Micah 5:5-6
5 And he will be our peace
when the Assyrians invade our land
and march through our fortresses.
We will raise against them seven shepherds,
even eight commanders,
6 who will rule the land of Assyria with the sword,
the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.
He will deliver us from the Assyrians
when they invade our land
and march across our borders.
I said yesterday that the promise of a shepherd-king must have been a great encouragement for the people of Micah’s day. Today’s verses confirm that. It’s as if the song has picked up speed a bit. We’re still hearing the same tune - ‘the Assyrians are coming, the land is going to be conquered’ but now it sounds a little less like a funeral dirge and a little more like a military march. Back in chapters 1 and 2, it seemed as if the destruction of Israel was unavoidable. The language was all about desolation and loss. The only thing the people could do was wail and mourn. But here, they begin to sound as if they believe that the battle might not be as lost as they’d thought.
Notice the ‘we will’ in verse 5. So far in the book we’ve heard from Micah and from God, but this is the first time that the people seem to be speaking as a group. I don’t think they’re literally suggesting that they need to round up exactly 7 shepherds and 8 commanders to face the invading Assyrian army. Often in the Bible, 7 is the number of perfection and completeness. And if 7 is ‘perfectly enough’ then perhaps 8 is ‘even more than enough’. And the combination of shepherds and commanders represents the perfect mighty rule that we thought about yesterday. So I think the people are saying something like ‘Even when the worst thing we can imagine happens, it’s going to be OK because God is going to give us a perfect shepherd-king as our leader, who is more than able to defend and care for us’.
There’s another encouragement here, too - it seems as if the people are beginning to remember what ‘being God’s people’ is all about. See how these verses switch from ‘he’ to ‘we’ and back to ‘he’ again. The judgement that is coming has been prompted by the fact that the people have turned away from God and tried to live independently from him. But here we get a glimpse of what people who really wanted to be God’s people would say. They recognise that it is only God who can help them. ‘He’ will be their peace. ‘He’ will deliver them. They cannot save themselves. But the ‘We will …’ language commits them to being identified with their Lord. No longer are they treating God as their enemy. Rather, they want to be on his side when the battle lines are drawn. Weak as they are, in comparison to Assyria, they can speak with confidence about the outcome of the battle because they are trusting in their God to deliver them from their enemies. Weak as we are, in the face of sin, death and the devil, we can speak with confidence about the ultimate outcome, if we are trusting in our God to deliver us. Let’s praise him for that today.
