Week 8 - A Little Town - Micah 5:2-6

Read Micah 5:2 and then listen to how the chief priests and scribes of the New Testament twist Micah’s prophecy:

Matthew 2:3-6

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the peo-ple, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

They move the tiny Bethlehem from being a part of the house (not even a clan) of Ephrathah, to being a part of the kingdom of Judah.  Instead of highlighting how small it was, they make it bigger than an untold number of other towns.  They vault both its size and importance.  

More striking, they leave out the tiny phrase “for me”.  They leave out the divine purpose and delegation of authority and make the ruler self-appointed.

Micah’s prophecy concludes with what would happen in the near term.  In it Micah shows us how we are to act within that delegated authority.  Listen for “we will . . . he shall”:

Micah 5:5-6

When the Assyrian comes into our land

    and treads in our palaces,

then we will raise against him seven shepherds

    and eight princes of men;

they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,

    and the land of Nimrod at its entrances;

and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian

    when he comes into our land

    and treads within our border.

We do not need to vault our own image and importance.  We need to vault God’s size and sovereignty.  We should never act out of our own importance.  Nor should we never not-act out of our own unimportance.  Instead, knowing God’s purpose and sovereignty, we should act.