From Oppressor to Oppressed to Redeemed

Introduction

Audience: The Remnant of Israel

Micah ends his pronouncement of judgement with a glimmer of hope, in the same way that his contemporary Isaiah would commonly speak. They both make it undeniable that destruction is coming, but that there is a hope.

Who is this hope for?

“All of you… the remnant of Israel.” This may seem like a contradiction at first, since a remnant generally means a small part of something. But remnant actually means what remains, so the ones God is coming for are all the Israelites that remain after the coming judgement. This assumes that the majourity of Israel alive now are not part of this group, that Israel will decrease in size and go from being a fully autonomous people to a shadow of their former glory. It is from this humble, reduced, and disabled state that they will recieve the mercy of God.

What brings the people down to this point?

Bad teaching that is either false, wind, or intoxicating.

Continuing in oppressive sins, given over to them since they refuse to listen to true preaching and instead fill their ears with bad teaching.

Justice coming on the oppressor: they will be oppressed.

You are left with what remains of an oppressed people who failed to listen to what is good and so recieved what is bad. It is at this humiliated place that God will finally begin to work with his people and bring about redemption.

Action: Assembly

But what does this redemption look like? What will God do with this remnant after they have been brought so low?

Assembly. Israel is pictured as a scattered flock that have all gone astray.

Isaiah 53:6 ESV

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This taps into a theme that starts at the very beginning at the fall when Eve chose for herself what was right and wrong. The theme also appears in the book of Judges numerous times in the repeated phrase, “There was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

In the ANE, Kings were seen as shepherds that kept their people together and made them prosperous as a society. Israel, the manifestation of the Kingdom of God, was straying from their heavenly King, their human kings leading the sheep astray, and their exile will simply be a physical picture of what was already a spiritual reality. Now in the promise of redemption, the core of God’s action here is that he will draw the people of God back into the flock.

The “Gathered Ones”

There is a significance here in the NT word for ‘Church’, the Ecclesia.

Originally came from a word meaning to call out, with the idea of calling citizens of a city/country out to a civil meeting. It was a political word that nonetheless has the force of people coming together. In other words, and ecclesia is a the gathering together of the citizens of a Kingdom. It is a different metaphor than the gathering of sheep, but remember that the language of a King being a shepherd of his people was prevelant. So these two metaphors goes together.

The church is fundamentally identified as a gathering of the people of God, they are this remnant that is being redeemed and gathered together into the flock of God.

Their King and God as Leader

But who is it that will gather this “noisy multitude of men” together like a flock in its pasture? Verse 13 describes the King who opens the breach, goes up before them as their leader, their new Moses and better Joshua.

Opens the breach/they break through the gate.

The image here is a flock that is imprisoned in an overcrowded corral. The shepherd comes and “breaches” the gate. Like a military captain who successfully breaches a besieged city. Except this king isn’t breaching to take the city, but to free the captives from inside.

So the people of God are first gathered together from their wanderings to be a flock held in a pen. Then “he who opens the breach” opens the gate and lets the sheep out.

The King passes on before them, the LORD at their head.

But this shepherd doesn’t let them run free to be scattered again, he goes up before them and passes the gate.

Who is this shepherd? It is their King, the eternal King of David. But we are told something more; that it is YHWH at their head. He goes directly before them as their leader, their shepherd, their King.

Conclusion