Micah 4:3

3. When Jehovah will be thus recognized as the Lord of all, an era of permanent world peace will set in.

Judge Better, arbitrate.

Rebuke Better, R.V., “decide concerning.” Difficult international disputes, which at other times would have caused war will be decided by Jehovah. With such an arbiter war will disappear; then the implements of warfare will be needed no longer, and they will be turned into implements of agriculture, and in time the art of warfare will be entirely forgotten (compare Joel 3:10). 4 In that blessed era the people of Jehovah will be allowed to enjoy undisturbed the blessings of peace; no enemies will be there to make them afraid. For the expression “they shall sit… ,” describing a condition of peaceful felicity, compare 1 Kings 4:25; 2 Kings 18:31. In the course of time the words may have become a proverbial saying (see on Joel 1:12). To dispel any doubt that might arise concerning the fulfillment of the glorious promise the prophet seals it by adding the solemn formula, “The mouth of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it” (Isaiah 1:20).

The exact meaning of Micah 4:5 and its connection with the preceding verses is somewhat uncertain. Perhaps it is best, following Isaiah 2:5, to interpret it as containing an exhortation to the listeners to do their share toward a realization of the promised felicity. The enjoyment of the glory described in Micah 4:1-4 is still a matter of expectation; the other nations are joined to their idols, and there is no move on their part to turn to Jehovah; even Israel is hopelessly corrupt (Micah 3:1 ff.). Hence, the prophet continues, if the ideal is to be realized it is high time to make a beginning, and this beginning must be made by the chosen people; Israel must turn to its God and live in harmony with his will.

Walk in the name “The name of God is that side of his nature which can be revealed to man; and to walk in his name means to live in mystic union with God as he has revealed himself, and under his protection” (see on Amos 2:7). To walk in the names of false deities must be understood similarly.

Forever and ever The union is not to be broken again (see on Hosea 2:19-20). If the above interpretation of Micah 4:5 is correct a better rendering would be, “Since (at present) all the peoples walk every one in the name of his god, therefore we will (or, let us) walk (the more resolutely) in the name of Jehovah our God forever and ever.”

To sum up, the chief features of the Messianic age emphasized in this passage are: 1. Zion will be recognized as the seat of Jehovah’s universal dominion. 2. The spread of the true religion will be accomplished not by the force of arms but through the moral influence going out from Zion. 3. There is to be no external world power; the nations will retain political independence; Jehovah, not Israel, will rule the world. 4. War will come to an end; international disputes will be settled by arbitration, Jehovah himself being the arbiter.

A few remarks concerning the fulfillment of this and similar prophecies may be in order in this connection. The hope expressed in this passage is not yet fulfilled; literally it will probably never be fulfilled; in spirit and essence it will reach its fulfillment, according to the universal Christian belief, when the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Jesus comes to be the dynamic of individual and national life and conduct everywhere. For a clear understanding of the details of the prediction and its fulfillment the following facts should be borne in mind: The prophets had a sublime conception of the character of Jehovah, and it is this conception which enabled them to apprehend, in a measure at least, the ultimate purposes of Jehovah for mankind; they were convinced that the character of the age in which man would permit God to have his own way must correspond to the character of the God whom they knew. But the glimpses and visions of the future did not remove the prophets from their present, and it is but natural that in their thoughts concerning the manner (not the fact) in which God would carry out his purposes they should be influenced by the circumstances of their present. For example, when the words found in Micah 4:1-5, were spoken, Israel was the chosen nation in which “all the nations of the earth should be blessed”; Jerusalem was the earthly dwelling place of Jehovah. The author looked upon Israel as a “servant” with a sublime mission, and he was sure that the nation would have an important part in the working out of the divine plan of redemption. That there ever could come a time when not even a remnant would be ready and qualified to carry out the divine commission, does not seem to have suggested itself to the minds of the prophets; and yet it follows naturally from their teaching, and it is a legitimate inference from the conditional character of all prophecy, that, if at some future time, through its own fault, the nation should prove itself incapable of carrying to completion its mission, some other “servant” must take its place, if God still desires to carry out his original purpose. The later history of Israel shows that through disobedience it cut itself off, as a nation, from God and from its place in his plan of redemption. As a result its place became vacated, and another “servant” had to be found. This other “servant,” Christians believe, was Jesus the Christ. With the cutting off of Israel the promises based upon the assumption that the nation would prove faithful became of no effect. Hence all elements of Messianic prediction connected with the nation Israel, such as the final exaltation of the nation, the permanence and unique place of Zion, and others, should be eliminated from all Christian expectations concerning the nature and character of the true kingdom of God.

The recurrence of these verses (with the exception of Micah 4:4, and with Micah 4:5 in a different form) in Isaiah 2:2-5, raises a literary question concerning the relation of the two passages to one another. If a dependence is recognized at all one of four explanations must be accepted: (1) Isaiah is dependent upon Micah; (2) Micah is dependent upon Isaiah; (3) both are dependent upon an earlier prophet; (4) it is a late passage, inserted in both books at a time subsequent to the eighth century B.C. “The passage was very possibly written and inserted in Micah after the exile, and copied from Micah by one of the editors of Isaiah” (Cheyne). Since only internal evidence is available, absolute certainty cannot be expected.

Against (1) it has been urged that Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, and that the former’s ministry did not begin until some time after the discourses embodied in Isaiah ii-iv had been delivered (that is, the reign of Jotham, see pp. 361ff.). Hence, in order to establish the dependence of the earlier upon the later, it must be assumed that Isaiah 2:2-5, was borrowed from Micah and inserted in its present place some time after the other prophecies in that section (chapters 2-4) had been spoken. In opposition to (2) it has been pointed out that in Micah the passage appears to be imbedded more closely in its context, while in Isaiah the connection is exceedingly loose; and this fact has been thought by some to prove that its original place is in Micah. For a long time (3) was generally regarded as the most satisfactory explanation. According to this view the utterance of an older unknown prophet was adopted by Isaiah as well as by Micah as a “classic” description of the ideal kingdom of God to which the prophets of Jehovah looked forward. The fact that in both books the passage begins with “and” has been thought to favor the idea that the prediction was torn from its original context. Most recent commentators favor (4), that in both books the verses are a later interpolation. This view is closely bound up with the claim that all Messianic hopes have their origin in the exilic or postexilic period (see p. 215). The possibility of such interpolation cannot be denied, but certainly there is nothing in the passage itself to compel one to consider it a late product On the whole, (3) offers the most satisfactory explanation.