Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 7:11-12

"A day for building thy walls! in that day shall the decree be far removed. In that day shall they come unto thee from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the River, and from sea to sea, and [from] mountain to mountain." — Micah 7:11-12 (ASV)

On this confession of unworthiness and trust, the message of joy bursts in, with the abruptness and conciseness of Hosea or Nahum:

A day to build your fences; (that is, comes; )
That day, far shall be the decree;
That day, and he shall come all the way to you;

And there follows, in a longer but still remarkably measured and interrupted cadence, the statement of the length and breadth from which the people shall come to her:

Up to and from Assyria and the cities of strong-land (Egypt);
Up to and from strong-land and even to the river (the Euphrates);
And sea from sea, and mountain to mountain.

It is not human might or strength that God promises to restore. He had previously predicted that the kingdom of the Messiah should stand, not through earthly strength (Micah 5:9–13). He promises the restoration, not of city walls, but of the fence of the vineyard of God, which God foretold by Isaiah that He would break down (Isaiah 5:5).

It is a peaceful renewal of her estate under God’s protection, like that with the promise with which Amos closed his prophecy: In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof (Amos 9:11). This decree, which he says shall be far away, might in itself be the decree either of God or of the enemy. The sense is the same, since the enemy was only the instrument of God.

Yet it seems more in accordance with the language of the prophets that it should be the decree of man. For the decree of God for the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of His people was accomplished, held its course, and was fulfilled.

The destruction, captivity, and restoration were parts of one and the same decree of God, of which the restoration was the last accomplished in time. The restoration was not the removal, but the complete fulfillment, of the decree.

He means then, probably, that the decree of the enemy, by which he held her captive, was to remove and be far off, not by any agency of hers. The people were to stream to her of themselves. One by one, all your banished, captive, scattered children shall be brought all the way home to you from all parts of the earth where they have been driven, from Assyria, and from strong-land.

The name Matsor, which he gives to Egypt, modifying its ordinary dual name Mitsraim, is meant at once to signify “Egypt” and to mark the strength of the country, as, in fact, “Egypt was on all sides by nature strongly guarded.”

A country that was still strong relative to Judah would not, of itself, yield up its prey but held it tightly; yet it would have to disgorge it. Isaiah and Hosea prophesied, in a similar way, the return of Israel and Judah from Assyria and from Egypt (Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 27:13; Hosea 11:11).

And from strong-land even to the river (the Euphrates)—the ancient, widest boundary of the promised land—and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain (Genesis 15:18; Exodus 23:31; Deuteronomy 1:7; Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:4; 1 Kings 4:21, 4:24). These last are too large to be the real boundaries of the land.

If understood geographically, it would mean narrowing those boundaries that had just been spoken of, from Egypt to the Euphrates. Joel likens the destruction of the Northern army to the perishing of locusts in the two opposite seas, the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean (Joel 2:20); but the Dead Sea was not the entire Eastern boundary of all Israel.

Nor are there any mountains on the South corresponding to Mount Lebanon on the North. Not the mountains of Edom, which lay to the southeast, but the desert was the Southern boundary of Judah (Exodus 23:31; Numbers 34:3; Deuteronomy 11:24). In the times of their greatest prosperity, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Syria had also been subject to them.

The rule of the Messiah from sea to sea had already been predicted by Solomon, enlarging the boundaries of the promised land to the whole compass of the world—from the sea, their boundary westward, to the further encircling sea beyond all habitable land, in which, in fact, our continents are large islands.

To this, Micah adds a new description, from mountain to mountain, including, probably, all subdivisions in our habitable earth, just as the words sea to sea had embraced it as a whole.

For, physically and to sight, mountains are the great natural divisions of our earth. Rivers are only a means of transit. The Euphrates and the Nile were the centers of the kingdoms that lay upon them. Each range of mountains, as it rises on the horizon, seems to present an insuperable barrier.

No barrier should prevent the inflow to the Gospel. As Isaiah foretold that all obstacles should be removed, every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low (Isaiah 40:4), so Micah prophesies, from mountain to mountain they shall come.

The words are addressed as a promise and consolation to the Jews, and so, doubtless, the restoration of the Jews to their own land after the captivity is foretold here, as Micah had already foretold it (Micah 4:10). But is the whole limited to this?

He says, with remarkable indefiniteness, there shall come. He does not say who shall come. But he twice sets two opposite boundaries from which men should come; and, since these boundaries, not being coincident, cannot be predicted of one and the same subject, there must be two distinct incomings.

The Jews were to come from those two countries where their people were then to be carried captive or would flee. From the boundaries of the world, the world was to come.

Thus, Micah embraces in one the prophecies, which are distinct in Isaiah: that not only God’s former people should come from Egypt and Assyria, but that Egypt and Assyria themselves should be counted as one with Israel (Isaiah 19:23–25). And while, in the first place, the restoration of Israel itself is foretold, there follows that conversion of the world, which Micah had previously promised (Micah 4:1–3), and which was the object of the restoration of Israel.

This was fulfilled for Jews and pagans together when the dispersed of the Jews were gathered into one in Christ, the Son of David according to the flesh, and the Gospel, beginning at Jerusalem, was spread abroad among all nations. The promise is thrice repeated, It is the day, assuring the truth of it, as it were, in the Name of the All-Holy Trinity.