The major theme of Micah is justice, or rather the great amount of injustice found throughout Israel. He first attacks the false worship of the people, which of course is essentially an injustice towards God. Then he attacks the injustice of the leaders and the rich among Israel who devour his people like cannibals, as you recall in chapter 3. This he does in three cycles of prophecies in the book.
We’re in the last cycle here. Each cycle is beginning with bad news and ends with good news. The longest section of good news is here, in this chapter, in this section.
It is, in fact, from these verses, verse 8 to 20, a concluding hymn of four stanzas, one commentator describes it as. We have the triumph over the enemies, we have the rebuilding of his people, or the rebuilding of the wall, a prior sermon, and then these verses, described as the resumption of his marvelous deeds, what I prefer to call eating food or licking dust. Justice is not lost in this hymn.
The theme is still here. Rather, it’s found in the great shepherd of the sheep who feeds the people with the truth, exercising the justice upon the enemies. Justice is still here.
Justice for his people, he protects them, he feeds them, and justice upon the enemies of God. We have here, then, Israel’s Savior will feed her, will feed God’s people, verses 14 to 15. It starts out with the plea of the prophet Micah, shepherd your people with your staff.
Israel’s Savior Will Feed Her
God, please come. The prayer of the great shepherd is what we seem to have here, calling upon God in this time of need. Be with us.
We are sheep, scattered, lost, in fact, being devoured by our own shepherds, the underlings, the leaders of Israel. Micah 5.4, as you recall, and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall abide, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
The shepherd theme is there, a smaller theme to be sure in Micah, and it’s picked up here. It’s not lost upon their audience what he’s talking about. In fact, we read about it elsewhere in the Bible, such as Jeremiah 3.15, and I’ll give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
The prophecy both here and Micah, which turns out to be a prophecy, because he tells them they shall be fed, as in the days of old, as when you came out, and I will show them wonders. This is a smaller prophecy next to the big prophecy that many of you are more familiar with, Jeremiah 3.15, I will give you shepherds according to my heart. This is the future, after the exile, that God will do wondrous things for his people.
And when he says I will give you shepherds, in Jeremiah 3.15, according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding, who is the best of all shepherds who feeds his people? Who is the shepherd of shepherds? Jesus Christ. Exactly. And that’s why we read in John 10.11, I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. He will protect them. Jesus Christ will protect you and your soul.
Now, the idea of protection is emphasized in the prior verses when it says they will rebuild the walls. There’s actually an imagery of peace, the kind of walls being built there. Here it’s the feeding, that God will feed his people, that God will shepherd his people, that we are the flock of his heritage, that we will be fed in Gilead as in the days of old.
By his work on earth, Jesus Christ has lived and died for his people as a shepherd, protecting the sheep. We are the sheep. And he protects us.
He is being called upon here. Perhaps Micah is thinking of the future Messiah. He certainly is thinking of the Father, God, in the Old Testament sense, to shepherd and to guide and protect his people.
That is the imagery of a shepherd in the Old Testament. It is not only and merely reducible to what perhaps many of you are used to or thought of growing up as a kind of romantic, soft, fatherly figure who is there for you, to shepherd you along, to be here, come on, you can do it. Is that what you think Pharaoh did? Or Nebuchadnezzar? And yet they were called shepherds.
It’s a common theme in the ancient Near East. It’s a picture of the King. Now it softens the picture of the King to be sure because the imagery is supposed to also be, and it is used, that they are called fathers of the land because they are supposed to take care of you as their people, as a family.
So it is supposed to soften and make them more palatable to be sure. And in fact, of course, we know in the Bible, the imagery of the kings and the like is to remind them that they are not the supreme power God is and they are supposed to be humbled and supposed to serve the people and not lord over them, although they are still supposed to rule. So the idea of a shepherd is an idea of a kingly rule, a kingly rule to be sure that it’s personal, that he cares about you and not other nations.
I mean, what would you think of your king or your president going across the world and concerned about all these other problems, but who cares about you guys? I know you don’t have enough water in Flint, Michigan. Ah, oh well, over there in the Middle East, they’re starving. We’ve got to give them some food.
You know, that kind of thing. So this emphasizes the fact that they are taking care of their own people, even if they are a king. In fact, they like them to be king.
