e light from Num. xxiii.
9 only[5]); and still more, if we consider that, in v. 1 (2), the
appellation Bethlehem Ephratah is likewise taken from Gen. xxxv. 19,
and that it is in ver. 21 of the same chapter that the "Tower of the
flock" is mentioned,--we shall certainly not be guilty of trifling, if
we assert that there is a suspicion of error and unsoundness against
all those interpretations which cannot connect the "Tower of the flock"
[Pg 460] in Micah with that which is spoken of in Genesis. But the
explanation which we have given is not liable to this charge. For why
should not Jacob, and the tower which he built for the protection of
his literal flocks, serve the prophet as a type and substratum for the
relation of a spiritual Shepherd? We must not overlook the truth, that
the main and secondary reasons which we have adduced, do not stand
beside each other, but run into each other,--are related to each other
as the general and particular. For the reason why the prophet had
specially in view the "Tower of the flock" which had been built by
Jacob was certainly this only: that it partook of the nature of all
such towers of the flocks. The _tertium comparationis_ is not thereby
changed; the figure is only more individualized, and, therefore, more
striking and impressive. A reference to the pastoral life of the
Patriarchs is certainly one of the reasons of the frequent use
of images taken from pastoral life. In a different way, _Hitzig_
endeavours to come to the same result. He supposes that the "Tower of
the flock" mentioned in Genesis was not situated in the neighbourhood
of Bethlehem, but is identical with the tower of the castle on Zion,
and of the castle of Millo which David already found existing, and
which was only more strongly fortified by him and by Solomon, 2 Sam. v.
9; 1 Kings ix. 15, 24, xi. 27. The figure of the "Tower of the flock"
was so much the more appropriate in the passage under consideration, as
the founder of the royal dynasty had been, for a long time, a shepherd
of the lambs, before he was elected to be a shepherd of the people, and
had thus himself prefigured his future relation--a circumstance to
which allusion is frequently made in Scripture itself; compare 2 Sam.
v. 2, vii. 8; 1 Chron. xi. 2; Ps. lxxviii. 70-72.

After having thus ascertained what is to be understood by the "Tower
of the flock," there can be no great difficulty in explaining the
"hill of the daughter of Zion." The daughter o