Micah 7:11-13
11 The day for building your walls will come,
the day for extending your boundaries.
12 In that day people will come to you
from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
even from Egypt to the Euphrates
and from sea to sea
and from mountain to mountain.
13 The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants,
as the result of their deeds.
Over the past couple of days we’ve heard Micah talking about his enemy - he’s not talking about someone with a grievance against him personally, but an enemy who is opposed to God’s people as a nation. In the time when Micah was writing, the most obvious enemy they faced was Assyria, who was poised to invade and take over the land. Yet God is promising that there will be a time when all their enemies will be stopped in their tracks. In these closing verses of the book we hear more about what that future state of peace and security will be like.
So it’s no surprise that verse 11 talks about walls - a small, besieged country would dream of being able to build a wall around its borders, strong enough to keep their enemies out permanently. Yet it turns out that, although the country will be secure, these walls won’t be designed to keep people out. In fact, a great stream of people will come in. I think we’re intended to understand that the people who come in are not an invading army, but rather the fulfilment of God’s long-standing plan for all nations to be blessed through his chosen people. We’ve cycled back to the scene we saw in Chapter 4, where the people of all nations stream to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.
And look which nations are specifically named here: Assyria - who we know are the particular threat of the moment - and Egypt, who enslaved God’s people before they were even a nation. God is able to do something so miraculously transformative that even the very greatest enemies of his people can be brought to worship him. The salvation will be on an extravagant scale - from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. The boundaries of Israel will be extended by God drawing people from every tribe and language and nation to worship himself. I doubt that Micah could have imagined exactly how God would bring this about, but we know. God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians. Those who once were enemies of God and each other have been brought together. Let’s praise him for that today.
