Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 5:11-15

"and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and will throw down all thy strongholds. And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy hand; and thou shalt have no [more] soothsayers: and I will cut off thy graven images and thy pillars out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thy hands; and I will pluck up thine Asherim out of the midst of thee; and I will destroy thy cities. And I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath upon the nations which hearkened not." — Micah 5:11-15 (ASV)

I will cut off the cities of your land - So God promised by Zechariah, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls; for I will be unto her a wall of fire round about (Zechariah 2:4–5). The Church will not need the temptation of human defense, for God will fence her in on every side. Great cities too, as the abode of luxury and sin, of power and pride, and, mostly, of cruelty, are chiefly denounced as the objects of God’s anger. Babylon stands as the emblem of the whole city of the world or of the devil, as opposed to God.

Rup.: “The first city was built by Cain; Abel and the other saints heed no continuing city (Hebrews 13:14) here.” Cities then will include (Rup.) “all the tumults and evil passions and ambition and strife and bloodshed, which Cain brought in among men.” Cities are collectively called and are Babylon, with whom (as in Revelation we hear a voice from heaven saying) the kings of the earth committed fornication and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies (Revelation 18:3); and of which it is written, And a mighty Angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all (Revelation 18:21).

“Great rest then is promised to holy Zion, that is, the Church, when the cities or strongholds of the land (strongholds, as they are, of earthliness) will be destroyed. For together with them are included all objects of desire in them, with the sight of which the citizens of the kingdom of God, while pilgrims here, are tempted; of which the wise man says, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

The fulfillment reaches on to the Day of Judgment, when the Church will finally receive glory from the Lord, and be without spot and wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). All looks on to that Day.

The very largeness of the promise, which speaks, in its fullest sense, of the destruction of things without which we can hardly do in this life (like cities, or things very useful for human needs, such as horses), carries us on yet more to that Day when there will be no more need of any outward things.

Rup.: “when the heavy body will be changed, and will have the swiftness of angels, and will be transported where it wills, without chariots and horses; and all things which tempt the eye will cease; and no evil will enter; and there will be no need of divining, amid the presence and full knowledge of God, and where the ever-present Face of God, who is Truth, will shine on all, and nothing be uncertain or unknown; nor will they need to form in their souls images of Him whom His own will see as He Is; nor will they esteem anything of self, or the work of their own hands; but God will be All in all.”

In like way, the woe on those who do not obey the truth also looks on to the end. It too is final. There is nothing to soften it. Punishments in the course of life are medicinal.

Here no mention is made of Mercy, but only of executing vengeance; and that, with wrath and fury; and that, such as they have not heard. For as eye has not seen, nor heart conceived the good things laid up in store for those who love God, so neither the evil things prepared for those who, by their actions, show that they hate Him.