Albert Barnes Commentary 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 a flock in the midst of their pasture; they shall make great noise by reason of [the multitude of] men." — Micah 2:12 (ASV)

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 threats, 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 then seems sudden to us, is connected in truth. The prophet had said (Micah 2:10), where their rest was not and how they would be cast out; he says at once how they would be gathered to their everlasting rest. He had said what promises of the false prophets would not be fulfilled (Micah 2:11). But, despair being the most deadly enemy of the soul, he does not take away their false hopes without showing them the true mercies in store for them. Jerome: “Do not think,” he would say, “that I am only a prophet of bad news. The captivity foretold will indeed come now, and God’s mercies will also come, although not in the way that 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 condition at that time. 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 for 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; Nehemiah 7); 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 be fulfilled in the many tens of thousands (Acts 21:20) who believed at our Lord’s first Coming; and all Jacob, that is, all who were Israelites indeed, the remnant according to the election of grace (Romans 11:5), were gathered within the one fold of the Church, under One Shepherd. It shall be fully fulfilled when, in the end, the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in and all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11:25–26). All Jacob is the same as the remnant of Israel, the true Israel which remains when the unfaithful part severed itself off; all the seed-corn, when the chaff was winnowed away.

So then, while they were now scattered, then God says, I will put them together (in one fold) as the sheep of Bozrah, which abounded in sheep (Isaiah 34:6), and was also a strong city of Edom; denoting how believers would be fenced within the Church, as by a strong wall, against which the powers of darkness should not prevail, and the wolf should howl around the fold, yet be unable to enter it, and Edom and the pagan should become part of the inheritance of Christ. As a flock in the midst of their fold, at rest, like sheep, still and subject to their shepherd’s voice. So these, having one faith and One Spirit, in meekness and simplicity, will obey the one rule of truth. Nor will it be a small number; for the place where they will be gathered will be too narrow to contain them, as is said in Isaiah: Give place to me, that I may dwell (Isaiah 49:20).

They shall make great noise - (it is the same word as our hum, the hum of men) by reason of the multitude of men. He explains his image, as does Ezekiel (Ezekiel 34:31), And ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD: and (Ezekiel 36:38), As a flock of holy things, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be full of a flock of men and they shall know that I am the LORD.

So many will they be, that throughout the whole world they will make a great and public sound in praising God, filling Heaven and the green pastures of Paradise with a mighty hum of praise, as John saw a great multitude which no man could number (Revelation 7:9), with one united voice praising the Good Shepherd, who smoothed for them all rugged places, and leveled them by His Own Steps, Himself the Guide of their way and the Gate of Paradise, as He says, I am the Door; through whom bursting through and going before, being also the Door of the way, the flock of believers will break through It.

But this Shepherd is their Lord and King. Not their King only, but the Lord God; so that this, too, bears witness that Christ is God.