Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Micah 4:10
Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go [even] to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.
10. Be in pain, &c.] There is no remedy for Zion’s distress. Having sinned, she must bear her punishment. Having lost her first purity, she must be refined.
for now shalt thou go forth ] ‘Now,’ because the future is realized by the prophet as if present. To heighten the effect of his announcement, he describes one by one the stages of the calamity, the going out of the city, the dwelling in the open country, houseless and unprotected, and lastly the coming to Babylon, the scene of captivity. To ‘go forth’=to surrender, as Isa 36:16, 2Ki 24:12.
and thou shalt go even to Babylon ] These words are very difficult, when viewed in relation to the context. For 1, the enemy, whose destruction the prophet anticipates, is the contemporary kingdom of Assyria (see Mic 5:6), not that of Babylon, which had in fact been conquered by Tiglath-Pileser, and only succeeded to the place and power of Assyria a century later; and 2, we read in Mic 4:12 that Jehovah has brought the hostile nations to Jerusalem that they may be destroyed there, which seems not to allow space for a transportation of the Judans to Babylon. Thus the difficulty in admitting that Micah really foretold the Babylonian captivity is based on purely exegetical grounds. It has indeed been replied 1, that Babylon is here mentioned only as a province of the Assyrian empire, and 2, that it appears from 2Ki 17:24 (confirmed by the Annals of Sargon, Records of the Past, vii. 29), that Sargon transported a part of the rebellious population of Babylonia to N. Israel, which we may presume that, according to the custom of the Assyrians, he replaced by captive Israelites. It is therefore quite conceivable that in foretelling an invasion of Judah by Sargon, the prophet might represent the captives of Judah as following their Israelitish brethren to Babylonia. This reply is perhaps adequate as against the first-mentioned difficulty, but it leaves the second in its full force. It is necessary therefore to assume either that these words, ‘and thou shalt go to Babylon,’ are the interpolation of a later editor of the prophetic writings, who overlooked or misunderstood the context, or that they represent a subsequent revelation made by the Spirit of prophecy to Micah himself. The former view is perhaps at first sight objectionable, because it assumes that Divine Providence has not watched over the text of the Scriptures so as to prevent alterations from being made in their original form. But we must remember that the permanent function of the Old Testament for Christians is simply to point to Jesus Christ, as the Saviour both of Jew and of Gentile, and that no superficial changes of the text are of any religious importance which leave the performance of this function unimparied. The hypothesis of interpolation is confirmed (to mention the principal evidence only) by the occurrence of closely analogous words, undoubtedly interpolated, in the Septuagint version of Mic 4:8, the second part of which runs thus, , . These words seem to give us the point of view from which the students (translators or editors) of the Scriptures approached the prophecies after the exile. The great deliverance from Babylon swallowed up all others, and they discovered references to it which are not warranted by the context of the passages. In a certain sense, it is true, the Babylonian captivity was the fulfilment of the prophecy before us; for neither the actual punishment nor the actual deliverance of Jerusalem in Micah’s time corresponded exactly to the prophet’s statements. Whether it be for the repentance of Hezekiah, or for any other reason known only to God, Jerusalem was not suffered to come to such extremities as the prophet describes, and consequently the Divine interposition was not so striking and unique. If however we prefer the second of the alternatives mentioned above, analogies for this view are also forthcoming. Isaiah repeatedly intermixes the matter of later discourses with that of earlier ones an inevitable consequence of the mode in which the prophetic discourses were brought into their present form on the basis of notes and recollections (see the present annotator’s edition of Isaiah).
there shalt thou be delivered ] If we accept the former of the alternatives proposed in the foregoing note, so that ‘and thou shalt go even to Babylon’ becomes an interpolation, we must suppose the promised deliverance to take place ‘in the field’ (or open country) where the people of Jerusalem have assembled. They are in fact on the point of surrendering to the Assyrians, their king (see Mic 5:1) has suffered the grossest indignity, when Jehovah suddenly interposes for their relief. Otherwise the deliverance will be that from the Babylonian exile, a view however which is difficult to reconcile with Mic 4:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Be in pain, and labor to bring forth – (Literally, Writhe and burst forth,) as if to say, thou must suffer, but thy suffering and thy joy shall be one. Thou canst not have the joy without the suffering. As surely as thou sufferest, thou shalt have joy. In all sorrow, lose not faith and hope, and thou shalt be sorrowful, but thy sorrow shall be turned into joy Joh 16:20. Cyril: Good daughter, be very patient in the pangs, bear up against your sorrows, so shall the birth be nigh. Yet for the time she must go forth out of the city into captivity. And thou shalt dwell in the field, houseless, under tents, as captives were accustomed to be kept, until all were gathered together to be led away; a sore exchange for her former luxury, and in requital of their oppression Amo 6:1-14; Mic 2:8-9.
