Skip to main content

Micah 7:14-17 Prophetic dialogue - Day 336

Good afternoon fellow strangers and exiles,

As we finish another one of the minor prophets, we must never think of them as insignificant.  I hope you are encouraged to use reference material in your reading, especially in the prophets.

Blessings,

Jeff

From Reformation Study Bible notes:

7:8-20. This concluding hymn consists of four stanzas: (a) Lady Jerusalem in her fallen status confesses her sin and her faith in the Lord (vv. 8-10); (b) the prophet promises that she will become a sheepfold offering salvation to the world under judgment (vv. 11-13); (c) Micah prays that the Lord will again miraculously shepherd His people (v. 14), which the Lord promises to do (v. 15), and Micah then prophesies that the unbelieving enemy will be conquered (vv. 16, 17); and (d) the people celebrate God’s forgiveness and faithfulness with a hymn of praise (vv. 18-20). 

I think I have mentioned that one of the challenges of reading prophetic literature is that it is sometime hard to tell who is speaking and to whom they are speaking.  This is one good reason to have a study bible.  

But once you look at notes, don't just take their word for it.  Look at the passage and see if the note makes sense.

v14 - Israel has had many kings, priests and prophets as shepherds.  Some good and some not so much.  But ultimately God is their shepherd and He is always good.  For the purely human shepherds, the flock was not their inheritance.    But the saints of all generations are God's inheritance.  The saints get salvation from God and God gets the saints as His inheritance.  So it makes sense that this is Micah asking the Lord to shepherd Israel.

v15 I will - not Micah, but the Lord's response.  Micah was not around when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt.  God responding to Micah's request in v14

v16 - 17 Clearly a description of how surrounding nations will respond to what God promises to do in v15.  Makes sense that the prophet is again speaking and giving this future condition.

Of course, the remaining difficulty is does this refer to some future state of the Jewish nation or does it refer to the church..  I believe that it is a beautiful picture of how the Good Shepherd came for all his flock in first advent and the response of the nations to His second advent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2 Chronicles 33:7-9 Thoughts on Davidic covenant - Day 362

Good morning faithful readers, The finish line is in sight!!!  One of the themes of scripture is that God is a covenant keeping God.  There are many between God and man. Adam, Noah, David are examples.  Covenants are more than promises.  They are made between a superior and inferior with conditions for each side and blessing and penalties based on keeping the conditions.  These are covenants of works which fallen man was unable to keep.  Thanks be to God that the Father made a covenant of grace with Christ, the second Adam, which he fully kept. Blessings, Jeff The promise in v8 was made to David when he had planned to build the temple and God promised to build him a house forever. (2 Sam 7:10).  Seems like there are only two possibilities about Manasseh's disobedience.  Either he knew of this covenant that God had made with his 13th great grandfather and chose to disregard it, or he didn't know of it and was unaware of the penalty.  Let's con...
Post a Comment
Read more

2 Chronicles 30:16-20 Hearts set to seek the Lord - Day 359

Good morning fellow members of the household of God, After writing the devotional, I am thinking about the Passover as a household event.  In ancient Israel, the physical household of man was covered by the blood of the lamb.  Now, it is the spiritual household of God that is covered by the blood of the Lamb. Blessings, Jeff The account of the greatest celebration of Passover since time of Solomon (v 26).   Observations: One of the things that made this one great is participation of some of the tribes from the northern kingdom.  Israel was a united kingdom and Solomon and now toward the end of the northern kingdom, there is at least a semblance of being united. God allows some exemptions: Who offers the sacrifice:  The original Passover was a family by family sacrifice of a lamb.  However in  Deuteronomy 16:5-6 this changed to a centralized location once they entered the promised land.  (You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" bec...
Post a Comment
Read more