Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 4:1

"But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of Jehovah`s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it." — Micah 4:1 (ASV)

But (And) in the last days it shall come to pass - God’s promises, goodness, and truth do not fail. He withdraws His Presence from those who do not receive Him, only to give Himself to those who will receive Him. Mercy is the sequel and end of chastisement. Micah then joins this great prophecy of future mercy to the preceding woe, as its outcome in the order of God’s Will.

“And it shall be.” He fixes the mind on some great thing that will come to pass; “it shall be.” Then follows, in marked reference to the preceding privations, a superabundance of mercy. For “the mountain of the house,” which should be as a forest and which was left to them desolate, there is “the mountain of the Lord’s house established;” for the heap of dust and the plowed field, there is the flowing-in of the Gentiles; for the night and darkness, that there will be no vision, there is the fullness of revelation; for corrupt judgment, teaching, divining, a law from God Himself going forth through the world; for the building of Jerusalem with blood, one universal peace.

In the last days - Literally, “the end of the days,” that is, of those days that are in the thoughts of the speaker. Politically, there are many beginnings and many endings—as many endings as there are beginnings, since all human political order begins only to end, and to be displaced in its turn by some new beginning, which also runs its course, only to end.

Religiously, there are only two consummations. All time, since humanity fell, is divided into two halves: the looking forward to Christ to come in humility, and the looking forward to His coming in glory. These are the two events on which human history turns. To that former people, the whole period of Christ’s kingdom was one future—the fullness of all their own shadows, types, sacrifices, services, prophecies, longing, and being. The “end of their days” was the beginning of the new Day of Christ; the coming of His Day was necessarily the close of the former days, the period of the dispensation that prepared for it.

The prophets, then, by the words “the end of the days,” always mean the times of the Gospel. “The end of the days” is the close of all that went before, the last dispensation, after which there will be no other. Yet this too has “last days” of its own, that will close God’s kingdom of grace and will issue in the Second Coming of Christ, just as the end of those former days, which closed the times of “the law,” issued in His First Coming. We are then at once living in the last times and looking forward to a last time still to come.

In one way, Peter speaks of the last times (Ephesians 1:20), or the end of the times, in which Christ was manifested for us, in contrast with the foundations of the world, before which He was foreordained. And Paul contrasts God’s speaking to the fathers in the prophets (Hebrews 1:1) with His speaking to us in the Son at the end of these days; and he speaks of our Lord coming at the end (consummation) of the times (Hebrews 9:26) to put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself. Paul also says that the things that befell the Jews were written for our admonition, to whom the ends of the times (that is, of those of the former people of whom he had been speaking) have come (1 Corinthians 10:11). John also speaks of this as the last time (1 John 2:18). In the other way, they contrast the “last days,” not with the times before them but with their own; and then plainly these “last days” are a final and distant part of this, their own, last time.

The Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith. In the last days perilous times shall come. Scoffers shall come at the end of the days. They told you that there should be mockers in the last time.

The Jews distributed all time between “this world” and “the coming world,” including under “the coming world” the time of grace under the Messiah’s reign and the future glory. To us, the names have shifted, since this present world (Matthew 13:40; Ephesians 1:21; Titus 2:12) is to us the kingdom of Christ, and there remains nothing further on this earth to look to beyond what God has already given us. Our future then—placed as we are between the two Comings of our Lord—is, of necessity, beyond this world.

The mountain of the house of the Lord will be—abidingly.

Established - He does not say merely, “it will be established.” Kingdoms may be established at one time and then come to an end. He says, “it will be a thing established.” His saying is expanded by Daniel: “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall not be destroyed forever, and it shall abide forever” (Daniel 2:44). The house of the Lord was the center of His worship, the token of His Presence, the pledge of His revelations and of His abiding acceptance, protection, and favor. All these were to be increased and continuous. The image is one familiar to us in the Hebrew Scriptures. People were said to go up to it, as to a place of dignity.

In the Psalm on the carrying of the Ark there, the hill of God is compared to the many-topped mountains of Bashan (Psalms 68:16–17) (the Hermon peaks that bound Bashan) and so declared to be greater than they, as being the object of God’s choice. The mountain where God was worshiped rose above the mountains of idolatry. Ezekiel, varying the image, speaks of the Gospel as an overshadowing cedar (Ezekiel 17:22–23), planted by God upon a high and eminent mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, under which should dwell all fowl of every wing; and, in his vision of the Temple, he sees this, the image of the Christian Church (Ezekiel 40:2), upon a very high mountain. Our Lord speaks of His Apostles and the Church in them as a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid (Matthew 5:14). The seat of God’s worship was to be seen far and wide; nothing was to obscure it. It, now lower than the surrounding hills, was then to be as on the summit of them.

Human elevation, the more exalted it is, the more unstable it is. Divine greatness alone is at once solid and exalted. The new kingdom of God was at once to be “exalted above the hills” and “established on the top of the mountains;” “exalted,” at once, above everything human, and yet “established,” strong as the mountains on which it rested, and unassailable, unconquerable, seated securely aloft, between heaven, from where it came and to which it tends, and earth, on which it just rests in the sublime serenity of its majesty.

