Why Bethlehem?Micah 5:1-6

Sermon Transcript11/27/16

Princes are born in palaces,1

Unless you’re the Prince of Princes;A meager manger will do.Not gemstones, silver, or gold,Like the glorious kings of old;Instead, wood, hay, and strawDecorate the nursery of the Ruler Over All.

Princes are born in palaces,Unless you’re the Son of God;Can any house really contain you?Perhaps the temple in Jerusalem,Or David’s royal house?Not the house of God, but the house of bread—Bethlehem Ephrathah, the smallest house of all!

Princes are born in palaces,Unless you’re the King of the Jews;No proper place to lay your royal head.Always on the move you’ll be,From Egypt to Nazareth, throughout Galilee,To Samaria and the Decapolis, and on to God’s own city,Where you will lay your royal head to rest.

Princes are born in palaces,Unless you’re the Savior of the World,Doomed to die for others’ crimes.Crowned with thorns, robed in blood,Pierced, crushed, dead—all for sinners’ good.“Vict’ry through your death,” the empty tomb proclaims!Now the Prince has his palace—a new creation filled with his friends.

Why Bethlehem? Why did God choose to do it this way? We’ve all sung the hymn that we just sang throughout lives, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and we’ve all known since childhood that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But, I’ve never raised the question until about three months, Why? Why is it important? Why does it matter that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? Why does the prophet Micah, hundreds of years before the event, announce that the Messiah would be born in this little town of Bethlehem? Who cares? Why does it matter? Why is it important where the Messiah would be born? And I hope to give you some semblance of an answer from the

1 Poem composed by Justin Langley, 10/29/16. This is the first time I’ve been moved during my study to compose poetry.

1

Scriptures this morning…but I’m probably going to disappoint you, just to give you a heads-up at the beginning.

But, to begin our exploration of this question, Why Bethlehem? we must begin with the announcement in the book of Micah, a passage of Scripture that we probably don’t often turn to except during Christmastime, and so I invite you to turn there in your Bibles to the book of Micah. It’s among those Minor Prophets, toward the end of the Old Testament. If you can find the book of Jonah, it’s right after that; if you’ve hit the little book of Nahum, just one page in your Bible probably, you’ve gone a little too far. The book of Micah, just a little 7-chapter collection of prophecies from a man named Micah, that we know very little about. We’re given, at the very beginning of the book of Micah, his timeframe, when he was active among the people of Israel, the people of Judah really, Micah was a prophet called by God to speak to the southern kingdom of Judah, to the Jews of the southern kingdom, and we’re told in Micah 1:1, The word of Yahweh that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. And so he ministered sometime during the times of three kings, but that doesn’t really help us much. Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were three consecutive kings over Judah who reigned over the course of about 100 years or so, and he was somewhere in the midst of that. What we know about these three kings is that Jotham did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh (2 Kgs. 15:34), and Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh (2 Kgs. 18:3-8), but that middle king, Ahaz, he was a bad boy; he did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh (2 Kgs. 16:2-4), and it’s my suspicion that Micah’s ministry largely was contained during Ahaz’s reign, because the book of Micah is largely a bunch of announcements of judgment and God’s wrath being poured out. Merry Christmas to you all!

But what’s interesting about the book of Micah is that, as Micah continues to just announce judgment and judgment, “God is going to judge you for your sins,” out of nowhere it seems he announces these bright, shining glimpses of hope. There’s no transition; he announces, “God’s going to judge you; God’s going to judge you…and he’s going to save you!” It’s just back-to-back, and it’s hard to get your bearings in this book. None of his sermons, if you will, are dated; this is a collection of his oracles probably given over many years, and they might not even be in consecutive order, so it’s hard to pin down exactly when he’s addressing whom and what he’s addressing specifically. But, with our passage this morning, we’re going to look at one of those bright glimpses of hope in Micah chapter 5, but it comes in a time that it seems actually can date with some measure of certainty, and for some reason, as I was preparing this message, a favorite classic work of literature kept popping in my head, A Tale of Two Cities, and so it’s going to come out in the message sometimes, and I’m not sure exactly where some of the correlations are, but Micah 5 begins with an announcement of hope, and it really is an announcement of hope in the worst of times. And if you’re remember reading A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps in high school, you’ll remember that that book begins, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”

And so here, we find Micah announcing hope to the people of Judah in the worst of times, and so if you’ve got your Bibles open to Micah chapter 5, let’s see what he has to say in these first two verses. Micah 5, let’s just start with verse 1, and we’ll see the worst of times that we’re talking about. He says, Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. Now, there’s a lot of figurative language in

