Micah 4:9, 10 Now why do you cry out aloud? is there no king in you? is your counselor perished? for pangs have taken you as a woman in travail.… A glorious future has been held up to the view of the Jewish nation (vers. 6-8). It is like the ideals of peace and blessedness presented to all in the Word of God; like the visions of the heavenly glory set before even the most ungodly. Such promises are attractive; even the godless Jews in Micah's time would exult in the thought of "the former dominion," the days of David and Solomon returning to Zion. But the vision again changes. Cries of pain and distress are heard. There passes before the prophet's mind a view of the discipline and chastisement which must fall on the disobedient nation before the promised blessings can be enjoyed. I. THE SALUTARY DISCIPLINE. In brief, vivid words a succession of calamities is sketched. 1. Their monarchy is overthrown. "Is there no king in thee?" Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah in succession were dethroned by foreign conquerors, and carried into exile. Many national premises and blessings were bound up with the name and family of David (2 Samuel 7), so that the loss of their king was no ordinary loss. He was their chief stay and "counsellor" (cf. Isaiah 9:6), "the breath of their nostrils" (Lamentations 4:20). No wonder their consternation and distress: "pangs," etc..(cf. Psalm 89:38-51). Thus one step in Divine discipline then and now may be the striking down to the ground of the chief objects of our confidence, the earthly props which we seek to substitute for God. 2. They are humiliated before their foes. They "go forth out of the city;" some in a vain attempt to escape, like Zedekiah and his troops (2 Kings 25:4-6); others as prisoners of war from a city which has capitulated and is being sacked by its conquerors. Illustrate from Lamentations 5:1-16. They are driven forth into "the field;" without shelter even from the elements unless in tents (contrast their former "ease in Zion," Amos 6:1-7, etc.); without the protection of the old towers and bulwarks in which they had prided themselves (Psalm 48:12, 13); without weapons or leaders, and thus exposed to any indignities that these conquerors choose to inflict upon them. Thus may it be with those whose way God "turneth upside down," stripping them of all their old sources of security - money, position, friends; turning them out of the "nest" in which they expected peacefully to spend the remainder of their days. Illustrate from contrasts in Job 29. and 30. 3. They are carried captive "even to Babylon. Babel in early days had been a symbol of a godless world power. It does not rise again on the Hebrew horizon till the days of Isaiah and Micah. Making friendly overtures to Hezekiah, it is presented to his view, by his faithful seer, as a distant, mysterious, but formidable foe of the future - ignotum pro mirifico (Isaiah 39.). As the ten tribes had been carried captive to Halah and Habor and adjacent districts, so should Judah be taken even to Babylon. Thus is it in God's discipline with his prodigals now. They may find themselves in a far country," brought down to the lowest depth of humiliation, shut out from all earthly help, shut up to God. And even now, in the midst of the pleasures of sin, prophetic voices within may warn them: "Thou shalt go forth... thou shalt go even to - ." The dreadful possibilities of judgment, whether in this world or another, may at times mar their peace. For, unlike the servants of God, they dare not say, "Things to come... are ours. 4. In the house of bondage pangs of sorrow must be borne. Seventy years!" - a long lifetime of captivity. "Tribulation ten days!" a time of discipline indefinite to us, though fixed by the counsel of God. Those pangs will be "resistless, remediless, doubling the whole frame, redoubled till the end for which God sends them is accomplished, and then ceasing in joy" (Pusey). For the very term "daughter of Zion" suggests hope. It is a term of friendliness, like "Father of spirits" (Hebrews 12:9), which reminds us of the essential relations between us and our God, and gives us a pledge that in wrath he will remember mercy (cf. Isaiah 57:16). II. "THE END OF THE LORD." Then and there the end for which the trials are sent will be reached, and deliverance will come. As with their king Manasseh, so shall it be with the nation. In their affliction they will seek the Lord (Jeremiah 29:10-13). 1. They shall be delivered. Set free from the burden of their sins, a burden too grievous to be borne; purged from idolatry; blessed with a revival of religion, as shown by a renewed regard to God's Law through the gracious work of his own "free Spirit" (Ezekiel 36:16-27). 2. They shall be redeemed from the hand of their enemies. God will visit them as their Goel, their Kinsman-Redeemer, who has not forgotten or forsaken them (Jeremiah 30:8-11). By the manifestation of his righteous grace and irresistible power they shall be "redeemed without money" (Isaiah 52:3), restored to their land and to the enjoyment of ancient privileges. Such is "the end of the Lord" in the discipline of life. The revelation of the Fatherhood of God in the Person of Christ and in his sacrificial death for the redemption of sinners assures us that he chastens "for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness." But it is only by sitting at his feet and learning of him, and thus being "exercised" by our trials, that we can hope to win from them "the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:9-11). - E.S.P. Parallel Verses KJV: Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counseller perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. |
    |