Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Micah 4:1-4
However, In The End It Is YHWH's Purpose To Establish His Temple Miraculously In A Place Where All Men Can Flow To It So As To Learn His Ways And The Whole Earth Will Eventually Enjoy Peace (Micah 4:1).
But Micah wants it to be recognised that he is not despising the Temple and immediately points out its glorious future, although in terms which make it clear that it will be a very different one from the Temple of Solomon. This Temple is to be exalted heavenwards and is to become something to which all peoples will flow, and from which they can receive the word of God. The idea of a similarly exalted Temple is expressed in Revelation where the Temple has been raised into Heaven itself and is accessed through the prayers of God's people, with the Lamb as the eternal sacrifice (Revelation 5:6; Revelation 5:8; Revelation 8:3; Revelation 9:13; Revelation 11:19; Revelation 14:15; Revelation 14:17; Revelation 15:5; Revelation 16:1; Revelation 16:7). That is fulfilling the words of Micah given here. The concept of an actual Heaven that men and women could enter had not even been thought of, and would simply have been looked on as polytheistic. To the nations it was the gods who indwelt the heavens.
are repeated almost word for word (with slight variations) in Isaiah 2:2. As they were contemporaries it is impossible to determine their connection. One may have depended on the other, or both may have been referring to a well known previous prophecy. (Each position has been well defended, which basically means that no one knows).
‘But in the latter days it will come about that the mountain of YHWH's house will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will flow to it.'
Basically what Micah is saying is that it will be a heavenly Temple. It will rise far above all mountains and hills, and the people will flow upwards towards it. There is a deliberate indication of mystery here. ‘Flows' usually take place downwards. But here the normal situation is reversed. God will draw the peoples to Himself (compare John 6:44). We can compare the heavenly Temple in Ezekiel which was situated on an unknown ‘very high mountain' away from Jerusalem, and was never intended to be built. The only thing to be built was the altar in Jerusalem through which it could be accessed. It was the symbol that God was once again with His people.
Mountains and hills were looked on as having a kind of sacredness in the ancient world, which was why shrines (high places) were built on them and men thought that there people could better commune with God (compare Judges 11:38). In the mountain above where I once lived on Hong Kong Island there was precisely such a sacred grove to which people would go in order to burn joss sticks and seek the favour of the gods. It was totally open and unguarded and anyone could go there at any time. We went there often, although not to worship.
So the Temple which had been treated as one of the despised ‘high places' fit only for destruction (Micah 3:12) would once again become predominant as a heavenly Temple where all nations could approach God without let or hindrance. And as such it would become the goal of the peoples. YHWH's purposes would triumph over man's perfidy.
This was why Jesus would later say, ‘the hour will come when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father --- the hour comes and now is when the true worshipper will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for such does the Father seek to worship Him. God is Spirit. And those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth' (John 4:21). We too worship in the heavenly Temple as we enter through the way opened up for us by the blood of Jesus and through our great High Priest Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:19).
‘And many nations will go and say, “Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of YHWH, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of YHWH from Jerusalem,”
And the Temple would no longer be exclusive. It would be open to many nations. And they would say, ‘Come let us go up to the mountain of YHWH, to the house of the God of Jacob.' The point is that the nations would recognise that the God of Israel was the only true God (as Jesus would later say ‘salvation is of the Jews' - John 4:22). Indeed one of God's aims for Israel was that they should be His chosen witnesses to the nations (Isaiah 43:10), a commission fulfilled by the Apostles and the early Jewish church because the Jews as such had failed to accomplish it satisfactorily. (We must not overlook, however, that they had previously outside Jerusalem among the nations laid a groundwork on which the early church could build. Paul always went to the synagogues first, as did the other Apostles).
That this Temple was in the end, as far as earth was concerned, the living temple of the Spirit consisting of Jesus and the true people of God comes out regularly in the New Testament (John 2:19; John 2:21; 1Co 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:19; 1 Peter 2:5).
And through that Temple the people would learn the ways of YHWH, and would learn to walk in His paths. For out of Zion would go forth God's Instruction, and His word would go forth from Jerusalem. This was amply fulfilled as the Apostles and the persecuted people of God spread out into the world taking with them the Gospel of Christ (Acts 1-12). And it goes on today as we the Temple of the living God bear our witness in the world. For in one sense we are the new Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26).
“And he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more.”
And the end promise is that as a result of the success of God's activity among all peoples there would be peace among the nations. God Himself will reign over ‘many peoples' and will exercise His authority among ‘strong nations afar off', and in the end there will be total peace. War will be no more.
Today we see that God's rule is exercised over many peoples, among Christians around the world, and that between them is peace, as their love reaches out towards one another (we must not judge Christianity's success in this direction simply because of one nation's bickerings and divisions). But, of course, the final fulfilment of this promise awaits the final everlasting Kingdom of God on the new earth when a new Heaven and a new earth is in place in which dwells righteousness (Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13).
“But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none will make them afraid: for the mouth of YHWH of hosts has spoken it.”
And in that day Israel's ideal will be fulfilled with all being free and independent, and every man sitting under his own vine and his own fig tree. And in that day none will make them afraid, for it will be in a world at perfect peace. And all this will come about because the mouth of YHWH has spoken it.
We do not of course have to interpret this too literally. It does not mean that we will all have to become agriculturalists. It is rather a picture of man's ideal world in terms of how it would have been seen in those days. Compare here 1 Kings 4:25; 2 Kings 18:31 (it was even the ideal expressed by the Assyrians. Possibly they had learned of Micah's prophecy); Zechariah 3:10.