Matthew Henry on Micah 4:8–end
These verses relate to Zion and Jerusalem, here called the tower of the flock or the tower of Edor; we read of such a place (Gen 35:21) near Bethlehem; and some conjecture it is the same place where the shepherds were keeping their flocks when the angels brought them tidings of the birth of Christ, and some think Bethlehem itself is here spoken of, as Mic 5:2. Some think it is a tower at that gate of Jerusalem which is called the sheep-gate (Neh 3:32), and conjecture that through that gate Christ rode in triumph into Jerusalem. However, it seems to be put for Jerusalem itself, or for Zion the tower of David. All the sheep of Israel flocked thither three times a year; it was the stronghold (O…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Micah 4:12
thoughts of the Lord--Their unsearchable wisdom, overruling seeming disaster to the final good of His people, is the very ground on which the restoration of Israel hereafter (of which the restoration from Babylon is a type) is based in Isa 55:8; compare with Mic 4:3, Mic 4:12-13, which prove that Israel, not merely the Christian Church, is the ultimate subject of the prophecy; also in Rom 11:13. God's counsel is to discipline His people for a time with the foe as a scourge; and then to destroy the foe by the hands of His people.
gather them as . . . sheaves--them who "gathered" themselves for Zion's destruction (Mic 4:11) the Lord "shall gather" for destruction by Zion (Mic 4:13), like she…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on Micah 4:12
But they know not the thoughts of the Lord - These think that God has utterly rejected his people, and they shall have a troublesome neighbor no more: but this is not his design; he will afflict them for a time; but these, the enemies of his people, he will gather as sheaves into the threshing-floor, there to be trodden, and the wheel to go over them. This is the counsel, the purpose of God, which these do not understand. The persons here referred to are not only the Chaldeans which were threshed by the Persians and Medes; but the Idumeans, Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines, which the Jews afterwards subdued.
