Micah 4:13

"Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thy horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass; and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain unto Jehovah, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth."

"Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion ..." The character and nature of the church are inherent in what comes to view here. The true Israel in the final dispensation (the present) is Christ the Lord; and his church is fully and completely identified with him "in Christ" and "as Christ." The daughter of Zion would be precisely that church, or kingdom of the Messiah; and it is in her character of being "Christ, the true Israel" that she shall thresh the nations, a stern reference to the final judgment. This is not a prophecy that secular, fleshly, worldly Israel will conquer all the nations of the world and ruthlessly destroy them. That Someone will do so is surely taught; but that One is Christ to whom the Father hath committed the judgment of this ungodly world (John 5:27).

The metaphor of threshing the nations is a terrible one indeed. "The allusion is to the threshing machine studded underneath with iron spikes dragged over the threshing floor."[34] Some of Israel's enemies had actually executed such a horror upon them (Amos 1:3; 1 Kings 13:7); and the promise in this verse is that God will reward the wicked nations in kind, for their godless, evil ways.

"Devote their gain ... and substance ... unto the Lord ..." The wealth and glory of the whole rebellious earth will indeed, at last, be sacrificed to God in one flaming holocaust. Note particularly here that the wealth of the world is not to be appropriated by the state of Israel.

Deane saw in this passage the additional truth that, "The spiritual Israel, purified and redeemed, shall consecrate to the Lord the power of the world."[35]