Micah 4:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Micah 4:8
And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.
a tumor · noun, common masculine singular construct
daughter
בַּתbat-
H1323
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms… · noun, common feminine singular construct
Zion
צִיּ֖וֹןtzi.Yon
H6726
Tsijon (as a permanent capital) · proper noun, a place name
come
תֵּאתֶ֑הte.Teh
H857
to arrive · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
first
הָרִ֣אשֹׁנָ֔הha.Ri.sho.Nah
H7223
first · definite article + ordinal number, feminine singular absolute
dominion
הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה֙ha.mem.sha.Lah
H4475
rule · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
kingdom
מַמְלֶ֖כֶתmam.Le.khet
H4467
dominion · noun, common feminine singular construct
come
וּבָאָ֗הu.va.'Ah
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
daughter
לְבַ֥תle.Vat-
H1323
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms… · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Jerusalem
יְרוּשָׁלִָֽםye.ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 1:26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteou…
Zechariah 9:10 And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unt…
Revelation 22:5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall rei…
Genesis 35:21 And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar.
Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left t…
Obadiah 1:21 And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.
Zechariah 9:12 Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;
Numbers 24:19 Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
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…
tower of the flock--following up the metaphor of sheep (see on Mic 4:6). Jerusalem is called the "tower," from which the King and Shepherd observes and guards His flock: both the spiritual Jerusalem, the Church now whose tower-like elevation is that of doctrine and practice (Sol 4:4, "Thy neck is like the tower of David"), and the literal hereafter (Jer 3:17). In large pastures it was usual to erect a high wooden tower, so as to oversee the flock. JEROME takes the Hebrew for "flock," Eder or Edar, as a proper name, namely, a village near Beth-lehem, for which it is put, Beth-lehem being taken to represent the royal stock of David (Mic 5:2; compare Gen 35:21). But the explanatory words, "the…
O tower of the flock - I think the temple is meant, or Jerusalem; the place where the flock, the whole congregation of the people assembled to worship God. Newcome retains the Hebrew word עדר eder, a tower in or near Beth-lehem, Gen 35:21 or, as some think, a tower near the sheep-gate in Jerusalem, I believe Jerusalem, or the temple, or both, are meant; for these were considered the stronghold of the daughter-of Zion, the fortress of the Jewish people.
Even the first dominion - What was this? The Divine theocracy under Jesus Christ; this former, this first dominion, was to be restored. Hence the angel called him Immanuel, God with us, ruling among us.
The Church Fathers
"And you, O tower, O cloudy shepherd of the daughter of Zion, your time shall come." These words refer to the impious king Zedekiah, whom the prophet calls "tower" because the people of Judea stayed under his shadow, and "shepherd" because of his administration of the kingdom, and "cloudy" because of the error of idolatry to which he adhered. Again, in the symbolic meaning of his words he calls the devil a cloudy shepherd, because in an allegorical sense he always attacks the daughter of Zion under a cloudy sky. And, after catching her, he drags her away from the light—indeed the one who acts maliciously hates the light. But later, the supreme and legitimate prince of the mystical Jerusalem destroyed this tyranny with his advent and drove the obscure shepherd away.