And thou shalt go even to Babylon – Not Babylon, but Assyria was the scourge of God in Micahs time. Babylon was scarcely known, a far country 2Ki 20:14. Yet Micah is taught of God to declare that thither shall the two tribes be carried captive, although the ten were carried captive by Assyria. There (see the note at Hos 2:15) shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. Gods judgments, or purifying trials, or visitation of His saints, hold their way, until their end be reached. They who suffer them cannot turn them aside; they who inflict them cannot add to them or detain them. The prison house is the place of deliverance to Joseph and Peter; the Red Sea to Israel; the judges were raised up, when Israel was mightily oppressed; Jabesh-Gilead was delivered when the seventh day was come 1Sa 11:3, 1Sa 11:10-11; the walls of Jerusalem were the end of Sennacherib; Judah should have long been in the very hand and grasp of Babylon, yet must its clenched hand be opened.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. There shalt thou be delivered] There God shall meet thee; and by redeeming thee from thy captivity, bringing thee back to thine own land, and finally converting thee unto himself, shall deliver thee from the burden of grief and wo which thou now bearest, and under which thou dost groan.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth; it may be read, Thou shalt be in pain, and thou shalt labour, &c.; so it will be a prediction of the troubles, sorrows, and dangers that they shall meet with in the wars against the Babylonians, and in their captivity under them.
O daughter of Zion; all the house of Judah, particularly you that dwell in Jerusalem and near Mount Zion. Like a woman in travail; whose sorrows are very sharp, but somewhat mitigated by expectation of a good delivery, and the birth of a living child: let your hopes so mitigate your sorrows too.
For now; ere long, within a few years, you will see or hear that Israel is carried captive (which Micah lived to see): this may be an admonition, it is certainly a token that you shall be captives too; and this came upon them one hundred and thirty years after, when in Zedekiahs time the daughter of Zion was deplorably wasted, conquered, and captivated by Nebuchadnezzar.
Thou shalt go forth out of the city; forced thereto by the prevailing power of the Babylonians, who took Zedekiah and those that accompanied him when they stole out of the city: these did go out when they could keep in it no longer.
Thou shalt dwell in the field; as conquered, made prisoners, and held so in the fields under a strong guard, until all the conquered were brought together, that they might in one body be led away. In their journey to Babylon they were forced to lodge in the fields, also exposed to all the inconveniencies of heat in the day and of cold in the night, weary, hungry, thirsty, and faint near to death.
Thou shalt go even to Babylon; O daughter of Zion, thou shalt certainly be carried captive to Babylon, where thy dwelling shall be little bettered, thou shalt dwell by the river, without the city.
There shalt thou be delivered; by Cyrus first, and by Darius Hystaspes next, and by Artaxerxes in Nehemiahs time; all this as type of a greater deliverance.
The Lord; the everlasting God, thy God, whose servants the Persian kings that favoured the Jews were, and by whose motion they did incline to release them. Shall redeem; the Hebrew word points out a redemption by the next kinsman, and so fairly minds us of the Messiah, the great Redeemer of the church. And to him, and the redemption of the church by him, do these deliverances ultimately and principally point.
From the hand of thine enemies; who would have detained the people of God longer in slavery, or who would have hindered the rebuilding of the temple, and the re-establishment of the worship of God. Proportionably to this type doth the antitype answer, Luk 1:74,75.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Be in pain, and labourcarryingon the metaphor of a pregnant woman. Thou shalt be affected withbitter sorrows before thy deliverance shall come. I do not forbid thygrieving, but I bring thee consolation. Though God cares for Hischildren, yet they must not expect to be exempt from trouble, butmust prepare for it.
go forth out of the cityonits capture. So “come out” is used 2Ki 24:12;Isa 36:16.
dwell in the fieldnamely,in the open country, defenseless, instead of their fortified city.Beside the Chebar (Psa 137:1;Eze 3:15).