2

there, and it’s difficult to pin down what’s going on specifically, but it’s likely that with the mention of siege here, we’re talking about 701 BC, an important year that you should all remember in all of your history, but not really. But, 701 BC is an important year in the Bible when a king of Assyria named Sennacherib came to lay siege to Jerusalem.2 His armies came to surround the city, and his armies taunted the Jews who were there,3 the military forces who were on the wall. Perhaps you remember the story; it’s recorded for us twice in the Bible, in the book of Isaiah and in the book of 2 Kings.4 And it’s under the reign of King Hezekiah, the one who did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and so it seems that the Jewish people are in big trouble. Assyria has come, 20 years earlier, and wiped out the northern kingdom, Israel, exiled the northern people, scattered them throughout the Assyrian Empire, and now he’s continuing his jaunt through the land, and he comes to Jerusalem and surrounds the city and besieges them, and Micah steps up as a prophet, and it seems here that Micah doesn’t really know what the outcome is going to be, because, if you remember the rest of the story, it ends well for Jerusalem. God shows up, essentially, and Sennacherib hears a rumor and he has to leave. He abandons Jerusalem and he goes back home and he never attacks the city.5 So, the people are safe.

But, here, Micah steps up, it seems not knowing that that outcome is what’s coming, and he announces to the people, “You need to get ready for this siege. You need to take it seriously.”6 “Siege is laid against us,” he says in verse 1. But the Hebrew is much more direct; it’s more literally, “He has set a siege against us.” And the “he” is God. You see, Micah is reminding the people of Judah that they are still under the judgment of God, that this army that surrounds the city is God’s doing; he has brought the Assyrians to come in and to bring judgment against the city. But, in this occasion, God’s mercy extends to the people, and they do not come in, but Micah doesn’t tell them that. Micah simply tells them, “You need to get ready. God has announced judgment against you for your sins, and you need to take it seriously and prepare for this siege.”

2 Bruce K. Waltke, “Micah” in Obadiah, Jonah and Micah (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 26; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), pg. 198, who writes, “The siege in view, to judge from the rest of the book and verse 6, is that of Senncherib. Accordingly the ‘now’ (AV, RSV) is 701 BC, and if so, the ruler is Hezekiah.”

3 Thus, “daughter of troops” is a figurative reference to the city of Jerusalem under siege. However, some view the siege in view as the attack of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, which would have been about 120 years after Micah’s ministry. For this view, see John A. Martin, “Micah” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary (edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck; Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), vol. 1, pg. 1486, who writes, “Jerusalem, besieged by the Babylonians (2 Kings 25:1), was called a city of troops (lit., “daughter of troops”), that is, a city surrounded by marauding soldiers. Micah challenged the people to marshal their troops, though of course her defense efforts were in vain because of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege. (This Heb. word for “siege” is used in the OT only of his siege of Jerusalem, 2 Kings 24:10; 25:2; Jer. 52:5; Ezek. 4:3, 7; 5:2).” Martin’s primary reason for seeing this as the later Babylonian siege is his observation that the Hebrew word translated “siege” is only used for Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, but this is not true, for the word appears in 2 Chron. 32:10 referring to Sennacherib’s siege under Hezekiah’s reign, which seems more likely to be what the prophet Micah was addressing, as most students of Scripture recognize.

4 Actually, the story is told three times in Scripture: 2 Kgs. 18-19; 2 Chron. 32; and Isa. 36-37.5 I confused this story with another. This is the occasion when the angel of Yahweh showed up and

slaughtered 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, causing them to retreat.6 Cf. Gary V. Smith, Hosea, Amos, Micah (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI:

Zondervan, 2001), pg. 524, who writes, “Since Micah is speaking to the militarized populace in Jerusalem (this ‘city of troops’), he is probably encouraging them to prepare to defend their city because of the approaching siege in 701 B.C.”

3

But, in verse 2, God himself speaks. And in your English Bible as you read it you might not see quotation marks here, but I’ve penciled in quotation marks here because God himself speaks. Micah warns the people, and of course it is God’s Word to the people through Micah, but God himself in verse 2 announces to them the hope that is coming. But it’s not what you would expect. You see, in verse 2, he addresses the city of Bethlehem. You would expect at this moment that God would show up and announce hope to Jerusalem! He’d say, “O Jerusalem, I’m going to send a ruler to rescue you.” But, no, it’s not Jerusalem that is the object of God’s address, but this little, insignificant town of Bethlehem. It’s interesting that the book of Micah can actually be sketched as a “tale of two cities.” There are a lot of that kind of imagery throughout the Bible; usually, the two cities that are being told about in the Bible are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the bad guys and Jerusalem is the good guys, but in this particular instance Jerusalem’s the bad guys, and the “tale of two cities” is not Jerusalem and Babylon, but Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Very unexpected.