(Verse 8, 9.) And you, tower of the flock, cloudy daughter of Zion, there will come to you the first power, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why are you contracted with sorrow? Is there no king for you, or has your counselor perished? For pain has seized you like a woman in labor. LXX: And you, tower of the flock, darkened daughter of Zion, there will come to you the first principality, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem from Babylon. And now, why have you known evil? Was not the king your husband, or has your plan perished, because pains have overtaken you like a woman in childbirth? The cloudy or desolate tower, which is called Ophel in Hebrew, we should not accept any other but that which Isaiah says: And I built a tower in the midst of it, that is, the vineyard. But the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel (Isaiah 5:2). This tower, as long as it has a winepress, that is, an altar, and a wall around it, namely the assistance of the Angels, and the devil, the wild boar, does not enter the vineyard, it is not desolate, it is not dark, but having received its name from the shining Lord, it is called a city, which cannot be hidden on the mountain. Therefore the tower of the flock and the people of God (because the wicked tenants killed the son of the master of the house (Luke 20) is now desolate and forsaken, and under the name Ariel, cries out from the earth in Isaiah. And this tower is the daughter of Zion, or as Symmachus renders it in Greek: She is the daughter of Zion (Isaiah 29): and to her will come God, or the first power, which is the power of the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. And the first power, or the first principality, comes to this tower, the one who said: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Revelation 22:13). And he who from the assumed person of man says in Proverbs, 'The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, before his works' (Prov. VIII, 22), or, as it is written in Hebrew, 'The Lord possessed me: Canaanite did not create me, but possessed me and had me,' signifies. And the first power came, and the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem, that after the first one comes the second, just as he confidently says: 'I am the light of the world' (John VIII, 12): thus he also gives to his disciples that they too may be called the light of the world, and he says to…
Dictionary and topics
Edar — Tower of the flock, a tower between Bethlehem and Hebron, near which Jacob first halted after leaving Bethlehem (Gen. 35:21). In Micah 4:8 the word is rendered “tower of the flock” (marg., “Edar”),…
Herdsman — In Egypt herdsmen were probably of the lowest caste. Some of Joseph’s brethren were made rulers over Pharaoh’s cattle (Gen. 47:6, 17). The Israelites were known in Egypt as “keepers of cattle;” and…
Shepherd — A word naturally of frequent occurence in Scripture. Sometimes the word “pastor” is used instead (Jer. 2:8; 3:15; 10:21; 12:10; 17:16). This word is used figuratively to represent the relation of…
Tower — Watch-towers or fortified posts in frontier or exposed situations are mentioned in Scripture, as the tower of Edar, etc., (Genesis 35:21; Isaiah 21:5,8,11; Micah 4:8) etc.; the tower of Lebanon. (2…
Towers · Illustrative of: Mount Sion — Illustrative of: Mount Sion
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Micah 4:8
And thou, O tower of the flock,.... The words "Migdal Eder" are left by some untranslated, and think that place to be intended so called, which was near to Bethlehem, Genesis 35:19; and perhaps is the same which Jerom (t) calls the tower of Ader, about a mile from Bethlehem: this is supposed to be the place where the shepherds were watching over their flocks at the time of Christ's birth, the tidings of which were first brought to them here; and the Jewish (u) doctors speak of it as near Jerusalem, and as a place of pasture; for they say, that cattle between Jerusalem and Migdal Eder, and in an equal space to every wind; the males were used for burnt offerings, and the females for peace offe…
Micah 4:8
8. And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.
8. Et tu turris gregis, arx filiae Sion, ad te veniet; perveniet principatus primus, regnum filiae Jerusalem.
Micah still continues the same subject, -- that the miserable calamities of the people, or even their ruin, will not prevent God to restore again his Church. Thou tower of the flock, he says, the fortress of the daughter of Zion, doubt not but that God will again restore to thee thy ancient kingdom and dignity from which thou seemest now to have entirely fallen. But interpreters take the tower o…
The prophecy turns from the highest glorification of Zion to the throne of Zion, which had been founded by David, and swept away with the destruction of Jerusalem (Mic 3:12), and predicts its restoration in the future. Consequently the reign of Jehovah upon Mount Zion, promised in Mic 4:7, is still further defined as effected through the medium of the Davidico-Messianic dominion. Mic 4:8. "And thou flock-tower, hill of the daughter Zion, to thee will the former dominion reach and come, the reign over the daughter Jerusalem." This announcement is attached primarily to Mic 4:6 and Mic 4:7. As the remnant of Israel gathered together out of the dispersion will become a strong nation, so shall th…
As for you, Jerusalem, the citadel of God’s people: Jerusalem was a fortified royal capital city with a watchtower for the defense and security of its people. • The kingship will be restored: Cp. Amos 9:11-15; see 2 Sam 7:11-16.
Rashi on Micah 4:8
And you, tower of the flock Heb. מִגְדַּל עֵדֶר. Jonathan renders: And you, anointed one of Israel, who is hidden because of the sins of the people of Zion. His explanation is: מִגְדַּל is an expression of a stronghold, and he renders עֵדֶר as the people of Israel. He renders עֹפֶל as an expression of אֹפֶל, darkness. [I.e., מִגְדַּל עֵדֶר is the stronghold of Israel, identified as the Messiah. He is hidden because of the sins of the people of Zion. The word “hidden” is derived from אֹפֶל, darkness.] But it is possible to interpret מִגְדַּל עֵדֶר as the Temple, and עֹפֶל as an expression of a mighty tower. Likewise there is (Isa. 32:14) “Rampart (עֹפֶל) and tower.”
to you it shall come—The…
