Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 7:14

"Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy heritage, which dwell solitarily, in the forest in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old." — Micah 7:14 (ASV)

Feed Your people with Your rod - The day of final deliverance was still far off. There was a weary interval before them of chastisement, suffering, and captivity.

So Micah lays down his pastoral office by committing his people to Him who was their true and abiding Shepherd. Whoever has held the pastoral office has not thought, as the night drew near in which no one can work, "What will happen after he is gone?"

Micah knew and foretold the outline. It was for his people a passing through the valley of the shadow of death. Micah then commits them to Him, who had Himself committed them to him, and who alone could guide them through it.

It is a touching parting with his people: a final guidance of those whom he had taught, reproved, and rebuked—in vain—to Him, the Good Shepherd who led Israel like a flock.

The rod is at times the shepherd’s staff (Leviticus 27:32; Psalms 23:4), although more frequently the symbol of chastisement. God’s chastisement of His people is an austere form of His love. So He says, If his children forsake My law, I will visit their offences with a rod and their sin with scourges: nevertheless My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from them (Psalms 89:31, 33).

The flock of Your inheritance - So Moses had appealed to God, Destroy not Your people and Your inheritance which You have redeemed through Your greatness - They are Your people and Your inheritance (Deuteronomy 9:26, 29); and Solomon, in his dedication-prayer, that, on their repentance in their captivity, God would forgive His people, for they are Your people and Your inheritance whom You brought forth out of Egypt (1 Kings 8:51); and Asaph, O Lord, the pagan are come into Your inheritance (Psalms 79:1); and again, Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? Remember the tribe of Your inheritance which You have redeemed (Psalms 74:1–2); and Joel, Spare Your people and give not Your heritage to reproach (Joel 2:17); and a Psalmist, They break in pieces Your people, O Lord, and afflict Your heritage (Psalms 94:5); and Isaiah, Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your inheritance (Isaiah 63:17).

The appeal excludes all merits. Not for any deserts of theirs (for these were only evil) did the prophets teach them to pray, but because they were God’s property.

It was His Name that would be dishonored in them; it was His work that would seemingly come to nothing; it was He who would be thought powerless to save.

Again, it is not God’s way to leave half-done what He has begun. Jesus, having loved His own which were in the world, loved them unto the end (John 13:1).

God’s love in creating us and making us His is the pledge, if we are willing, of His everlasting love. We have been the objects of His everlasting thought, of His everlasting love. Though we have forfeited all claim to His love, He has not forfeited the work of His Hands; nor has Jesus forfeited the price of His Blood.

So holy men have prayed: "I believe that You have redeemed me by Your Blood: do not permit the price of the Ransom to perish." "O Jesus Christ, my only Savior, let not Your most bitter Passion and Death be lost or wasted in me, a miserable sinner!"

Which dwell solitarily, or alone - Micah uses the words of Balaam, when he had been constrained by God to bless Israel: The people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations (Numbers 23:9).

Moses had repeated them: Israel shall dwell in safety alone (Deuteronomy 33:28). This aloneness among other nations, then, was a blessing, springing from God’s being in the midst of them (Exodus 33:16; Deuteronomy 4:7), the deeds which He did for them (Exodus 34:10; Deuteronomy 4:3), and the law which He gave (Deuteronomy 4:8, 33).

So Moses prayed, Wherein shall it be known here that I and Your people have found grace in Your sight? (Exodus 33:16); is it not in that You go with us? So shall we be separated, I and Your people, from all the people that are on the face of the earth.

It was, then, a separate appeal to God by all His former lovingkindness, by which He had severed and elected His people for Himself.

In the wood, in the midst of Carmel - God turns a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of those who dwell in it. He turns the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground into watersprings (Psalms 107:34, 5).

Isaiah at the same time used a similar image: Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field (Carmel), and the fruitful field (Carmel) shall be esteemed as a forest (Isaiah 29:17).

The wild forest was to be like the rich domestic exuberance of Carmel (see the note at Amos 1:2). He would say, "Feed Your people in Babylon, which is to them a wild homeless tract, that it may be to them as their own peaceful Carmel."

Without God, all the world is a wilderness; with God, the wilderness is Paradise.

Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead - The former words were a prayer for their restoration. Gilead and Bashan were the great pasture-countries of Palestine (see the note at Amos 1:3, vol. i. p. 234; iv. 1. p. 280), "a wide tableland, with undulating downs clothed with rich grass throughout," where the cattle ranged freely.

They were the first possessions that God had bestowed upon Israel, the first that they forfeited. Micah prays that God, who protected them in their desolation, would restore and protect them in the green pasture where He placed them.

They are a prayer still to the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep (John 10:11, 15), our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would feed His flock whom He has redeemed, who have been given to Him as an inheritance (Psalms 2:8), the little flock (Luke 12:32) to which it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom, which cleaves to Him and shall be heirs with Him (Romans 8:17).

Cyril says: "Christ feeds His own with a rod, guiding them gently, and repressing by gentle fears the tendency of believers to listlessness. He bruises, as with a rod of iron, not them, but the rebellious, disobedient, and proud, who do not receive the faith."

"Believers He instructs and forms tenderly, feeds them among the lilies (Song of Solomon 6:3), and leads them into good pastures and rich places—namely, the divinely-inspired Scriptures—making its hidden things clear through the Spirit to those of understanding, that they may grow up to Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ (Ephesians 4:15), with minds well-fed and nourished and gladdened with all spiritual delights."

"But the chosen and elect dwell solitarily, being apart from the rest who think only of the things of earth and give themselves to the pleasures of sense. So then these, having the mind at rest, freed from the vain and abominable tumults, are placed apart as in a wood and in a mountain. By the wood you may understand the rich and varied and solid instruction (as it were, trees and flowers) both in doctrine and life; by the mountain, what is high and lofty."

"For none of the wisdom accounted of in the Church is low. They are fed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old—rich pastures; for the mind of the holy is beautified, delighting itself in the contemplation of the inspired Scriptures, and filled, as it were, with a certain richness, and shares without limit all excellence in thought or in deed; and that, not for a brief and narrow season, but forever. For what gladdens the flesh falls with it and fades and hastens away like a shadow; but the participation of the good things from above and of the Spirit stretches out along endless ages."