So, let’s see this announcement of hope in verse 2. This is the verse that is so familiar to us because Matthew quotes it in his Gospel and talks about Jesus in these terms. So, let’s see what it says in its original context. God speaks: But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me7 one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. So, we might expect, “You, Jerusalem,” but, no, it’s “You, Bethlehem,” this insignificant city. This town whose name means “house of bread,” whose first mention in the Bible is back in the book of Genesis, simply to tell where Jacob’s wife Rachel was buried; she was buried near Ephrathah, Genesis 388 tells us. Ephrathah is the original name of this town, it seems,9 and it means “fruitful.” So, here, he puts the old name together with its newer name, from Micah’s perspective, Bethlehem Ephrathah, “the fruitful house of bread.”10 And he addresses this insignificant town, this small, backwoods place that no one would expect anything to come from, and he says, “It’s from you that will come forth for me, for Yahweh, for the Lord, a ruler in Israel.” Not from Jerusalem, not from the temple, not from David’s palace, but from this little town of Bethlehem.

But, in the final line, he says, to describe this ruler who is coming, is that “his coming forth is from old, from ancient days.” Now, many folks look at that line, and they see it as a reference to the Messiah’s eternal origin, that he is eternal. And that is true. He is; the Bible tells us that in a number of places, that the Son of God who would be the Messiah, the Savior of Israel and the

7 This phrase is emphatic in Hebrew, and Micah is probably drawing on Yahweh’s statement in 1 Sam. 16:1. So suggests Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), pg. 343, who writes, “As once he had told Samuel to visit Jesse because ‘I have provided for myself a king from among his sons’ (1 Sam. 16:1), so now he declares that from that ancient line will issue again a king for me, one who would fulfil [sic] God’s own purposes and be devoted to his will, like David of old.”

8 Actually, it was Gen. 35:19, and repeated again in Gen. 48:7.9 Douglas Mangum, “Bethlehem of Judah” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary (edited by John D. Barry et al;

Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2016), who explains, “Ephrath appears to be the earlier name for the town (Gen 35:16) since ‘Bethlehem’ is named in Genesis only to explain that Ephrath was Bethlehem (Gen 35:19; 48:7). ‘Ephrath’ may be a clan name with family ties to the tribe of Ephraim.”

10 Cf. Bruce K. Waltke, “Micah” in The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary (edited by Thomas Edward McComiskey; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009), pg. 703, who writes, “As in Micah 1:10-16 one may presume nomen est omen and Bethlehem (house of bread) and Ephrathah (fruitful) pregnantly portend Messiah’s career.”

4

world, he is eternal; he has existed always.11 But, it seems more likely that this line is pointing in a different direction. “Whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” is simply to say, “His lineage goes way back to something really, really important,” and Micah doesn’t come out and say it here, God doesn’t come out and say it here, but he seems to be pointing back that this ruler is going to come from the line of David, that his heritage is back from the very beginning of Israel’s history,12 that he is going to be that Davidic king that the Bible speaks so much about, the one who we know is, in fact, Jesus.

But, here and now, in the face of the siege, when it looks like all hope is lost, it looks like God’s judgment is going to come, breaking down the walls and annihilating the people of Judah, of Jerusalem, there’s this announcement of hope. But, it seems so distant. This ruler’s going to come? Well, when’s he going to come? Is he going to come right now, because the army’s here? But, no, he is going to come…later. And yet, that is their true hope. Not an army that would come to save them, not some other force that could overcome the Assyrians, that’s not the hope that God wants to draw their attention to; it is the descendant of David, the great king who would come to right all wrongs and to set all things in their proper places.

And so, he elaborates on this and continues to describe this ruler who is to come in terms of a shepherd. If you’ll look at verses 3-5, the first part of verse 5 at least, he’s going to describe this ruler who is going to come and shepherd God’s people; he’s going to restore God’s people and he’s going to be their shepherd. Look at what he says, verse 3; Micah speaks now. Micah’s heard this word from God, this announcement of great hope, and so he elaborates on it: Therefore—(in light of what God has just said about this ruler from Bethlehem)—Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. That first line in verse 3, you’ve got to figure out, who’s he talking about here? You’ve got a bunch of pronouns, and you’ve got to think about who’s being referred to. “Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth.” Who’s he? Who’s giving them up? Well, it’s Yahweh! It’s God who’s given them up to judgment. The people are under his judgment, even as he extends mercy to them in this occasion. They remain under God’s judgment “until the time when she who is in labor has given birth.”13 Now, here we might be tempted to see a reference to Mary, the woman who gave birth to the baby Jesus, that we celebrate during this season of Advent, but the reference to someone being in labor and giving birth is something Micah’s already talked about in an earlier announcement, and I want you to

