Now, you may have heard this about walls. What are they good for? Some would say very little, others argue that they are downright immoral. But historically, nobody believed that anywhere.
That is, anybody of any kind of influence in any nation, in any civilization, in any city. For thousands of years, where we had barricades, fences, and walls to keep out, certainly at the very least, wildlife, but certainly wild humans. In fact, in Hebrew, there is a word for walled city.
Because it’s that common. It’s built into the idea. Not just a village, but a walled city.
In fact, there was a recent National Geographic article on the history of walls. You can believe that. It was pointing out the various benefits of the wall, or of walls, the chief of which is the resulting peace and security.
Okay? With a wall, the gardens and the fields would need less hands to protect it, wouldn’t it? Got a wall. Someone could try to watch the wall, but you don’t need as many people there now, and they could therefore be used elsewhere for more work, or other work. The resulting security meant more time and more manpower for other jobs, other than defense.
Peace brings about peace time, recreation, time for people to invent things. I think, as I recall, the article actually argued that walls help with writing. It’s kind of hard to invent and to write if you’re being attacked all the time.
And you don’t have security, and you don’t have peace. People are not going to easily prosper and explore and invent if wild animals or disturbing marauders are a constant problem. And they were.
We forget how much prosperity we’ve had in peace in the last 100, 200 years in Western civilization, even longer. And that is why the Old Testament uses the imagery of walls to describe both peace and security. It wasn’t just, isn’t it great they’re building a wall? It’s a group project.
No, it’s the imagery behind it. What’s the idea of a wall but peace and security? That’s what it’s an image of, a metaphor. And of course, broken walls, as mentioned in the Bible, or even in Proverbs, is a picture for chaos and danger, being open to problems.
And this is what we see here in the prophecy of Micah. As we examine here more carefully, rebuilding of New Israel, verses 11 and 12. In that day when your walls are to be built, in that day the decree shall go far and wide.
Rebuilding of New Israel
Okay. An image of a restoration of Israel, not just, of course, the walls, as though Israel’s happy, yay, we got walls, now what? It’s everything that comes and accompanies the idea of a wall. Right? And that means peace and prosperity.
How will she be restored in the Micah context? And what is the Micah context then? To answer the question of restoration of the walls. That Israel would be judged by the invading army of Assyria. The invasion means taking over key cities, which means taking over fortified walled cities like Jerusalem, tearing them down, destroying them.
It means times of war, not peace. It means destruction and turbulence and chaos. And to have the rebuilding of the walls, therefore the opposite of all the punishment prophesied in Micah.
That’s what’s happening here. The end here of chapter 7, where we have four refrains or hymns. This second hymn, as it were, describes the peace and prosperity that will be coming to them.
The evidence of their ultimate victory over their enemies. Although here, in the language of a wall, of a decree to go forth to build that wall, is how I take that decree, even to call people from Assyria and fortified cities. Isaiah 60.10. Recall, this is why I went over some of the background information, Micah chapter 1. Who was a contemporary of Micah? Isaiah.
Micah tended to be around the poor and the middle class. Isaiah apparently had some perhaps royalty or upper class connections and background. So in Isaiah 60.10, contemporary prophecy, the sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, and their king shall minister to you, for my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have mercy on you.
You see that? And so here, when it talks about the rebuilding of the wall, and then the decree shall go forth, and that day that shall come to you, the decree to build the wall, to call those from Assyria, from the fortress to the sea to the sea, to come to Jerusalem and build the wall. That’s a blessing, isn’t it? Not only do you have peace and security with this wall, the imagery of what that means, but that your enemies are building the wall. So, Micah’s audience is being encouraged, in other words, with this prophecy, the end here, the end of the three cycles of prophecy in Micah, that is fulfilled partially in the first return from Babylon.
If you recall, they come back in the return. In fact, Cyrus sends them back, sends them back with his blessings. Amazing that that is, a pagan king.
Isaiah 44.28, another passage in Isaiah, who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasures, saying to Jerusalem, You shall be built into the temple, your foundation shall be laid. This did happen. This was fulfilled there partially in the first return of Babylon, but ultimately it was fulfilled in the first coming of Christ, is what this ultimately points to.
Isaiah 11.11 gives us the universality of this, as much as this verse 12 does. In that day, they shall come to you from Assyria, fortified cities, the fortress, the river, the sea, and from the mountains to rebuild your walls. What’s interesting there, the one commentator points out that that word wall does not mean barricade or defensive wall, but a wall that you create during times of peace.
