Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Micah 4:13
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Arise - (It may be,) from the dust in which they were lying, “I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass.” Threshing in the East is partly with oxen, partly with wheels of iron, or with planks set with sharp flints on an open place made hard to this end. The prophet joins another image, with this and represents Judah as being by God endued with strength, first as with a “horn of iron” 1 Kings 22:11 to cast the enemy to the ground, and then with “hoofs of brass,” wherewith to trample them to dust, as the stubble and chaff. “And I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord,” that is, to Myself; the Lord gathered them into the floor by His Providence; the Lord gave His people strength to subdue them; and now, in His own Person, He says, I will complete My own work. The very image of the “threshing” implies that this is no mere destruction. While the stubble is “beaten” or bruised to small pieces, and the chaff is far more than the wheat, and is carried out of the floor, there yet remains the seed-corn. So in the great judgments of God, while most is refuse, there yet remains over, what is severed from the lost heap and wholly “consecrated” to Him. Whatever things were the object of the חרם chêrem Leviticus 27:28 or “thing devoted to the Lord,” could not be redeemed, but must remain wholly the Lord’s. If it had life, it was to be put to death Lev. 29. And so the use of the word here may the rather shew, how those converted to God, and who became gain, hallowed to Him, were to pass through death to life, to die to themselves that they might live to Him: what was evil was to be slain in them, that they themselves might live. The Israelites and God’s dealings with them are “ensamples of us upon whom the ends of the world are come” 1 Corinthians 10:11. And so the whole section fits wonderfully with the condition of the single soul. “She who halteth” (Rib.) “the soul, who would serve God, yet not so as wholly to give up the service of the world, which it had in Baptism renounced, who, after it had gone astray like a lost sheep, and been scattered amid the manifoldness of earthly things, was gathered again into the fold, to love One only, long for One only, give itself to One,” its Good Shepherd, and over it the Lord reigneth forever, if, taught by experience the deceitfulness of Satan’s promises, and stung by the sense of its own thanklessness and vileness, and conscious of the peril of self confidence, it abideth more closely than others with God. He shall gather her that is driven out, that is, , “He shall restore her, from whom He had, for the time, withdrawn His grace,” and her that was afflicted, trouble being God’s most effectual instrument, in recalling the soul to Himself. “For the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down” Psalms 146:8. And will make her that halteth, a remnant, placing her among the elect and holy, and her that was cast off strong; for Christ giveth oft to such souls great richness of divine graces, so that “where sin abounded, grace” should “much more abound” Romans 5:20. Rib.: “To it, when enlightened and purified by affliction and by repentance, it is promised, that its Lord, the Great King, shall come to it, and again reign in it, which is the great bliss of souls in grace. For then doth the soul really reign, when it submits wholly to Christ, whom to serve is to reign, and so, under Him, receives power to command its wrong desires, and rule itself;” that great and wonderful power which the Evangeli…
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