11 See, for example, Col. 1:15-17; John 1:1-3; 17:5, 24.12 Almost the exact phrase here translated “ancient days” is translated “the days of old” in Mic. 7:14, where

it is certainly referring to a time earlier in history. It seems most likely that Micah uses the phrase the same way in both of these passages. However, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Mic. 5:2 contains a reference to the eternal origin of this ruler. Cf. W. Brian Aucker and Dennis R. Magary, “Micah” in The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), pg. 1703, who write, “The second time-related expression (‘from ancient days’; Hb. mime ‘olam), however, refers to ancient historical times both in Micah (7:14; cf. 7:20) and elsewhere (Deut. 32:7; Isa. 63:9, 11; Amos 9:11; Mal. 3:4); thus this text is referring to the Messiah’s ancient Davidic lineage, confirming that the ancient covenantal promises made to David still stand.”

13 Cf. Waltke, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, pg. 201, who writes, “From God’s proclamation Micah draws the logical inference (note the use of therefore) that Israel will be abandoned (i.e. the now of distress, 4:9, 11; 5:1, including the exile, 4:10) until the Messiah comes to inaugurate the new age.”

5

look back at this in chapter 4. On a different occasion, Micah speaks to the people of Israel, speaks to these Jewish people, and he mocks them. They’re groaning in the face of God’s judgment, but Micah mocks their groaning, and he announces that they’re going to go into exile, that God has announced his judgment, they will go into exile to Babylon, but he also promises to save them and restore them. Micah chapter 4:9-10. So, Micah’s addressing the people here, and he says, Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor? Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. And so Micah pictures the people of Israel as this woman in labor, as is so often done in the Old Testament. This woman in labor, these labor pains, is a picture of the experience of being under the judgment of God, being in exile in Babylon. But, the exile is going to produce something, and that’s where Micah turns in chapter 5; this ruler will come from the people of Israel. That’s the point. Yes, indeed, he would be born from the virgin, Mary, one of these Jews, but the point is that he is going to be among the people; he’s going to be a man from the people of Israel, from among their own stock, who comes from these people who are under the judgment of God, these people who have no hope.

And yet, this ruler is going to rise from this insignificant place called Bethlehem, and he’s going to become their shepherd, the shepherd of his people. After he’s born, “when she who is in labor has given birth,” that’s when their judgment will end, that’s when God will stop giving them up to their enemies. And then, after that, “the rest of his brothers,” the brothers of the ruler, the brothers of this shepherd “shall return to the people of Israel.” This is a picture of the restoration of the people, the coming back together of the people of Israel, God’s faithful people becoming whole again, after they’ve been broken because of their sin, broken because of their idolatry, broken because of God’s judgment. They will return, his brothers. Notice how he calls them that. Now, when we think about Jesus here, we know from the New Testament that Mary his mother had other sons after him; he had brothers. But that’s not the only way the New Testament talks about the brothers of Jesus. Jesus himself, perhaps you remember, on an occasion in his ministry when he was out teaching,14 some people came to him and said, “Your mother and your brothers are here looking for you,” and they were talking about Mary and his other brothers, his family members, and what did he say to them. He said, “These are my mother and my brothers.” He referred to the people who were following him, his followers as his brothers. And there are a couple of other places in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews in particular, that talks about Christians, talks about us, as being Jesus’s brothers!15 And so, in a glimpse here, we already see that picture that the restoration of the people of Israel that’s announced in conjunction with the birth of this ruler, the birth of this shepherd, the restoration of the people must be bigger than just the people of Israel. And we see that even coming down into verse 4: “He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh.” Well, who is the flock of this ruler? Well, here in this context, it’s his brothers! But, if you remember Jesus’s teaching in John chapter 10, when he talked about himself being the Good Shepherd, he talked about his sheep that he was going to gather, and he was talking about the people of Israel, he was talking about the Jewish people, but

14 See Matt. 12:46-50.15 See, for example, Heb. 2:11-12, 17; Matt. 25:40; Rom. 8:29. Cf. Waltke, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, pg.

201, who observes, “One hundred and twenty of the Messiah’s brothers were gathered in the Upper Room when he sent the Holy Spirit who turned the world upside down (Luke 3:16; Acts 2).”

6

he said, “I have other sheep and I must bring them also.”16 He was talking about Gentiles; he was talking about non-Jews coming together so that there would be one flock, since there is one shepherd. We are united as his flock together.

But that’s actually where Micah even continues to give us a picture here. “He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God, and they shall dwell secure, for now (at that time) he shall be great to the ends of the earth.” And so he’s not simply the shepherd of the people who live in that little plot of land in the Middle East; he’s the shepherd of his flock that extends to the ends of the earth. His greatness extends to the ends of the earth because he is the ruler of the ends of the earth.17 Perhaps you remember the promise in Psalm 2 to the descendant of David; he says, “Ask of me”—he’s saying, “You, the Messiah, the descendant of David, ask of me, God”—“Ask of me, and I will give you the nations, the ends of the earth as your heritage,”18 and Micah picks that up here, and he’s announcing that that’s exactly what’s going to happen. This ruler is going to draw together his people into one, and it’s going to be made up of the Jews and a restored Israel and all other peoples who will come.

