Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Micah 2:13
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
The Breaker is come up - (gone up) before them; they have broken up (Broken through) and have passed the gate, and have gone forth The image is not of conquest, but of deliverance. They “break through,” not to enter in but to “pass through the gate and go forth.” The wall of the city is ordinarily broken through, in order to make an entrance Psalms 80:13; Psalms 89:41; Isaiah 5:5; Nehemiah 2:13, or to secure to a conqueror the power of entering in Proverbs 25:28; 2 Kings 14:13; 2 Chronicles 25:23; 2 Chronicles 26:6 at any time, or by age and decay 2 Chronicles 32:5. But here the object is expressed, to go forth. Plainly then, they were confined before, as in a prison; and the gate of the prison was burst open, to set them free. It is then the same image as when God says by Isaiah; “I will say to the North, give up; and to the South, Hold not back” Isaiah 43:6, or, “Go ye forth of Babylon, Say ye, the Lord hath redeemed His servant Jacob” Isaiah 48:20; or, with the same reminiscence of God’s visible leading of His people out of Egypt “Depart ye, depart ye; for ye shall not go out with haste, nor yet by flight, for the Lord God shall go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward;” or as Hosea describes their restoration (Hosea 1:11, (Hosea 2:2, Hebrew)); “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one Head, and they shall go up out of the land”. Elsewhere, in Isaiah, the spiritual meaning of the deliverance from the prison is more distinctly brought out, as the work of our Redeemer. “I will give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house” Isaiah 42:6-7; and, “the Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” Isaiah 61:1. From this passage, the “Breaker-through” was one of the titles of the Christ, known to the Jews , as One who should be “from below and from above” also; and from it they believed that “captives should come up from Gehenna, and the Sheehinah,” or the Presence of God, “at their head.” : “He then, who shall break the way, the King and Lord who shall go up before them, shall be the Good Shepherd, who puts them together in the fold. And this He doth when, as He saith, ‘He putieth forth His own sheep, and He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His Voice’ John 10:4. How doth He go befree them but by suffering for them, leaving them an example of suffering, and opening the entrance of Paradise? The Good Shepherd goeth up to time Cross John 10:15; John 12:32, and is lifted up from the earth, laying down His Life for His sheep, to draw all men unto Him. He goeth up, trampling on death by His resurrection; He goeth up above the heaven of heavens, and sitteth on the Right Hand of the Father, opening the way before them, so that the flock, in their lowliness, may arrive where the Shepherd went before in His Majesty. And when He thus breaketh through and openeth the road, they also ‘break through and pass through the gate and go out by it,’ by that Gate, namely, whereof the Psalmist saith, ‘This is the Gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter into It’ Psalms 118:20. What other is this Gate than that same Passion of Christ, beside which there is no gate, no way whereby any can enter into l…
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