Micah 2:12

I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of [the multitude of] men.

Ver. 12. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee] An evangelical promise (saith Diodati, after others) of gathering together the universal Church, under the kingdom of Christ, contrary to the precedent dispersion, Micah 2:10. Assembling, I will assemble, and gathering, gather them, sc. into the bosom of the Church, called therefore ecclesia (as culled and collected out of the world), and Church, or Kirk, of Kυριακη; because it belongs to the Lord Christ, who gathereth his together as the hen doth her chickens, "and died not for that nation of Jews only, but that also he might gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad," John 11:51,52. Here he is called the breaker up, and his apostles likewise those that have broken up, and have passed through the gate, doing great exploits, and subduing souls to the obedience of the faith, as here in Britain, where Caesar himself could not break through, but

“ Territa quaesitis ostendit terga Britannis, ”

as Pompey in Lucan upbraids him. Hence Tertullian saith, Christ brake into those places of Brittany that the Romans could never come at, Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca Christo patueruut. He is that "king against whom there is no rising up," Proverbs 30:31. He is Jehovah on the head of his people, or in the forefront of them, as their captain general, to lead them on, Quasi antesignanus et ductor (Lapid.), and bring them off safely in all encounters. Habent ista amplissimam promissionem, saith Gualther here; this is an excellent promise, and carrieth in it a most sweet consolation. But I rather think it to be a continuation of the former threatening: "I will surely assemble them," sc. to the slaughter. I will gather them together, sc. that they may be broken in pieces, Isaiah 8:9. I will put them (or pen them up) together as the sheep of Bozrah, that are fat and fit, and appointed for the slaughter. See Isaiah 34:6. Bozrah was a rich pasture country in Edom, from whence most fat sheep and meet for meat were sent to the shambles.

As the flock in the midst of their fold] So will God first shut you up by strait sieges, and then number you out to the sword, and ye shall "all bow down to the slaughter," Isaiah 65:12. There is a memorable story of the suffering of certain good people in Calabria, A.D. 1560, by the hands of the bloody Papists there. A great sort of them being thrust up in one house together, as in a sheepfold, the executioner comes in, and among them takes one, and blindfoldeth him with a muffler about his eyes, and so leadeth him forth to a larger place, where he commandeth him to kneel down, which being done, he cutteth his throat, and so, leaving him half-dead, and taking his butcher's knife and muffler, all of gore blood, cometh again to the rest; and so leading them one after another, he dispatched them all, to the number of eighty-eight. In Ireland many like barbarous butcheries have been committed by those breathing devils, the Romish rebels, those fat wolves, worrying Christ's flock in the midst of the land, λυκοι βαρεις, Acts 20:29. But "shall they thus escape by iniquity?" No verily, "in thine anger cast down that people, O God," Psalms 56:7. Give them blood again to drink, for they are worthy. A Lapide saith, that Bozrah signifieth Rome, and that Micah here, after a sort, foretelleth that the Church of Rome should be the common sheepfold of the sheep of Christ, under one chief shepherd, the Pope. But this conceit is far fetched; and Rome (the slaughter house of the saints) is no otherwise Bozrah than that she is of Edom (the Rabbis for Dumah, Isaiah 21:11, read Roma, and call the court of Rome the wicked kingdom of Edom), and that her brats, as the vulture's young ones, do glut glut blood (so the Hebrew soundeth, Job 39:30, יעלעו־דם), and where the slain are there is she.

They shall make a great noise] Heb. a humming noise. By reason of the multitude of men, or rather wolves, Lycanthropi, wherewith they are environed, to their no small heartbreak.