And that’s where verse 5—verse 5 should really be the end of verse 4: And he shall be their peace. Whose peace? Everybody’s! Peace to the ends of the earth! Peace among all peoples! Peace between Jew and Gentile! Peace between man and God! This is the ruler who will be peace embodied. He will bring peace and he will settle his people to be at peace.

Micah’s turn next is a little strange and very difficult to understand. In the rest of verse 5 and on into verse 6, he speaks of more shepherds. He speaks of a bunch of shepherds and not just one, and so he seems to envision that this one ruler who’s coming is going to have, for lack of a better term, under-shepherds, who are going to provide protection against the enemies of God. Look at what he says; it’s very strange here: When the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men; they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border. Here’s what I think Micah is doing; this is very difficult for me to tease out, but this is what I think he’s up to. Micah’s looking at the threat at hand; he’s standing there among the people of Judah in Jerusalem, as the siege is being laid from the Assyrians, and so the threat he sees is the Assyrian. That’s who is at the door right now; that’s the danger, the threat against God’s people; that’s the enemy that he can see with his eyes, and so he grabs hold of that. But, I think he envisions all enemies of God’s people, all enemies of God himself; those who come against God’s people are kind of embodied in the threat at hand, the Assyrian that is there, and I think it can be extended and applied out to all enemies of God’s people.19

16 See John 10:16.17 Cf. Allen, Micah, pg. 347, who writes, “Indeed the usage of the phrase ‘the ends of the earth’ in the

Judean royal ideology implies a universal empire.”18 Psalm 2:8, which reads precisely, Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends

of the earth your possession.19 Cf. Waltke, Minor Prophets, pg. 710, who writes, “Again, note that Assyria is a synecdoche for all of

Israel’s enemies and that Micah represents the messianic age by using the traits of his own age.”

7

So, he’s picturing a time once the shepherd has come; he’s picturing a time once the shepherd has established peace, and yet there’s still a threat, there’s still danger. What will they do? How do they deal with the threat? It says, “We will raise against them seven shepherds and eight princes of men.” This, I think, is a figure of speech. You’ve seen it before, if you remember from the book of Proverbs.20 You have this little poetic form; they will talk about three and then four, three and then four, and it’s simply a poetic way of saying a whole bunch and there’s an emphasis on the last one usually, but here the number is seven and eight for whatever reason. But I don’t think he’s got in mind seven specific, particular individuals, I don’t think, or eight particular individuals; it’s a figure of speech. It’s a strange one to our ears at least, but it’s pretty common in the biblical world. Seven shepherds and eight princes of men, is simply saying there’s going to be a bunch of them. The Lord will raise up shepherds, who are going to do what? Verse 6, “they are going to shepherd the land of Assyria,” the threat at hand, “with the sword.” Now, again, I think he’s using the threat at hand; if they’re going to have protection from the Assyrian, typically it’s going to be with a military force. We need a sword, we need weapons to protect ourselves from the threat that has come against us. We’ll see, I think, in just a minute how this gets extended over when we look at some of the fulfillment of this, so I want to go on from that for just a bit.

Notice the key thought here in Micah’s mind; it’s not these shepherds; that’s not really the point. They’re going to do this shepherding with the sword, notice at the end of verse 6, “he”—goes back to the first shepherd, the ruler—“he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our borders.” So, the key thought is that this ruler is going to bring protection to his people through the work of others. He’s going to use under-shepherds, if you will, to protect his people. That’s the key thought, I think.

Now, if this announcement from Micah the prophet to these Jews in Jerusalem is supposed to announce hope in the worst of times, as I think it did, when we look at the fulfillment that’s given to us in the New Testament, we find that the fulfillment of this prophecy brings us, produces the best of times. So, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to see some of this fulfillment. Matthew chapter 2 is where we’ll begin. We’re going to flip a few times in our Bibles, if you’ve got one there, you can follow along. Matthew chapter 2 is the famous one that we are most familiar with, Matthew chapter 2 verses 1-6. This is one page of the Christmas story. Matthew 2:1-6: Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” And notice that, there’s something I’d kind of forgotten; most of the time we talk about the star of Bethlehem; we talk about how it leads the wise men to the baby in Bethlehem, and eventually it does, but notice that at first they see the star, but they don’t go to Bethlehem; they go to Jerusalem first. They go to Jerusalem and say, “Where is he supposed to be born? The star didn’t tell us that.”

