Go to Related Reading
About this book

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 2 Kings 18:31 and Micah 4:4

Hebrew Bible

Share:

Summary

2 Kings 18 describes an Assyrian leader using the image of sitting under one’s own vine and fig tree, echoing language found in Micah’s vision of peace but in an ironic and mocking attempt to persuade Israel to surrender.

Passages

2 Kings 18:31

Hebrew Bible
29 This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you from my hand! 30 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord when he says, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” 31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, 32 until I come and take you to a land just like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.” 33 Have any of the gods of the nations actually rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Kings

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

References

"... Considerable light has been shed by the contributors to this volume on the genre and context of the “swords into plowshares” speech. Ted Lewis calls it “survival rhetoric,” meant to create a “mental space for resistance” against the intimidatory Assyrian rhetoric. Irmtraud Fischer, though she dates the text to the Persian period, argues that it is to be read and understood against the background of the devastating Assyrian campaign against Judah of 701, setting up a landmark of “holy peace” in opposition to the existing category of “holy war.” Mario Fales agrees. He finds no link between the prophecies and the documented historical events in First Isaiah but notes that the irenic message of swords into plowshares in the version found in Micah (4:1–4) strikingly recalls the identical imagery of men undisturbed, each under his vine or fig tree, evoked in 2 Kings 18:31. In this way the authentic, divinely inspired vision of nations at peace refutes the false war propaganda of the Assyrian official, bent on seducing a demoralized population under siege ..."
Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook, “Swords into Plowshares hen and Now,” in Isaiah’s Vision of Peace in Biblical and Modern International Relations: Swords into Plowshares, ed. Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 229–239.

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

Your feedback

2 Kings 18:31 and Micah 4:4

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library