Micah 4:11

Now also many nations are gathered against thee,.... Which is to be understood, not of Sennacherib's army invading Judea, and besieging Jerusalem, in Hezekiah's time; for that was not threshed, as

Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.

Now, i.e. ere long, the time is near at hand. Many nations; many for number and great for name, mighty in power, all that were at that time confederate with or feudatory to Sennacherib king of Assyria, or else to the king of Babylon. Are gathered against thee; the present tense for the future, in the prophetic style, to express the certainly and the nearness of the judgment; they will all of them assemble and come up against Judah and Jerusalem, as Sennacherib did when he besieged Jerusalem, or as Nebuchadnezzar did when he took it. That say; propose it as their design, hope for it as their end, and boast of it as easy. Let her be defiled; let us use her contemptuously, tread her under foot as a common and polluted thing, let us destroy her with such spite and scorn as a defiled thing deserveth: so the phrase : let her be polluted with blood, and without respect to her former holiness let us enter, sack, and destroy her temple and palaces. Let our eye look, delighting ourselves in the ruin; let us feed our envious, revengeful eye. Upon Zion; upon Jerusalem, the royal palace, and the sacred temple, buried in their own rubbish.

Micah 4:11 Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.Ver. 11. Now also many nations are gathered, &c.] That is, they shall lie once gathered, when the Babylonians, who are lords of the world, shall muster many nations against thee. Would any man take the Church’ s picture, saith Luther? then let him paint a silly poor maid, sitting in a wood or wilderness, compassed about with hungry lions, wolves, boars, and bears, and with all manner of cruel and hurtful beasts and in the midst of a great many furious men assaulting her every moment and minute, for this is her condition in the world. That say, Let her be defiled] sc. with blood and slaughter. Or, let her be condemned as a hypocrite, let her be stoned as an adulteress; so the Trent translation. Thus they pretend, as Rabshakeh did, that they were sent by God against a hypocritical nation, that had broken their faith with God and men. The like craft and cruelty was used in the Parisian massacre, and gunpowder plot; God and man, said they (in that blind letter, that brought all to light), have agreed to punish the wickedness of this age. Those that would kill a dog give out that he was mad first, saith the French proverb. Whom no man looketh after, Jeremiah 30:17. And let our eyes look upon Zion] Let us feed our eyes with such a delightful spectacle; and say, as that cruel Charles IX of France did, when he saw the streets strewed with the bodies of the massacred Protestants, and the rivers dyed with their blood, O pulchrum spectaculum! O brave sight! or as the Queen mother of Scotland, when she beheld the dead carcases of her Lutheran subjects, said, that she never saw a goodlier piece of arras in all her days. See the accomplishment of this prophecy in the Lamentations, Psalms 137:1-9, and in the Book of Nehemiah. A rich tapestry fabric, in which figures and scenes are woven in colours. ŒD

(11) Let her be defiled.—The seventy-fourth Psalm records the calamity foreseen by the prophet: “They have cast fire into Thy sanctuary, they have defiled (by casting down) the dwelling-place of Thy Name to the ground.” Look upon—i.e., contemplate her destruction with pleasure.

Verse 11. Many nations are gathered against thee] The Chaldeans, who were composed of many nations. And, we may add, all the surrounding nations were their enemies; and rejoiced when the Chaldean army had overthrown Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and led the people away captive. Let her be defiled] This was their cry and their wish: Let Jerusalem be laid as low as she can be, like a thing defiled and cast away with abhorrence; that their eyes might look upon Zion with scorn, contempt, and exultation.

11–13. Wonderful change in the fortunes of God’s people 11. Now also many nations …] The ‘many nations’ are either the Assyrians (comp. Isaiah 33:3), or the peoples who after their defeat come to worship at Jerusalem (Micah 4:1-2); but Micah 5:5 is in favour of the former view. They gather together to besiege Jerusalem (comp. Ezekiel 38, 39, Joel 3, Zechariah 12, 14); how fruitlessly, the next two verses declare. ‘Now also’ should rather be And now. There is an implied contrast to the ideal description in Micah 4:1-4; we have already seen that the original draft of chaps. 4, 5. has received various additions, and in order to get a clear connexion, we ought to inclose these inserted passages in parentheses. Thus if we bracket Micah 4:5-10, Micah 4:11 becomes perfectly clear, and the original sequence of thought is restored.

Now also - (And now.) The prophet had already spoken of the future before them, with this word Now. Then, he distinctly prophesied the captivity to Babylon.

Deliverance of Jerusalem; destruction of the enemy, 11-13.This picture, like the preceding, starts from the present calamity and ends with a promise of complete victory.