Verse 3: When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the

20 See, for example, Prov. 30:15, 18, 21, 29. Also, elsewhere in the Minor Prophets, see Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6. This is the only biblical example of “seven and then eight,” although Eccl. 11:2 may reflect a similar idiom.

8

Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that that’s not exactly the way it reads in Micah 5:2. It’s a little bit different. And, you see what these scribes have done is that they’ve taken Micah 5:1-6, the whole passage, and kind of summarized the point. They got the main piece there: Bethlehem is the place, but then they brought in this language of “the ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” That was an important feature of this prophecy that they wanted to bring out. So, we have evidence here that at least some Jews in this time period read Micah 5 and recognized that it was talking about the birth of the Messiah. So, that is one aspect of the fulfillment: the ruler has come! He’s been born! That’s what we see here; the ruler has been born in Bethlehem, as he said.

Flip to Ephesians chapter 2 to see another element of the fulfillment of this prophecy as the New Testament writers talk about it. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 14-16, Paul the apostle writes, For he himself—(that is, Jesus the Messiah)— he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. If you remember from Ephesians 2, this is Paul’s great statement about harmony and peace in the body of Christ, and his focus is Jew and Gentile together with God. That’s his big point in Ephesians 2 and on into chapter 3, and he highlights this. I think he’s quoting Micah 5:5a, that first line of Micah 5:5, to say that this ruler who would come is our peace. Whose peace? The peace of all of God’s people, Jew and Gentile together. What is peace? No more hostility; no more hostility between God and us, and no more hostility between Jew and Gentile. God has established peace through Jesus the Messiah, through his death, ultimately. When we think about the birth of Jesus, we dare not stop there and simply celebrate his birth. His birth was always leading to his death. He became a man so that he could die as a man, and in his death he has broken down the hostility between Jew and Gentile and between God and man. No matter what separates us, no matter what differences we have, they don’t matter anymore if we’re in Christ. We are united; nothing separates us from God, and nothing should separate us from each other. And that’s Paul’s point here, and he’s showing the fulfillment of Micah’s great announcement of the birth of the ruler.21

But there’s one more piece that I think comes out, if you turn to the book of Acts, about these other shepherds that I believe is some measure of fulfillment of this shepherding language. Acts chapter 20. Micah looks at the work of the great shepherd in bringing peace, and then he pictures the reality that there’s still going to be hostility, there’s still going to be enemies, there’s still going to be danger and threats to the people of God, and the remedy that’s announced in Micah is that the great shepherd, the ruler who would come from Bethlehem, is going to work through other shepherds to protect the people of God, and I think Paul is picking up on this in Acts

21 Cf. Allen, Micah, pg. 350, who writes, “In Eph. 2:14 he gives what must be regarded as a rendering of v. 5a: ‘he is our peace.’ He relates it to its context of vv. 3, 4, and blends the motifs of the unification and completion of the people of God on the one hand and the universal sway of the Messiah on the other. The apostle finds the achievement of Christ to be that Gentile and Jew are brought together in the commonwealth of Israel. The traditions of a united Israel and the hope of world dominion associated with the Davidic king come true in a new synthesis in Paul’s theology of Christ and the Church.”

9

chapter 20. You remember the context perhaps? He’s on his way to Jerusalem; he stops in Ephesus, just on the coast, and he meets with the elders of the church in Ephesus, the elders that he had appointed of the church of Ephesus, and he talks with them. Acts chapter 20, verses 28-32; look at what he says: Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Paul warns them of the danger that is to come. Micah talked about the Assyrian who was threatening the people of Israel, the people of Judah; here, Paul warns of people coming up from our own ranks, from among us, from among the elders even, who would come as fierce wolves to destroy God’s people, to destroy the flock of God. And so he challenges them to shepherd the church, to care for them, to protect them from this harm, from being led astray from the truth. And how does he call them to do that? That’s what I think he’s saying in verse 32: “I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.” The imagery that Micah used was, “Shepherd the Assyrian with the sword.” But of course that’s not the way that elders do their shepherding in the church. We don’t use the sword of military might, although we do use the sword of the word of God. And so he says here, “I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.” This is the tool, as it were, that elders should use to protect the people of God, “to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” If you are built up by the word of God’s grace, you have a wall that protects you against being led astray. It is the word of God, the word of God’s grace, that protects from deception and harm from any of the enemies who come against us, whether they come from within or from without. And so the charge to elders among the church, I believe, is some measure of the fulfillment of this prophecy that we speak of at Christmas. The work of elders is to continue the shepherd’s work of keeping the flock of God safe from harm. And so that is their joyful duty.