BabylonLike Isaiah,Micah looks beyond the existing Assyrian dynasty to the Babylonian,and to Judah’s captivity under it, and restoration (Isa 39:7;Isa 43:14; Isa 48:20).Had they been, as rationalists represent, merely sagaciouspoliticians, they would have restricted their prophecies to thesphere of the existing Assyrian dynasty. But their seeing intothe far-off future of Babylon’s subsequent supremacy, andJudah’s connection with her, proves them to be inspired prophets.
there . . . thereemphaticrepetition. The very scene of thy calamities is to be the scene ofthy deliverance. In the midst of enemies, where all hope seems cutoff, there shall Cyrus, the deliverer, appear (compare Jud14:14). Cyrus again being the type of the greater Deliverer, whoshall finally restore Israel.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion,
like a woman in travail,…. Bear thy troubles and calamities, sufferings and sorrows, patiently, and expect deliverance from them, as a woman in such circumstances does: or, as some render it in the future, “thou shalt be in pain”, c. y and so is a prediction of their distress and captivity, which is expressed in plainer terms in the following clauses:
for now shalt thou go forth out of the city; the city of Jerusalem; either by flight, in a private and secret manner, as Zedekiah and his princes, and part of his army did; or by force, being taken and led out by the enemy:
and thou shalt dwell in the field; being turned out of their houses, they were obliged to lodge in the fields, while they were collected together, and in a body marched as captives to Babylon; and while on the road lay in the open fields, and not in houses, who had been used to dwell in a city, and in their panelled houses; but now even their city itself was ploughed like a field, as before predicted:
and thou shalt go [even] to Babylon; to the city of Babylon, as their king did, and many of them also; and others of them into various parts of that kingdom: this is a clear prophecy of the Babylonish captivity, which came to pass upwards of a hundred years after this:
there shalt thou be delivered; after seventy years captivity, by the hand of Cyrus; who taking the city of Babylon, and making himself master of the whole empire, delivered the Jews from their bondage, and gave them liberty to return to their own land:
there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies; the Chaldeans: and this was typical of the deliverance and redemption of all the Lord’s people from the hand of all their spiritual enemies; from Satan and the world, law, death, and hell; by the blood of the great Redeemer, and near kinsman of his people, the Lord Jesus Christ.
y “dolebis ac suspirabis”, so some in Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Why then has pain laid hold on thee as on one in travail? Be in pain, he says, and groan; (132) that is, I will not prevent thee to grieve and to mourn; as though he said, “Certainly even the strongest cannot look on calamities so dreadful, without suffering the heaviest sorrow; but though God may for a time subject his children to the greatest tortures, and expose them to the most grievous evils, he will yet restore them at length from their exile.” Thou shalt depart, he says, from the city, and dwell in the field: thou shalt come even to Babylon; but there thou shalt be delivered; there shall Jehovah redeem thee from the hand of thy enemies The import of the whole is, that though God would have a care for his people, as he had promised, there was yet no cause for the faithful to flatter themselves, as though they were to be exempt from troubles; but the Prophet, on the contrary, exhorts them to prepare themselves to undergo calamities, as they were not only to be ejected from their country, and to wander in strange lands like vagrants, but were to be led away into Babylon as to their grave.
But to strengthen the minds of the faithful to bear the cross, he gives them a hope of deliverance, and says, that God would there deliver them, and there redeem them from the hand of their enemies. He repeats the adverb, שם, shem, there, twice, and not without cause: for the faithful might have excluded every hope of deliverance, as though the gate of God’s power had been closed. And this is the reason why the Prophet repeats twice, there, there; even from the grave he will deliver and redeem thee: “Extend then your hope, not only to a small measure of favor, as though God could deliver you only from a state of some small danger, but even to death itself. Though then ye lay, as it were, in your graves, yet doubt not but that God will stretch forth his hand to you, for he will be your deliverer. God then in whose power is victory, can overcome many and innumerable deaths.”
(132) Ingemisce , groan, mourn, or sigh and sob. גחי, burst forth, or break out; that is, into tears or mourning. “Bring forth,” as it is rendered by Newcome and Henderson, seems not to be the import of the word here. It may be rendered, as Parkhurst proposes, “labor and bring forth.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) Thou shalt go even to Babylon.This prediction has naturally caused difficulty to those who doubt the power of prophets to prophesy: for Babylon was not at all considered in the days of Micah, when Assyria was in the ascendant. It was a century after Micahs time before Babylon recovered its ancient dignity. The fact, however, remains that Micah wrote, Thou shalt go to Babel; and there is the other fact, that the people of Judah (not Israel) did go. Micah also declared, THERE shalt thou be delivered: and in the time of Cyrus the Jews were delivered there. The repetition, There . . . there, is emphatic.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Mic 4:10 Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go [even] to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.