They want them to be strong because you don’t want a weak, effeminate father, do you? You want him to be strong to protect you. And so it’s the best imagery of both combined together. A strong leader with a staff who’s guiding, who’s ruling, who’s disciplining, who’s exercising justice, as well as doing it with the heart of a shepherd because he loves them, because he wants to take care of them and he wants to protect them.
In fact, we’re told in 2 Samuel 5.2 that David is told to be a shepherd. He’s supposed to feed the people, it says. Quite interesting, the imagery of a shepherd given to the kings.
And so, of course, he’s given to God the greatest of all king of kings and lord of lords, the greatest shepherd. And he has a staff. Shepherd your people with your staff, which apparently, in some of our cases, as we know, means a quick whack on the skull to get your attention because you’re not paying attention.
The sheep are not paying attention. The staff is there for protection. That’s why it’s supposed to be there.
To protect us from ourselves, the imagery, of course, of sheep, I’ve been told, I’ve not ever worked on a farm, that sheep are pretty stupid. That they can drown in a puddle of water. Okay.
I see people nodding their heads, though. Now, I don’t think you’re stupid. But you can be deceived.
And sheep can be deceived. We can all be deceived. Or just simply ignorant.
Things we don’t know. Lots of things we don’t know. It takes time.
And so God is our shepherd and he protects us. And the one way he protects us from ourselves is as the shepherd, as Jesus Christ is the great shepherd, how does he shepherd his people? By fulfilling Jeremiah 3.15, where he says, I will send you shepherds, plural, who will feed you according to my will, not according to their own desires. That’s the pastor.
We are prophesied in the Old Testament. There is no office of pastor, as we have it in the New Testament, in the Old Testament. The closest you have is perhaps a priest, because he teaches, but he does more than teaching.
He’s killing animals. I don’t kill animals. I’m not in the temple.
But I do lead in worship. That’s the closest parallel. The other one would be the prophet.
Right? They teach. And they’re yelling. And they’re trying to get your attention.
But we’re not prophets either. We don’t have divine revelation. So it’s kind of a combination of both offices.
And they taught a lot more than the priest did, I think. So the staff for protection, the staff is given to the church in the form of discipline. It’s by Jesus Christ raising up shepherds to feed his people under shepherds.
And from others, the staff protects us from ourselves and protects us from others, outside of the fold. And of course in the Micah context, we have Assyria, Babylon, and the like. And God does protect them.
He did that for a long time. And eventually they’re going to exile, because they took God for granted, didn’t they? Ah, we can disobey. We can get away with it.
But eventually he does conquer their enemies, and they’re brought back to the land of promise. And ultimately, of course, it’s the enemies of God. In the Old Testament, because of the miracles of the prophets and the way God designed the Old Testament church, to attack Israel was to attack God’s people that clearly.
And so if a country attacks the country, that’s what you had back even today. If you attack Israel, you’re attacking God’s people. Every nation that attacks God’s people is an enemy of God.
Today it’s not quite like that, because all the nations in the West, wherever any of them, I mean Germany still kind of has this church membership of sorts, but not really. It’s defunct. They’re really apostatized.
To attack Germany, to attack England, to attack America, is not to attack God’s people as such, although you are doing it in the midst of attacking them, because God’s people are there. Not quite the same thing, but that’s what’s going on. The enemies of God are now the enemies of Christ in the New Testament, even up until today.
Muslims, if they are devout Muslims, are enemies of God, because they’re saying, we don’t believe in Jesus Christ. Is that clear? Mormons, they’re enemies of God, etc. Satan is the greatest enemy, and he will be slain by Christ Jesus at the Second Coming.
Now the staff is not only for protection, the staff is also for direction, for directing us and guiding us, and not just simply correcting us. Here’s the path. This is the way to go.
This is how you need to live your life as a follower of the Messiah. It directs us, in fact, towards greener pastures, to flock your heritage, the flock of your heritage, who dwell here singly in the midst of caramel, let them feed, rather, in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. Bashan and Gilead were famous for having good pasturage for flocks and being places of fruitfulness, one commentator points out.
So in other words, again, like the imagery of the prior stanzas of the wall, it’s a picture of peace and prosperity, of feeding to your heart’s content, with a wall around the field to protect you. As in the days of old, he says. So he’s hearkening back to what? Clearly, verse 15, as in the days when he came out of the land of Egypt and I showed you wonders.
