ant of mercy; but that the fault was altogether that
of the transgressors, who drew down upon themselves, by force. His
judgments.[2]

The prophecy closes with the promise in vers. 12, 13. It is introduced
quite abruptly, in order to place it in more striking contrast with the
threatening; just as, in iv. 1, there is a similar abrupt and
unconnected contrast between the promise and the threatening.[3] It is
only brief; far more so than in the subsequent discourses, and far less
detailed than it is in them. The prophet desires first of all to
terrify sinners from their security; and for this reason, he causes
only a very feeble glimmering of hope to fall upon the dark future.

Ver. 12. "_I will assemble, surely I will assemble, O Jacob, thee
wholly: I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will bring_ [Pg 435]
_them together as the sheep of Bozrah; as a flock on their pasture,
they shall make a noise by reason of men._ Ver. 13. _The breaker goeth
up before them; they break through, pass through the gate and go out,
and their King marches before them, and the Lord is on the head of
them._"

The remark, that almost all the features of this description are
borrowed from the deliverance out of Egypt, will throw much light upon
the whole description. In the midst of oppression and misery, Israel,
while there, increased by means of the blessing of the Lord, hidden
under the cross, to greater and greater numbers; compare Exod. i. 12.
When the time of deliverance had arrived, the Lord, who had for a long
time concealed Himself, manifested Himself again as their God. First,
the people were gathered together, and then, the Lord went before
them,--in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night:
Exod. xiii. 21. He led them out of Egypt, the house of bondage: Exod.
xx. 2. So it is here also. Ver. 12 describes the increase and
gathering, and ver. 13 the deliverance. In both passages, Israel's
misery is represented under the figure of an abode in the house of
bondage, or in prison, the gates of which the Lord opens--the walls of
which He breaks down. In this allusion to, and connection with, the
former deliverance, Micah agrees with his contemporaries, Hosea and
Isaiah. The deeper reason of this lies in the typical import of the
former deliverance, which forms a prophecy by deeds of all future
deliverances, and contains within itself completely their germ and
pledge; compare Hosea ii. 1, 2 (i. 10, 11); Is. xi. 11 ff.: "