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Micah

About this book
Chapter 4

1 And in future days the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; it will be more prominent than other hills. People will stream to it.⁠ 2 Many nations will come, saying, “Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of Jacob’s God, so he can teach us his ways and we can live by his laws.”⁠ For instruction will proceed from Zion, the Lord’s message from Jerusalem. 3 He will arbitrate between many peoples and settle disputes between many distant nations. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not use weapons against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.⁠ 4 Each will sit under his own grapevine or under his own fig tree without any fear.⁠ The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has decreed it. 5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods, we will follow the Lord our God forever.⁠ 6 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will gather the lame and assemble the outcasts whom I injured. 7 I will transform the lame into the nucleus of a new nation and those far off into a mighty nation. The Lord will reign over them on Mount Zion, from that day forward and forevermore. 8 As for you, watchtower for the flock, fortress of Daughter Zion—your former dominion will be restored, the sovereignty that belongs to Daughter Jerusalem.”⁠ 9 Jerusalem, why are you now shouting so loudly? Has your king disappeared? Has your wise leader been destroyed? Is this why pain grips you as if you were a woman in labor?⁠ 10 Twist and strain, Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor! For you will leave the city and live in the open field. You will go to Babylon, but there you will be rescued. There the Lord will deliver you from the power of your enemies. 11 Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated, so we can gloat over Zion!” 12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning; they do not understand his strategy. He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed at the threshing floor. 13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion! For I will give you iron horns; I will give you bronze hooves, and you will crush many nations.” You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler of the whole earth.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Micah 4:4 and 1 Maccabees 14:12

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

1 Maccabees describes a time of peace under Simon when everyone sat under their own vine and fig tree, echoing Micah’s vision of future peace and prosperity. This presents Simon’s leadership as the fulfillment of this hope.

Passages

Micah 4:4

Hebrew Bible
2 Many nations will come, saying, “Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of Jacob’s God, so he can teach us his ways and we can live by his laws.” For instruction will proceed from Zion, the Lord’s message from Jerusalem. 3 He will arbitrate between many peoples and settle disputes between many distant nations. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not use weapons against other nations, and they will no longer train for war. 4 Each will sit under his own grapevine or under his own fig tree without any fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has decreed it. 5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods, we will follow the Lord our God forever. 6 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will gather the lame and assemble the outcasts whom I injured.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Micah

1 Maccabees 14:12

Deuterocanon
10 He provided food for the cities and furnished them with means of defense, until the glory of his name was known to the end of the earth. 11 He made peace in the land, and Israel rejoiced with great joy. 12 Each man sat under his vine and his fig tree, and there was no one to make them afraid. 13 No one was left in the land who fought against them. The kings were defeated in those days. 14 He strengthened all those of his people who were humble. He searched out the law, and every lawless and wicked person he took away.
134–63 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Maccabees

References

"... The author celebrates Simon’s achievements even more expansively, asserting that “the land had rest all the days of Simon” (1 Maccabees 14:4), as it had enjoyed in the days of Solomon (1 Kings 5:4). The shalom that had been promised to Israel since the time of the prophets became reality at last under his rule ... These images stem from the prophecies of Micah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, who promised that “old men and old women will sit again in Jerusalem’s streets” while “the land will be sown in peace” and “the vine shall bear its fruit and the ground its produce” (Zechariah 8:4, 12; see also Ezekiel 34:27) and that the people would “all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). The prophecies about a renewed, restored Zion had come to fulfillment under Simon’s rule ..."
David A. DeSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 143.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Micah 4:4 and 1 Maccabees 14:12

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