So, to conclude, we have here “a tale of two cities,” and I haven’t answered the question yet. Maybe I will now; we’ll see. “A tale of two cities.” You see, when we think about the Christmas story, and we read the Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel especially, we get a certain impression about “the city of David.” Let’s look at Luke chapter 2, verse 4; you’ll remember this; it should be familiar. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. What’s weird about that is that phrase “city of David,” if you were to go home and just search for it in the Old Testament, you’d find that it comes up 45 times, “the city of David,” and it always refers to Jerusalem, never Bethlehem.22 So, this is very weird that Luke here would tell us that “the city of David” is being called Bethlehem.23 That’s very strange. But I

22 Luke probably thought this was an appropriate designation for Bethlehem because first, he recognized that Jerusalem was under the judgment of God and could no longer rightfully be called “the city of David,” and, second, because of 1 Sam. 20:6, where David instructs Jonathan to explain his absence from Saul’s table saying, “If your father misses me at all, then say, ‘David earnestly asked leave of me to run to Bethlehem his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the clan.’”

23 Cf. Mark L. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 413; Sheffield, England: Sheffield,

10

think there’s a hint here that’s a major theme in Micah’s prophecy, going throughout, that we really are seeing “a tale of two cities” here. The city of Jerusalem remains under God’s judgment. The ruler who will bring peace to Jerusalem and peace to God’s people cannot come from Jerusalem because Jerusalem’s under God’s judgment. Micah 1:5 tells us that, and if you read the whole book of Micah, you’d see it repeatedly. Here, early in the book, he announces this judgment theme: All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria (the capital of the northern kingdom, Israel)? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? Jerusalem had become a high place; it’d become the center of idolatry, not the center of God’s true worship. They had turned the temple into an idol itself. The reality is that even up to Jesus’s day and even up to our own day Jerusalem remains under God’s judgment. Look at Galatians 4:25. Paul the apostle writing to the church in Galatia, he’s telling this story, this allegory out of the story of Hagar and Sarah from the book of Genesis,24 and he says this: Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem (that city that you can plot on a map in the Middle East), for she is in slavery with her children. Slavery is a picture of being under the judgment of God. Slavery is what your reality is when you are outside of Christ. When you are under the judgment of God, you are in slavery, and that is true of the people of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem in Paul’s day and it continues down unto this day. And so the ruler cannot come from Jerusalem because Jerusalem is under God’s judgment, and so God brings the ruler from Bethlehem.25

But that still doesn’t tell us why Bethlehem; it tells us why not Jerusalem, which is not really what we’re interested in. So, let me give three kind-of reasons that I think I can pull from Scripture that might get at the answer to the question. It’s not very satisfying to me, and I don’t expect it to satisfy you. But I can say this much: it is fitting, it is fitting that the Messiah would be born in Messiah for these three reasons. Because, first, the Messiah was to be David’s greater descendant. Perhaps you remember the story—you don’t have to turn there; we’re not going to look at the passage—but Matthew 22:42-45, the day before Jesus is crucified he has an argument with the scribes; he actually picks this fight. He raises the question, “Whose son is the Christ supposed to be?” And they answer correctly, “David’s son, David’s descendant.” And then he poses a question that they cannot answer: “Why then does David say”—and he quotes Psalm 110:1—he says to them, “Why does David say, ‘Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies my footstool”’? How is the Messiah David’s son if he is David’s Lord?” And they’re stumped! But the truth is, whatever the answer to that question is, the son of David would be his Lord. He would be greater than David. His descendant would be greater than him, and so it’s fitting that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem because David was born in

1995), pg. 110, who writes, “Luke’s description of Bethlehem as the ‘city of David’ is unusual since the town is never so designated in the Old Testament or in Judaism. The ‘city of David’ refers instead to Mount Zion in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5:7, 9 = 1 Chron. 11:5, 7; 2 Sam. 6:10, 12, 16; 1 Kgs 2:10, etc.), formerly the stronghold of the Jebusites.”

24 After Paul summarizes the historical story of Sarah and Hagar from Genesis chapters 16-17 and 21, he recognizes the allegorical significance of the story from his reflections on Isaiah chapters 49-54, and he concludes pressing home the point to his Galatian readers with a quotation from Isa. 54:1 in Gal. 4:27.

25 Cf. Waltke, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, pg. 199, who writes, “The address [in Mic. 5:2], by drawing heavily upon 1 Samuel 17:12 (of the seven words in v. 2a, b three occur here: Bethlehem, Ephrathah, Judah; cf. Ruth 1:2), reaches back for the Messiah’s origins in the pure springs of Jesse and David and ignores his later decadent and disappointing lineage born in Jerusalem.”