The great deliverance, a common theme of the prophets to remind them, this was your history. God actually worked in time and space to deliver you from that evil, wicked shepherd, who was not really a shepherd, a pharaoh. And I called you out and brought you to the land of promise.
The number of times the Psalms and the prophets allude to these things reminds us of this picture, is ultimately a picture for us of what Christ has done for us when he came to earth in time and space and deliver us from the terrible, tyrannical rule of Satan. As in the days when he came out of the land, I will show them wonders. The spiritual bondage towards Satan, which is what Egypt pictures ultimately, is overcome by the wonders of God, by the power of God, by the word of God.
The idea of wonders there, the vast majority usage of that word, are the miracles of God. Not just, well that’s kind of interesting, but miracles, that would certainly make you wonder. It’s a wonderful thing to see, to behold.
You stand in awe of the power and the majesty of God when you see the miracles, when you read the miracles, in particular of Christ. Micah is pointing to the future of Christ, Christ’s miracle of feeding 5,000 people, of turning water into wine, of his resurrection, of his ascension. These really happened.
We can read about them like Micah and his audience heard about them. They weren’t there when Egypt fell. They know about it.
It’s part of their history. This is part of our history, Jesus Christ and what he has done. So we go back to the Bible to stand in awe of what Christ has done and continues to do for us.
Ultimately, the day of Pentecost we read when the Holy Spirit fell upon the people of God. That was also part of the miracle prophesied here. A great deliverance.
But the good news of the shepherd bringing protection and direction is only half the good news. It also includes destruction of his people, of his enemies, the enemies of his people. Israel’s enemies will eat dust.
Israel’s Enemies Will Eat Dust
We read here, the nations shall see, see what? All that we read before, the rebuilding of the walls, the green pastures for his people, of the wonders of God. The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might. We thought we were powerful.
We’ve got nothing compared to this God. They shall put the hand over their mouth. Their ears shall be deaf.
They shall lick the dust like a serpent. They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth. What a graphic image.
A visceral image. That’s what they’ll be like. This is my first thought because of the response of the nations.
These are obviously nations who have not repented. These are obviously nations who are enemies because if they have repented they’ll be in the green pastures. They’ll be there rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem because they want to.
They’re the Gentiles that are converted. These are not. They shall see and be ashamed.
They shall put their hands over their mouth. They shall eat the dust of the earth. They shall be in shock and they shall be in awe.
Kind of like the Bush era. They call it the shock and awe tactic as you recall. Based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.
It’s a nice summary of the Bush doctrine or Cheney actually. Shock and awe. That’s what you see here.
God does these miracles and they’re just brought low to nothing. Which is of course ultimately fulfilled Christ’s second coming. That will be the greatest of all miracles.
The resurrection of the dead. And the nations shall quake and they shall be destroyed as we read in Revelation. They’ll bring all their powers and might as they can and have over the ages and it’ll mean nothing.
It’ll go nowhere. They’re going to be destroyed. They’ll be in shock and they’ll be in awe.
This is what will happen to God’s enemy when Christ returns and overwhelms them. They roll over and give up. There’s nothing they can do.
They’ll be dumbfounded. The enemies of God’s church, to those who mock God, to those who mock God’s Christ, to those who mock God’s people. They, they brothers and sisters, they shall lick the dust like a serpent.
They shall crawl from their holes like the snakes of the earth. They shall be afraid of the Lord our God. They shall fear because of you or of him, because of God.
It’s a picture of submission, of humiliation, of being conquered. This is the enemies of God. This is their plight brothers and sisters.
Those who wish to kill and destroy our brothers and sisters. They’re in Africa. They’re in Asia.
They’re in the Middle East. If they repent not, they shall eat the dust of the earth. They shall crawl on their bellies in fear, in pure intimidation, because they were nothing before our God.
And they would, how dare they spit in his eyes by spitting in the eyes of his people. God is not mocked. He will be avenged.
His people will be avenged. That’s what this picture is, a shocking picture. The powers that be, thinking they have won against Israel, against God’s people, and therefore against God, will find out in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, that they were wrong, that their victory was temporary, but Christ’s victory is forever.
