Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Micah 2:12
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
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Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel - God’s mercy on the penitent and believing being the end of all His threatenings, the mention of it often bursts in abruptly. Christ is ever the Hope as the End of prophecy, ever before the prophets’ mind. The earthquake and fire precede the still small voice of peace in Him. What seems then sudden to us, is connected in truth. The prophet had said Micah 2:10, where was not their rest and how they should be cast forth; he saith at once how they should be gathered to their everlasting rest. He had said, what promises of the false prophets would not be fulfille Micah 2:11. But, despair being the most deadly enemy of the soul, he does not take away their false hopes, without shewing them the true mercies in store for them. Jerome: “Think not,” he would say, “that I am only a prophet of ill. The captivity foretold will indeed now come, and God’s mercies will also come, although not in the way, which these speak of.” The false prophets spoke of worldly abundance ministering to sensuality, and of unbroken security. He tells of God’s mercies, but after chastisement, to “the remnant of Israel.” But the restoration is complete, far beyond their then condition. He had foretold the desolation of Samaria Micah 1:6, the captivity of Judah Micah 1:16; Micah 2:4; he foretells the restoration of all Jacob, as one. The images are partly taken (as is the prophet’s custom) from that first deliverance from Egypt . Then, as the image of the future growth under persecution, God multiplied His people exceedingly Exodus 1:12; then “the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way” Exodus 13:21; then God “brought them up” “out of the house of bondage” (see below, Micah 6:4). But their future prison-house was to be no land of Goshen. It was to be a captivity and a dispersion at once, as Hosea had already foretold . So he speaks of them emphatically, as a great throng, “assembling I will assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; gathering I will gather the remnant of Israel.” The word, which is used of the gathering of a flock or its lambs Isaiah 40:11; Isaiah 13:14, became, from Moses’ prophecy (Deuteronomy 30:3-4, see Nehemiah 1:9), a received word of the gathering of Israel from the dispersion of the captivity (see below, Micah 4:6; Psalms 106:47; Psalms 107:3; Isaiah 11:12; Isaiah 43:5; Isaiah 54:7; Isaiah 56:8; Zephaniah 3:19-20; Jeremiah 23:3; Jeremiah 29:14; Jeremiah 31:8, Jeremiah 31:10; Jeremiah 32:37; Ezekiel 11:17; Ezekiel 20:34, Ezekiel 20:41; Ezekiel 28:25; Ezekiel 34:13; Ezekiel 37:21; Ezekiel 38:8; Ezekiel 39:27; Zechariah 10:10). The return of the Jews from Babylon was but a faint shadow of the fulfillment. For, ample as were the terms of the decrees of Cyrus Ezra 1:2-4 and Artaxerxes Ezra 7:13, and widely as that of Cyrus was diffused Ezra 1:1, the restoration was essentially that of Judah, that is, Judah, Benjamin and Levi : the towns, whose inhabitants returned, were those of Judah and Benjamin Ezra 2:0; Nehemiah 7:0; the towns, to which they returned, were of the two tribes. It was not a gathering of “all Jacob;” and of the three tribes who returned, there were but few gathered, and they had not even an earthly king, nor any visible Presence of God. The words began to he fulfilled in the “many Acts 21:20 tens of thousands” who believed at our Lord’s first Coming; and “all Jacob,” that is, all who were Israelites indeed, “the remnant”…
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