11

Bethlehem. And so it’s fitting that his greater son, to establish that connection, would be born there as well.26

What else can we say? Perhaps this is more theologically satisfying. It has to do with God’s unexpected way of salvation.27 1 Corinthians 1:27-29: God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world (the little town of Bethlehem), even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. It’s fascinating to me that in the Bible there are two Bethlehems; both of them are relatively insignificant until the Messiah is born in one of them. But now, there are something like 40 cities called Bethlehem around the world. It’s significance has ginormously increased because we look at it now very differently from the way that it was originally defined, and I wonder if we’ve kind of missed the point. Its very significance, that the Messiah has now been born there, was because of its insignificance, because it was a no-account town, it didn’t matter, nothing great happened in Bethlehem—except David was born there; I guess that’s significant. But, even when the tribes of Israel are allotted their land, and Judah is allotted their land and so many great cities are mentioned, Bethlehem’s not mentioned initially.28 It’s so unimportant throughout the Scriptures, and yet God chose to bring the Messiah from there totally unexpectedly, so much so that, even though we have evidence in Matthew that some Jews believed that Micah was pointing to the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, that’s not common in the ancient Jewish thinking.29 Most Jews didn’t think the Bible told where the Messiah was to be born; they saw Micah 5 talking about something else entirely,30 but some recognized the truth as it turns out. But this is not the way you would expect God to work. They would’ve expected him to come from Jerusalem, to be born near the temple, to be born maybe in David’s own palace. But, no, he was born in Bethlehem.

26 Cf. Strauss, Davidic Messiah, pgs. 110-111, who writes, “Luke’s purpose is to associate the birthplace of Jesus with that of David and again to stress the Davidic connection in Jesus’ messianic identity.”

27 Cf. Waltke, Minor Prophets, pg. 704, who writes, “The divine election of Bethlehem also suggests Messiah’s lowliness. In contrast to the proud and powerful clans of Judah, Bethlehem was ‘little’—small and insignificant. How like Israel’s God to choose the weak and lowly to shame the proud and clothe himself in glory (1 Cor. 1:26-31).”

28 Cf. Waltke, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, pg. 200, who writes, “Bethlehem, too insignificant to be mentioned by the cartographer of the book of Joshua or in Micah’s catalogue of Judah’s cities of defence (Mic. 1:10-15; cf. 2 Chr. 11:5-12), is today incredibly the centre of pilgrimages from around the world and is universally renowned because Jesus Christ fulfilled this verse.”

29 Cf. Strauss, Davidic Messiah, pgs. 109-110, who writes, “Only a few targumic and rabbinic sources designate Bethlehem as the place of the messiah’s [sic] origin….Indeed, I know of no Second Temple text which even speaks of the Davidic messiah’s [sic] birth, let alone locates it either in Jerusalem or Bethlehem. The real problem, therefore, is not so much the rarity of references to Bethlehem per se, but the rarity of references to the messiah’s [sic] birthplace at all.”

30 It should be recognized that Micah 5:2 specifically only says that this ruler would “come forth for me,” which doesn’t necessarily mean that he would be born there. Cf. Markus Bockmuehl, This Jesus: Martyr, Lord, Messiah (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), pg. 26-27, who writes, “Clearly this prophecy harbours the promise of a restoration of the royal line of David, and the future emergence of a deliverer who would save his people. Significantly, it need not mean that this Messianic king would be physically born in Bethlehem, merely that he would be descended from the ancient clan of King David….Despite John 7:40f., physical birth in Bethlehem of Judaea was not widely thought to be a prerequisite for the Messiah, and no such claim was made for several other aspiring first and second-century Messiahs.”

12

And, finally, perhaps the last reason that it’s fitting that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem; it’s fitting that the bread of life would come from the house of bread.31 Bethlehem means “house of bread,” and Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life. John 6:35: Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” That’s what Christmas is really all about. The bread of life has come. God has given bread that gives eternal life, and the bread is his own Son. And there’s no other way to have life, other than coming to him. Thirsting and hungering are things that we do every single day, and we go to the kitchen and satisfy it so simply. But there is a hunger and there is a thirst that goes deeper; there’s a hunger and there’s a thirst that can only be satisfied by Jesus himself, and it’s the hunger and the thirst that’s related to our guilt, that we are all sinful people. We deserve to be under the judgment of God, the way Jerusalem was and is, for our sin. We could take the message of the book of Micah, a message largely of judgment, and we could see it as writing our own story. But there’s all these glimpses of hope, including Micah 5 that we look at every year. But now, I hope you can see a little bit more of the bigger story that Micah has to do with, the picture of hope that’s given to us is bound up in a shepherd, a shepherd who always leads us beside quiet waters, who always gives us food that is good for us, and we commit our life to him because there’s no other way to live.

31 A point mentioned in the entry for “Bethlehem” in Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary (edited by Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, and R. K. Harrison; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), n.p.

13