Ver. 10. Be in pain and labour to briny forth, &c. ] Be sensible of thine ensuing captivity, and take on; but yet with hope of a gracious deliverance in due time. See Trapp on “ Mic 4:9 “ It is no less a fault to despise the chastening of the Lord than to faint when thou art rebuked, Heb 12:5 . The hypocrite in heart heapeth up wrath, saith Elihu, and why? he crieth not when God bindeth him, Job 36:13 . The wicked, saith Hannah, are silent in darkness, and shall therefore lie down in sorrow, 1Sa 2:9 Isa 50:10 . This is not patience, but pertinace, the strength of stones and flesh of brass, Job 6:12 . It is not valour, but apathy, stupidity, and indolence, much complained of in Scripture, and threatened with a succession of sorrows, Lev 26:18 ; Lev 26:28 , seven more, and seven more, and seven to that. Three times in that chapter God raiseth his note of threatening, and he raiseth it by sevens, and those are discords in music. Such sayings will be heavy, songs, and their execution heavy pangs; worse than those of a woman in travail.
For now shalt thou go forth out of the city
And thou shalt dwell in the field
And thou shalt go even to Babylon
There shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
now = mean-while: i.e. before that day. Compare Mic 4:11 and Mic 5:1.
even to = as far as. Compare Isa 39:7; Isa 43:14.
Babylon. May “not have been on Micah’s political horizon”, but it was on Jehovah’s. Compare Amo 5:25-27. Act 7:42, Act 7:43.
there . . . there. Note the repetition for emphasis: i.e. there and then in that future day.
redeem = redeem [as a kinsman]. Hebrew. ga’al. See note on Exo 6:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
redeem
Heb. “goel,” Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield “Isa 59:20”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
and labour: Isa 66:7-9, Hos 13:13, Joh 16:20-22
shalt thou: 2Ki 20:18, 2Ki 25:4, 2Ch 33:11, 2Ch 36:20, Hos 1:10, Hos 2:14, Rev 12:14
there shalt: Mic 7:8-13, Ezr 1:1, Ezr 1:2, Isa 45:13, Isa 48:20, Isa 52:9-12, Zec 2:7-9
redeem: Psa 106:10, Jer 15:21
Reciprocal: Gen 3:16 – in sorrow Gen 10:10 – Babel Gen 22:14 – In Deu 28:32 – sons Psa 107:2 – from Isa 21:3 – pangs have Jer 6:24 – anguish Jer 13:4 – go Jer 29:20 – whom Jer 30:6 – every Jer 48:41 – as the heart Jer 50:34 – Redeemer Jer 52:27 – Thus Eze 20:35 – I will Hos 10:10 – and the Mic 5:3 – she Zep 2:7 – turn Zec 8:15 – have Mar 13:8 – sorrows Joh 16:21 – woman 1Th 5:3 – as
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Mic 4:10. The pains preceding childbirth are used to compare the distress of the captivity, hut with the added thought that, as the pains are an indication of the approaching joy of parenthood, so the captivity must precede the return and establishment of the strong nation” predicted above.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The Israelites would leave Jerusalem as a woman in labor. They would have to live in a field temporarily until they arrived in Babylon, but in Babylon the Lord would eventually rescue and redeem them. He would deliver them from captivity and return them to the land. This is one of the earliest references to the Babylonian Captivity in prophetic Scripture (cf. Isa 39:1-7).
This prediction of captivity in Babylon was unusual in Micah’s day, because then Assyria was the great threat to the Israelites. The Babylonian deportations came a century later. In Micah’s day Babylon was part of the Assyrian Empire. Probably "Babylon" here has a double meaning: the historic Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar’s day and the future Babylon, the symbol of Gentile power that has held Israel captive since Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Gen 10:10; Gen 11:4-9; Revelation 17-18).
"God chose Babylon because in Micah’s pagan world it functioned as the equivalent of Rome in the Middle Ages and of Mecca in Islam. The darkest land will become the place where the daylight of the new age dawns." [Note: Ibid., p. 179.]
Micah had just prophesied an eschatological redemption of Israel, and that future vision stayed with him (Mic 4:1-8).