They will eat the dust like a serpent. What do we see here in particular? Who are these enemies? They are the unrepentant enemies ultimately. We don’t know who the reprobate are.
At the same time, we know an enemy when we see it. They can tell you in the Middle East, these are my enemies. They wish to wipe out Christians, as Christians.
Not because maybe you’re a bad neighbor. Not because they don’t like some things about you. But because you’re a Christian.
So don’t make your personal enemies the enemies of Christ necessarily. That’s what we have to be careful of. These are enemies of the Church, enemies of the Gospel of Christ and the like, and they’re unrepentant enemies.
As we’re reminded of what Christ says, if you are not for me, you are against me. In that sense, everyone is an enemy who is not a Christian. But there are those who raise up their hand against God’s people, as they are in the Middle East.
It’s one thing to be left alone, as they were in the desert when Israel came out of Egypt, and Israel was asking for food from their cousins. They’re in the desert, they need some food, they haven’t gotten to the Promised Land yet. These are pagans, so they’re enemies in a formal sense, but not in an active sense.
It’s just kind of, we’re here, we don’t care to follow your God. And some of them helped and others didn’t. But these are obviously enemies, nations who have risen up, powers that be, who take an active pleasure, even, in going after God’s people and destroying them.
The enemies of Israel, in other words, are the followers of the serpents. You can clearly see the allusion here to the serpents, that old serpent Satan, the devil. These, since they have thrown their lot in with the devil, instead of Jesus Christ, instead of submitting to his law, instead of submitting to his rod as a shepherd, they submit to the chains of the devil.
And they will have the consequences of the devil. They will have the judgment of the devil. And what is the judgment of the devil? Well, we read about it, first of all, in Genesis 3.14, which clearly, obviously, Micah knew about, and the Jews.
So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle and more than every beast in the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat the dust all the days of your life. That is judgment.
And all those who will not repent and bow their neck to Jesus Christ will eat the dust instead. We will be exalted, because when we bow, we’re down to the dust, aren’t we? But then we’re lifted up as Christ lifts our chin up and says, You are mine, I have adopted you, you have submitted to me, and you will come with me in glory. Everyone else will bow their heads and never raise it again.
They will be eating dust for eternity. That’s a horrid image, a horrible image. But it’s a just image, and it’s a true image, isn’t it? And we read again in Romans 16.20. This prophecy slash blessing at the end of Romans, Paul gives it to the church of Rome.
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. It’s under his feet, and he’s crushing Satan, the serpent. What does that mean? He’s eating dust.
He’s licking it. That’s all he’s got to eat. That’s all the nutrient he’s getting.
And it’s forever and ever. And it’s we, the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet. He’s done it already with Christ, and it will be accomplished through us.
God’s kingdom keeps growing, keeps marching, and we are part of that kingdom. And any who are in our way, that is, who will stand up like this, as opposed to perhaps going on to the side asking questions and wondering, they keep their hand up like this, they will be rolled right over into the dust. And it describes that they shall be afraid of the Lord our God.
And they ought to be afraid of the Lord our God. And that’s all they’re ever going to have is fear. Because they’ve not repented.
They’ve not trusted in him. They’ve not accepted him and followed his ways. And it should be an encouragement to us that our God is not a pushover.
Our God is a God of justice. He will execute a right for his people, for their good. They will get the just deserves of heaven through Jesus Christ.
And for the enemies, they will get the just deserts of hell, eating the dust, licking the dust, like serpents for the rest of eternity. Let us pray, brothers and sisters. Let us pray that God will stand true and every man be a liar.
That God will be with us and that we will not let go of him. He will continue to defeat us. And that anyone who hates his people, mocks his people or attacks his people and will not repent, they will be ashamed of their might.
They shall put their hand to their mouth. Their ears shall be deaf and they shall lick the dust like a serpent. Let’s pray.
Precious Lord and Savior, may we keep praying and working to the end, knowing that we know whatever go down this path. But above all, Lord, may we be encouraged and strengthened to know that although there is injustice thrown upon us now, we do not have perfect justice in this world. And even our own shepherds across this nation, Lord, are devouring the sheep.
We will, God, we will have you shepherding us in our hearts and bringing us to the great valley of wonders, the valley of Bashan and Gilead as the days of old, where we can feed in peace with the wall about us forever and ever in harmony with you. In your name we pray, God. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Amen.