Just a simple, probably a low-level wall that you put up around your fields, for instance. There’s different words for that. So that reinforces the idea of peace and prosperity coming now from four corners of the world, apparently.
Isaiah 11.11, the universality of this future prophecy. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnants of his people that shall remain from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hama, from the islands of the sea. At first blush, this could be read as a biological scattering of the Jews being called back into the land.
And, of course, they were, to some extent. We read that in Acts 2, at the Feast of Pentecost. It gives a list of all the places they came.
These were biological Jews, became converted either for the first time, or they were already saved, and now they’re confessing Christ. But so were the Gentiles. It was also the Gentiles’ prophecies here, and in particular Isaiah 11 and elsewhere.
Or in that day, you heard that refrain, and you had a similar language here in the day of the decree going forth. The Old Testament teaches that not all Israel is Israel. Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of the remnants, and I read that there in Isaiah 11.11. In that day it shall come to pass that the Lord will send his hand again the second time to recover what? All Israel? It doesn’t say all Israel, because all Israel is there in the land or scattered.
I mean, all, all, all everywhere. It says the remnants. Already in the Old Testament, God is saying, I’m not calling all the Jews.
I’m calling some of the Jews the remnant. Micah does as well. Micah 5.7 and 4.7. I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast off from a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion forevermore, even forever.
It talks about the remnant as well in Micah and in Isaiah 11.11 and in Jeremiah elsewhere. It should be striking to the audience of the Old Testament if they had ears to hear that God doesn’t say I’m bringing back all Israel that was scattered, but the remnant. Paul teaches this.
You know where this is going, right? Romans 9.22. What if God wanted to show his wrath and to make his power known, endure with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory? Even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also the Gentiles. So he goes talking about election and predestination and then ties it into the calling of the Gentiles here in chapter 9. This is verse 24. Even we, not the Jews, but also the Gentiles as well.
Verse 25. And here is his evidence that it’s not just the Jews that are being saved, but also the Gentiles. And he says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not a people, and her beloved who is not beloved.
Verse 27. Isaiah also cries out, Though the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. There it is again.
There’s that word. Not all Israel is Israel. The true elect are called in the New Testament, and the old shell of the Jewish form of the church is cast away now.
So, Paul says this again in Romans 11.5. Repeating himself. But what about building walls? What about building walls? Jeremiah 31.38. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that the city shall be built for the Lord from the tower of Hamel to the corner gate. So there are other prophecies, not just the universality, the remnant being called from the four corners of the earth, the Gentiles, actual Assyrians, actual Romans and the like, not just biological Jews.
But they’re going to come to rebuild. The days are coming, it says in Jeremiah 31.38, that the city shall be built for the Lord from the tower of Hamel to the corner gate. Jeremiah 31, as some of you may recall, is a chapter quoted in Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews. Quotes Jeremiah 31 as evidence of the universality of the church, of the new covenants. That’s that chapter.
God says, I will call my people, I will make this covenant with them, that is, renew, essentially, the covenant of grace and make it manifest in the New Testament era. And he uses that as evidence that Jewish ceremonies are now gone. The specialness of the Jewishness is now cast away.
This is in Hebrews 8, chapter 8. And so when I’m quoting Jeremiah 31.38, that’s part of that prophecy. It talks about rebuilding of Jerusalem. You’re building the walls when you’re rebuilding Jerusalem.
So we can tie Micah here, through Jeremiah as well, to Hebrews. The rebuilding of the walls is fulfilled. In other words, the rebuilding of the wall is fulfilled by Christ in the New Testament era.
Just like the rest of chapter 31 of Jeremiah is fulfilled, as Paul argues in Hebrews 8. This is why I can say, this text isn’t just about the first return, but the return of Christ ultimately, as many of the prophecies are in the Old Testament. And the bringing in of many Gentiles who are not biologically Jews. In that day they shall come to you from Assyria, the fortified cities, verse 12, from sea to sea and mountain to mountain.
Now, what’s interesting here is this coupling of these two verses, or these two sections, 11 and 12, with 13. Yet the land shall be desolate because of those who dwell on it, and for the fruit of their deeds. What a strange juxtaposition.
That’s what you have here, this putting together of things that don’t seem to fit. You’re like, what? It sounds like it’s a glorious thing. You’re having a rebuilding of the wall, this peace and prosperity.
You have all these foreigners coming from far ends of the earth, obviously to build the wall at the very least, or at least to be part of this peaceful new revelation, a new time period. And yet it says the land shall be desolate. Is the land prospering or is it not prospering? What is going on here? Well, this startling contrast.
