Micah 4:4

"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it."

Here again, the import of the passage is that of spiritual confidence and joy of the redeemed in Christ Jesus. The more Christian a society becomes, the more nearly this perfect ideal is approached. It is impossible, of course, to apply this to literal Jerusalem, an impossibility that provoked Mays to declare that this "is a contradiction of Micah 3:12, and that it has no place in Micah."[16] Such a statement would have been impossible for any person who understands the passage. The tragedy of many in the critical community of scholars is that they are fundamentalists, having no ability whatever to discern the spiritual import of a passage designed to reveal the great spiritual verities of God's kingdom. (See the dissertation on that phenomenon in my commentary on James-Jude, pp. 289,290.

"Every man under his vine ... his fig-tree ..." Let it be observed that the ideal state set forth here "is not any kind of socialist or Marxist state ownership of all property";[17] the God-given status of private property is clearly discernible in it.

The pitiful blindness of the human race is apparent in the fact that sociologists actually suppose that it will be possible for carnal mankind to achieve such a society as that ideally set forth by Micah, through such man-made devices as the League of Nations, United Nations, World Court, or similar invention. As Allen said, "Bitter experience has shown the need for the missing ingredient,"[18] obedience to the will of God.

"The mouth of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it ..." This has the meaning of, "The Lord of the powers of heaven and earth." and affirms the authority of God himself for the passage before us. The enemies of God's word who would like to delete this chapter have nothing to offer. "The attacks that have been made have but a poor foundation. Their allegations are made unjustly."[19]