Micah 5’s Prophecy of End Times Leadership
5 Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.
2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
3 Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.
5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.
7 And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.
9 Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.
10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots:
11 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds:
12 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:
13 Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands.
14 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.
15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.
Interpretations:
Who are these leaders? Have they already come?
One possible interpretation:
The seven shepherds are the seven angels of the seven churches in Asia in the book of Revelation who had to guide each of their churches respectively and the eight principal men are the eight authors of the Gospels.
Psalms 12:6 (KJV)
The words of the LORD are pure: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
So the writer is using it to refer to the words of God being attacked by the devil in the seven churches in Asia who will guide them no matter the brutality and attack on God’s word.
This means God will protect his word with seven church leaders by using seven angels to guide the flock by using the 8 authors of the Gospels.
Problems:
It was a specific time, and all immediately after “The Assyrian” (Son of Perdition reference) shall come into our land – Assyria wasn’t particularly powerful or dangerous during most of the Israelite time periods.
5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
But which Assyrian? If not the Son of Perdition.
“The first thing that jumps out to me is that Assyria fell 605 BC to Babylon and again in 330 BC to Alexander the Great. To this day, there exists an Assyrian culture, but the ancient empire never fully recovered and certainly wasn’t a threat to Israel or her occupier. By the time of Christ when, according to Matthew the chief priests and scribes interpreted Micah 5:2 to be an as-yet-unfulfilled prophecy, Micah 5:5-6 had already been accomplished! (For our purposes, whether Micah 5 was written around 750-700 BCE or in the early 5th century BCE doesn’t matter.) So Israelite hermeneutics (at least as represented by Christian sources at the time) weren’t especially concerned with interpreting the entire text consistently.”
Summary:
These men are our end times leaders, consistent with Obadiah 18. Meaning the worst is yet to come. (Future Tense)
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