We have a picture of the glorious future of Israel as a glorious future of Israel without Israel, of Israel without the Jews. Because the land is desolate, why? Because of those who dwell on it, for the fruit of their deeds. Who dwelt in the land of Israel? The Jews, the biological Jews of the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ, the apostate Jews, as we see under Christ.
They didn’t come with arms open wide saying, this is wonderful, the Messiah is here, yay! They crucified him. I would call that a desolate land. So it’s not a desolate land in a literal sense, but a metaphorical sense of the spiritual desolateness of these people who rejected their own Messiah, who was of their own blood.
That’s what I see here. It’s not uncommon, of course, for the prophets to mix good with bad, where they’re talking, and they’re giving utterance of prophecies, and then they stop and say something very negative in the midst of wonderful things. And that’s what we see here as well.
The land is still desolate, because the restoration of Israel is the restoration of the remnants, not the Jews as Jews. That’s why. The remnant includes the Gentiles, as we saw in Romans 9, where Paul makes this connection.
Hosea, Isaiah, saying, there it is, they’re the remnant. The Gentiles are this remnant. It says they’re going to have all these people coming from Assyria, and from the river, from the mountains.
We read that at the end of Isaiah as well. They’re coming from the four corners, from Egypt and everywhere, coming to Jerusalem, flowing to Jerusalem. And the dispensationalists and the Jews, pretty much the same as some of those Jews, a lot of Jews are unbelievers, have the same idea of this naive literalness that Paul doesn’t take up at all.
In fact, Paul’s more literal, because Paul says, the Bible says, remnant. It’s there in the Old Testament. You can’t get around it.
I gave you several of the prophecies there. That’s literal. You take what the Old Testament tells you, which is, it’s a remnant.
And when it therefore pictures people from Egypt, people from Assyria, it’s really people from Egypt and people from Assyria, not necessarily Jews. They may be Jews, as we saw in Acts 2, for instance. But that’s not the point.
The point is, the New Testament era is a glorious era that the Old Testament saints saw faintly. They couldn’t fully comprehend that, you know, 1800 years of the Abrahamic religion is going away. Not the kernel of it, the substance, which is belief in the Messiah, justification by the Messiah, sanctification by the Messiah, the Trinity, the return of Christ, and all those things that we believe as well, for they are our spiritual forefathers.
But the husk, the form, the Jewishness is now gone and cast away. God says, I’m done with it. And he ties that, I’m done with the Jewishness, with the apostasy of the Jews, being a desolation there in verse 13, because of those who dwell in it, and the fruit of their deeds, their wicked deeds.
And we see that, of course, the wicked deeds in Micah, where they hated their own people, they devoured them like cannibals, and they were unrepentant. That’s the big thing. They were unrepentant.
The Gentiles don’t have to be Jews anymore. It’s the true Israel of God. Not all Israel is Israel, but those whose hearts are circumcised, Paul says in Romans 2. That’s this verse in 13.
Destruction of Old Israel
Verse 13 is a picture of the biological Jews who did not convert. They are desolate. The prosperity of a rebuilt wall, that picture of peace and security, where you can be in your own fields now and not be worried anymore about being invaded by Assyria, is not given to the unrepentant Jews.
It’s given to the repentant Jews and the repentant Gentiles. All of us together, gathered in this New Testament era, ultimately fulfill when Christ returns, and the fullness of the elect shall come in, as it says in Romans 11. And all the true Jews that are Jews, that circumcision of the heart, will be gathered, gathered to the new Jerusalem, brothers and sisters, heaven, where we have this wall separating us from hell, giving us peace and prosperity forever and ever.
Brothers and sisters, it’s a wonderful picture here that we see. And let us pray that more people would be drawn in to the new Jerusalem. We are a picture of that new Jerusalem, the church, here and now, in a faint form.
It’s the center of God’s kingdom. And that many more would come, and that the preaching of the gospel would go forth and call these people from far away. Let us pray.
God and Savior, we thank you for these words. We thank you, Lord, how you startled your audience. Those who had repentant hearts would read this and realize, Lord, that there is a desolation in the midst of the prosperity.
We even see it, Lord, in the New Testament revelation, where those who are cast out, Lord, are contrasted with those who are brought in to the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven and have peace and prosperity forever and ever, God. May our hearts continue to be repentant, and may more be drawn in by the ministry of providence. In your name we pray.
Amen.