities of gold and silver and fine clothing. This same plague will strike the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in the enemy camps.

In the end, the enemies of Jerusalem who survive the plague will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. Any nation in the world that refuses to come to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will have no rain. If the people of Egypt refuse to attend the festival, the Lord will punish them with the same plague that he sends on the other nations who refuse to go. Egypt and the other nations will all be punished if they don’t go to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. – Zechariah 14:12-19 NLT

Once again, Micah brings in a scene from the distant future, allowing the people of Judah to see what God has planned for them as a nation.

“Rise up and crush the nations, O Jerusalem!”
    says the Lord.
“For I will give you iron horns and bronze hooves,
    so you can trample many nations to pieces.
You will present their stolen riches to the Lord,
    their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.” – Micah 4:13 NLT

Micah wants them to understand that this event is just as certain as their coming judgment at the hands of the Babylonians. God had a plan in place that was all-inclusive and completely trustworthy. He had left nothing up to chance. Their unfaithfulness would do nothing to diminish the faithfulness of God. Yes, He would punish them for their sins, but the day was coming when He would restore them. He would bring judgment upon them for their refusal to repent, but He would also send His Son one day to rescue them from the days of Tribulation.

How easy it is to lose sight of God’s sovereign plan and focus on the more immediate circumstances surrounding us. The people of Judah were fixating on the threat of Babylonian invasion and the destruction of their nation. But Micah was attempting to remind them that their God was not only greater than their problem, but He was also in complete control of it. Everything they were facing and fearing was coming through the sovereign hands of God. And He had more in store for them than they could ever imagine. While the enemies of Judah were clueless concerning God’s future plans for Judah, He was not. And the prophet Jeremiah provided the following words of comfort directly from the lips of God.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Ken Miller