Micah 5:15

And I will execute vengeance in anger, and fury upon the Heathen,.... Or "nations" (o); not the Pagan nations only, but the Papal and Mahometan ones, even all that are enemies to Christ, and his

And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

I will execute vengeance: God speaks to our capacity, he will proceed, or act, as the Hebrew word signifieth. He is supreme Judge, to whom vengeance belongeth, and when he hath passed the sentence, and his instruments execute it, he takes it to himself: so when the Babylonians avenged the wrongs by the Assyrian done to the Jews, and when Cyrus with his Persians and Medes avenged the injuries of Babylon, this prophecy was partly fulfilled, and in succeeding times it was further fulfilled, and is now fulfilling, and so will be, until the final destruction of the wicked. In anger and fury: this spoken after the manner of man; it includes the greatness of God’ s just displeasure, and the effects of it, which are resembled to what we do when furiously angry, act with utmost strength, and in the most terrible manner we can; so God will, with as great severity and terror as flesh and blood can bear, proceed against these heathens. Upon the heathen; literally, the nations under the Assyrian monarchy first, next the nations under the Babylonish kingdom: in the full import of the words, all the nations that are enemies to the Lord, to his Christ, and to his peculiar people, who know not God, nor obey the gospel. Such as they have not heard; with unparalleled terror; and so they shall be made warning-pieces to others.

Micah 5:15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.And I will execute vengeance in anger] Upon those that refuse to be reformed, that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Thessalonians 1:8. Such as were the Jews’ enemies, the primitive persecutors, the stubborn Papists, some of whom have professed that they would rather take part with the Turks than with the Lutherans: as some rigid Lutherans again have protested openly, that they would return to the Papacy rather than to admit ever that sacramentary and predestinary pestilence (as they called it) of the Calvinists. But what a sad story is that related by Mr Burroughs, who had it from a worthy minister of those parts, that at Hamburgh was not long since held a consultation by some learned Lutherans, concerning the cause and cure of German calamities; and where it was concluded, that Germany suffered so much in these late wars, because their images in churches were not adorned enough, which therefore they would presently procure done. Had they consulted this text. they might soon have seen their mistake, and bethought them of better. But, "Lord, when thine hand is lifted up, they will not see: howbeit they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy towards thy people," Isaiah 26:11. Yea their ears shall be opened, and their instruction sealed, Job 33:16, that they might be accounted worthy to escape that vengeance, that shall be executed in anger and fury upon the heathens that have not heard the joyful sound, but, as so many sea-monsters, have with a deaf ear passed by the doctrine of salvation, the Gospel of peace.

(15) Such as they have not heard.—Rather, which have not been obedient—i.e., which had not availed themselves of the opportunities of learning the true religion.

Verse 15. I will execute vengeance - upon the heathen] And he did so; for the empires of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and others, the sworn enemies of the Jews, have long since been utterly destroyed.

15. the heathen, such as they have not heard] Rather, the nations which have not been obedient. Jehovah, being the God of the whole world, is de jure ‘King of the nations’ (Jeremiah 10:7); and if the ‘nations’ have enthroned other gods in His places, and have almost forgotten Jehovah’s existence, they are still responsible to Him.

15. The prophecy closes with a threat of vengeance. Vengeance — The references to the divine vengeance must be understood like those to the divine jealousy (see on Joe 2:18).