the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Micah 5:1-15
God has just been speaking about the restoration of Israel and of the conflicts that will accompany it (Micah 4:1-13). Now He identifies the One who will be at the same time the Ruler and the Instrument of deliverance. In Christ, God will fulfil all His counsels. He "whose goings forth have been . . . from everlasting" had to be born in Bethlehem, a little town of Judah (see Matthew 2:3-6). And He, the Judge of Israel, will be smitten by His own blind and wicked people (v. 1; Isaiah 50:6). Thus we can understand God’s feelings as He announces His coming glory and declares, ". . . now shall he be great . . . and this man shall be the peace". These expressions are equally sweet to the heart of each one of the redeemed!
At the same time as this chapter speaks to us of the Lord Jesus, it also speaks: first, of Israel – the deliverance and blessing of the remnant are bound up with the majesty of the name of the LORD; second, of the Assyrian, the enemy of the end time. This latter, to his loss, will meet the Shepherd of Jacob, whose charge is not only to feed His flock (v. 4), but to defend it. At last evil in all its forms will be rooted out from the land (vv. 10-15). The purge carried out by King Josiah gives us a picture of it (2 Chronicles 34:3-7).
