Today we are going to take a look at some extrabiblical resources that you can use to impress your Sunday School the next time Micah 5:2 comes up in a conversation (Micah 5:2 appears as Micah 5:1 in the Hebrew Bible).
וְאַתָּ֞ה בֵּֽית־לֶ֣חֶם אֶפְרָ֗תָה צָעִיר֙ לִֽהְיוֹת֙ בְּאַלְפֵ֣י יְהוּדָ֔ה מִמְּךָ֙ לִ֣י יֵצֵ֔א לִֽהְי֥וֹת מוֹשֵׁ֖ל בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וּמוֹצָאֹתָ֥יו מִקֶּ֖דֶם מִימֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם׃
And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrath, Least among the clans of Judah, From you one shall come forth To rule Israel for Me— One whose origin is from of old, From ancient times. (Micah 5:1 JPS)
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” (Micah 5:2 NKJV)
Cuniform stuff
Perhaps it was in the context of Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem1 that Micah received the revelation that a Ruler in Israel would come from Bethlehem.
Sennacherib boasts of developing his royal city in the Stele of Sennacherib, which you can squint and try to read in the original language in the image below, or alternatively you an scroll further and read it in English:
Sennacherib, the great king, mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four regions of the world, favorite of the great gods.
Aššur and Ištar have given me an invincible weapon and have opened my hand for the destruction of the enemies of Assyria.
Trusting in their great might, I led my armies from one end of the earth to the other and brought in submission at my feet all princes, dwelling in palaces, of the four quarters of the world, and they assumed my yoke.
All that time I enlarged the site of Nineveh, my royal city.
I made its market-streets wide enough for a royal road and made the road shine like the day.
The wall and outer wall I caused to be skillfully constructed and raised them mountain high. I widened it most to 100 great cubits (c. 50 meters)
In days to come, that there might be no narrowing of the royal road, I had stelae made which stand facing each other. 52 great cubits I measured the width of the royal road, up to the Park Gate. If ever any one of the people who dwell in this city tears down his old house and builds a new one, and the foundation of his house encroaches upon the royal road, they shall hang him upon a stake over his house.2
While Sennacherib fortified his own city, he focused his attacks against the fortified cities of Israel (2 Kings 18:13; 2 Chron 32:1; Isa 36:1), but God proclaims that the future Ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, which is “little among the thousands of Judah” (Micah 5:2). He also responds to the prayers of Hezekiah and Isaiah by supernaturally causing Sennacherib’s downfall. Sennacherib servs as a foil to demonstrate the futility of man’s power against God’s elect nation verifies the sufficiency of God’s elect village for the purpose of bringing out the Ruler of Israel. The literal defeat of a literal king with the promise of a literal ruler from literal Bethlehem would correctly cause rulers in the area to perceive Bethlehem as a threat in years to come (I’m talking about you, Herod!).
Midrash stuff
Another significant detail that Micah provides about this coming Ruler is that His “goings forth are from of old, From everlasting” (5:2). A particular midrash exposes a faulty exegesis of this passage saying:
Whence we do know that the name of the Messiah (was premundane)? Because it is said, “His name shall endure for ever; before the sun Yinnôn was his name” (Ps. 72:17). “Yinnôn,” before the world had been created. Another verse says, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art to be least among the thousands of Judah, from thee shall he come forth unto me who is to be ruler over Israel; whose ancestry belongs to the past, even to the days of old” (Mic. 5:2). “The past,” whilst as yet the world had not been created.3
The midrash is correct in understanding that מִימֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם, “From everlasting” (NKJV) predates creation (as opposed to the implication of “From ancient times” as the JPS renders). It is also correct that Messiah is involved. The shortcoming is that the midrash forces Messiah’s “name” into Micah. The Psalmist records יְהִ֤י שְׁמ֨וֹ לְֽעוֹלָ֗ם, in the future sense, literally, “Let be His name – unto eternity.” Micah does not say that “the name of the Messiah” is from everlasting, but that Messiah Himself is from everlasting, but the only being that existed in eternity past is God Himself.
The plainest way of reading Micah 5:2 is that God will be this Messiah and He will come from Bethlehem.
- W. Eugene March in Harper’s Bible Commentary James Mays, gen. ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 734. Thomas Constable in his study notes on Micah cites Robert B. Chisholm Jr. Interpreting the Minor Prophets, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 131 and Leslie Allen The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah in The New International Commentary on the Old Testament series (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976), 242, 244, 301, as holding that Micah 2:12-13 referring to Sennacherib’s blockade.
- Source.
- Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer, 3:4