The image sets forth the supereminence of the Lord’s House above all things earthly. It does not define in what that greatness consists. The flowing in of the nations is a fruit of it (Micah 4:1–2). The immediate object of their coming is explained to be, to learn to know and to do the will of God (Micah 4:2). But the new revelation does not form all its greatness. That greatness is from the Presence of God, revealing and always teaching His Will, ruling, judging, rebuking, peacemaking (Micah 4:3–4).

Dionysius: “The ‘mountain of the Lord’s House’ was then ‘exalted above the hills’ by the bodily Presence of Christ, when He, in the Temple built on that mountain, spoke, preached, and performed so many miracles; as, on the same ground, Haggai says, ‘the glory of this latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former’ (Haggai 2:9).” Lap.: “This ‘mountain,’ the church of Christ, transcends all laws, schools, doctrines, religions, Synagogues of Jews and Philosophers, that seemed to rise high among men, like mountain-tops; indeed, whatever under the sun is sublime and lofty, it will surpass, trample on, and subdue to itself.”

Even Jews have seen the meaning of this figure. Their oldest mystical book explains it. Zohar, f. 93: “‘And it shall be in the last days,’ when, namely, the Lord shall visit the daughter of Jacob, then shall ‘the mountain of the house of the Lord be firmly established,’ that is, the Jerusalem which is above, which will stand firmly in its place, that it may shine by the light which is above. (For no light can retain its existence, except through the light from above.) For in that time the light from above will shine sevenfold more than before, according to that, ‘Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun; and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people and healeth the stroke of their wound’ (Isaiah 30:26).” Another, of the dry literal school, says (Aben Ezra), “It is well known that the house of the Temple is not high.

The meaning then is, that its fame will go out far, and people with offerings will return to it from all quarters, so that it will be as if it were on the top of all hills, so that all the inhabitants of the earth would see it.”

Some interpret “the mountain” to be Christ, who is called the Rock (1 Corinthians 10:4–6), on the confession of whom, as God-Man, “the house of the Lord” (that is, the Church) is built, the precious Cornerstone (Isaiah 28:16; 1 Peter 2:6; Ephesians 2:20), which is laid, beside which no foundation can be laid (1 Corinthians 3:11); “the great mountain,” of which Daniel prophesied (Daniel 2:35).

It is “firmly established,” so that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church, being built on it; “exalted above hills and mountains,” that is, above all besides, greater or smaller, that has any eminence. For He in truth is highly exalted and hath a Name above every name (Philippians 2:9), being at the Right Hand of God in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come; and all things are under His Feet (Ephesians 1:20–23). And this is for us, in that He, the Same, is the Head over all things to the Church which is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. Rupertus: “He is God and Man, King and Priest, King of kings, and a Priest abiding forever. Since then His Majesty reaches to the Right Hand of God, neither mountains nor hills, Angels nor holy men, reach to it; for ‘to which of the Angels said God at any time, Sit thou on My Right Hand?’ (Hebrews 1:13).”

Cyril: “Aloft then is the Church of God raised, both in that its Head is in heaven and the Lord of all, and that, on earth, it is not like the Temple, in one small people, but ‘set on a hill that it cannot be hid’ (Matthew 5:14), or remain unseen even to those far from it. Its doctrine too and life are far above the wisdom of this world, showing in them nothing of earth, but are above; its wisdom is the knowledge and love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and its life is hidden with Christ in God, in those who are justified in Him and hallowed by His Spirit.” In Him, it is lifted above all things, and with the eyes of the mind beholds (as far as may be) the glory of God, soaring on high toward Him who is the Author of all being, and, filled with divine light, it acknowledges Him as the Maker of all.

And people (peoples, nations) will flow to (literally upon) it - A mighty tide would set in to the Gospel. The word, used only figuratively, is employed for the streaming in of multitudes, such as in ancient times poured into Babylon, the merchant-empress of the world (Jeremiah 51:44). It is used of the distant nations who would throng in one continuous stream into the Gospel, or of Israel streaming together from the four corners of the world.

So, Isaiah foretells, “Thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that they may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought” (Isaiah 60:11, compare Revelation 21:25-26). These were to flow upon it, perhaps so as to cover it, expressing both the multitude and density of the throng of nations, how full the Church would be, as the swollen river spreads itself over the whole open country, and the surging flood-tide climbs up the face of the rock that bounds it.

The flood once covered the highest mountains to destroy life; this flood would pour in for the saving of life. Lap.: “It is a miracle if waters ascend from a valley and flow to a mountain. So it is also a miracle that earthly nations would ascend to the church, whose doctrine and life are lofty, arduous, and sublime. This the grace of Christ effects, mighty and lofty, as it is sent from heaven. As then waters, conducted from the fountains by pipes into a valley, in that valley surge up and rise nearly to their original height, so these waters of heavenly grace, brought down into valleys (that is, the hearts of men), cause them to leap up with them to heaven and enter upon and embrace a heavenly life.”