Christians believe that Micah 5:2, which predicts the coming of a ruler from Bethlehem, was fulfilled by Jesus. However, does the context support that belief? Micah goes on to predict what this ruler would accomplish. Do these accomplishments fit Jesus? Notice particularly what this ruler is prophesied to do in verse 6.
Did Jesus fulfil Micah 5:2?
by scout575 6 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Sad emo
hi scout
Arnold Fruchtenbaum links this verse with Isaiah 7:14 because Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah. The two specific bits of the verse he points to are
1 the 'One who will go forth for Me' - meaning this ruler was to have a specific mission.
2 'His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of Eternity' - he says the Hebrew wording is the strongest use for eternity past, comparing them with similar occurences in Psalm 90:2 and Proverbs 8:22-23, when they are used of God and Wisdom respectively.
you really should try get hold of his book - it's very good in spite of the slight bias!
-
Sad emo
Double post - thanks again aol! -
Narkissos
The extant context of both Isaiah 7 and Micah 5 clearly links those passages to the 8th century BC and the dealings between Judah and Assyria. But both books were actually edited much later, during the Babylonian Exile and long after, so those texts may also reflect the post-exilic dreams of restoration of the Davidic monarchy in the post-exilic period. In any case a political restoration is in view, and Jesus hardly matches the expectation.
he says the Hebrew wording is the strongest use for eternity past, comparing them with similar occurences in Psalm 90:2 and Proverbs 8:22-23, when they are used of God and Wisdom respectively.
Only the context of Psalms and Proverbs, which is very different from Micah's, warrant the maximalist interpretation "eternity". Both qedem and `olam, in poetical parallelism, usually mean no more than "long ago". The more modest interpretation "'whose origin is from of old, from ancient days," is all the context of Micah really requires: a reference to the Davidic foundational myth and its origin in Bethlehem.
-
scout575
I think that Mr.Fruchtenbaum has limited frucht on his baum. Verses 5 and 6 of Micah 5 predict that the ruler from Bethlehem would dispose of the Assyrian threat to Israel. Verse 6 says: "Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian." This clearly wasn't fulfilled by Jesus as he was born centuries after the Assyrians disappeared from the world scene.
-
Leolaia
There is a clear literary relationship between Micah and Isaiah 1-5, see especially Micah 4:1-3 = Isaiah 2:2-4 and Micah 4:5 = Isaiah 1:20, so a connection with the "Book of Immanuel" (Isaiah 6-12) in Micah 5 is quite probable, hence the descriptions of the Ruler's birth, his bringing of "peace" through subduing enemies in war, especially Assyria (cf. Isaiah 9:6, 10:5-21 and Micah 5:4-6), the strongest power at the time. For an excellent description of these oracles in Micah and Isaiah and their role in later germinating messianic expectations (in post-exilic Judaism), see the following article:
http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messiah_03.html
That the oracle in Micah 5 was subject to later interpretation can be seen most vividly in the oldest Hebrew text for Micah 5:2 (4QXII f), which states that "out of you [Bethlehem of Ephrathah] one shall not come forth to be ruler in Israel". This wording likely reflects priestly messianic expectations, which construed the Messiah as coming from Levi, not Judah (through David).
Matthew, of course, also alters the text in Micah in a way that suits his purposes as well (i.e. instead of being the name of a clan from which the Ruler would come, Bethlehem-Ephrathah becomes a place "in the land of Judah" where the Messiah would be born, and Matthew has merged Micah 5:2 with 2 Samuel 5:2 to shift the Messiah's role from that of a warrior-king defeating Israel's political enemies to that of a "shepherd"). So is Jesus supposed to fulfill the original oracle in Micah, or Matthew's version of it? The reality is that these OT "proof texts" were living texts, shaped and molded for one's own purposes.
As for the m-ymy 'wlm "(from) ancient days" in Micah 5:2 (MT), this phrase occurs only 6 times in the OT and does not entail the concept of eternity that 'wlm by itself may express. Note especially the instance from elsewhere in Micah:
Isaiah 63:9-12: "In his love and pity he [Yahweh] lifted them up, carried them, throughout the days of old (ymy 'wlm). But they rebelled, they grieved his holy spirit. Then he turned enemy and himself waged war on them. Then they remembered the days of old (ymy 'wlm), of Moses his servant. Where is he who brought out of the sea the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who endowed him with his holy spirit, who at the right hand of Moses set to work with his glorious arm, who divided the waters before them to win everlasting renown?"
Micah 7:14: "With shepherd's crook lead your people to pasture, the flock that is your heritage, living confined in a forest with meadow all around. Let them pasture in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old (k-ymy 'wlm). As in the days when you came out of Egypt grant us to see wonders."
Amos 9:11: "That day I will re-erect the tottering hut of David, make good the gaps in it, restore its ruins and rebuild it as it was in the days of old (k-ymy 'wlm), so that they can conquer the remnant of Edom and all the nations that belonged to me."
Malachi 3:4: "The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by Yahweh as in days of old (k-ymy 'wlm), as in former years (kshnym qdmnywt)."
In each of these examples, the "days of old" refer to some time in "historical" memory (i.e. looking back to pre-exilic times, or to the days of Moses), not timeless eternity. The author of Micah himself uses the expression elsewhere in the book to clearly refer to a time in the nation's past. And Malachi uses ymy 'wlm with qdm as Micah does in 5:2. The idea in Micah is not that the Ruler himself is eternal, or that he himself is an ancient person, but that his "goings forth" (mwts'tyw), i.e. his geneological origins, are ancient to the days of old, i.e. to the days of King David, as he springs from the clan of Ephrathah as David himself did. Although Matthew omits this part of Micah 5:2, he does express the same thought with the extensive geneology in ch. 1 which traces his Messiah's origins through time to King David, and through him to Abraham.
-
Leolaia
scout575...Good point, it would be like pointing to a Nostradamus oracle about someone fighting the Ottomans and say that it refers to George W. Bush and his war on terror...
2 'His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of Eternity' - he says the Hebrew wording is the strongest use for eternity past, comparing them with similar occurences in Psalm 90:2 and Proverbs 8:22-23, when they are used of God and Wisdom respectively.
sad emo....As I pointed out in my last post, all other occurrences of ymy 'wlm in the OT refer to the human past, even to former times in Israel. In Psalm 90:2, the phrase is m-'wlm 'd 'wlm "from eternity to eternity", quite a different expression, where 'wlm is not qualified by ymy "days" ("days" are certainly not timeless) and which intensifies its own reference to eternity through a tautology. In Proverbs 8:22-23, the expression is m-'wlm m-r'sh "from eternity from the beginning" which similarly is not qualified by ymy "days" and which explicitly links the speaker to Creation, and to the "beginning" itself, again very different from the usage in Micah 5:2, and Isaiah 63:9-12, Micah 7:14, Amos 9:11, and Malachi 3:4 for that matter.