2. Troi|j.aiv€iv. — Mt 2" ' And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda : for out of thee shall come a (Governor, that shall rule (RV 'be shepherd of) my people Israel ' [octtls Troifiavel rbv XaSf fiov rbv 'lo-pttTjX). Here three things demand our attention. (i.) Mic 5^ {' Heb.) and its context. — Like his older contemporary Isaiah (9. 11), Micah looks forward to tlie end of the Assyrian invasion as the time when the Messianic hope shall be fulfilled.
' The daughter of Zion must pass through the pangs of labour before her true king is born ; she must come forth from the city and dwell in the open field ; there, and not within her proud ramparts, Jehovah will grant her deliverance from her enemies. For a time the land shall be given up to the foe, but only for a time. Once more, as in the days of David, guerilla bands gather together to avenge the wrongs of their nation (51). A new David comes forth from little Bethlehem, and the rest of his brethren return to the children of Israel — that is, the kindred Hebrew nations again accept the sway of the new king, who stands and feeds his flock ui the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God. Then Assyria shall no longer insult Jehovah's land with impunity ' (W. R. Smith, The Prophets of laraen, 291).
This being the meaning of the prophecy, it is evident that it was never literally fulKUed. But when we look at the deeper side of the Messianic hope which it sets forth — the heart-felt longing for a true Kingdom of God, ' the perception that that Kingdom can never be realized without a personal
* This is the usage in class. Gr., e.fj. Eurip. Hec. 29.'5, where 01 hoxotjvri; is opposed to o! aioiovvri; ; Plato, Kiithyd. 303 C, rHv iriutSM xx'i loxoiiyTuy ri uvxi, ' the grave and reverend seigniors '
(Jowetfs tr.).
centre, ;i representative of God with man and man with (iod,' who shall attain to true gre.'itness through humility — we see that the purpose M'hich was in the mind of God, when He moved the pro- phet to write, was fulfilled in the highest sense when He sent His Son into the world, and when Jesus Christ entered, by being born and that in a low condition, on that life of humiliation that led to His exaltation to the place of power, and will finally lead to ' all things being put under His feet.' (ii.) The quotation in Mt. — It is not in verbal agreement with the LXX or with the Heb. text. The most important diflerences from the latter are the following : —
(«) Instead of T\vr}h TJ/^, lit. 'little for being' (' a town too small to be reckoned as a canton in Judah,' \V. R. Smith, I.e.), Mt. has ovhauM; lxecx'<rr/i iT, 'art in no wise least' (RV). Turpie (07' in the }\eir, 190) translates the Heb. ' And art thou, Beth- lehem, little for being ( = so little as not to be) among the thou- sands of Juda'?' — following Grotius (Opera, ii., Amst. 1679), who received the suggestion from Pesh., where the clause is rendered interrogatively. Others conjecture that a N'7 has dropped out of the Heb. text (cf. W. C. Allen in ExpT xii. [1901] 283 ; Com. on Mt. p. 13). These suggested emendations are unnecessary. Micah says that the ideal king is to come out of Bethleliem, a town held in little estimation ; and Mt., in view of the dignity bestowed on the town by the birth of Christ, says, ' Thou art by no means the least.' 'They agree in spirit.
(/3) The words of Micah, 'he that is to be ruler in Israel,' are expanded by Mt. into ' a ruler who shall be shepherd of my people Israel.' He thus introduces into his quotation the words of the promise to David, ' And thou shalt be shepherd of (nj;-in) my people Israel' (2 S 52 || 1 Ch 112). But in Mic 54 (3 lieb.) the words, ' And he shall stand and be shepherd of ' (n^"ii), are a reminiscence of the promise to David. The Evangelist simply gives the promise at full length.
To most Biblical scholars these diflerences will not seem of much account. The quotations in the NT are an important subject of study, but it is not now considered necessary, in the interests of revelation, to make out a verbal correspondence between these quotations and their OT equivalents. See art. Quotations.
(iii.) The nature of Chrisfs rule as set forth hxj Troi/xaiveiv. — nj;-i is first applied to God by Jacob, Gn 48^5 ('who shepherded me'), 49"-'* (prob. 'the shepherd of the stone of Israel,' and = ' the God of Bethel ' [Driver, Gc7!.' Addenda xvii]). His people are ' the sheep of his pasture ' (Ps 95'' 100^) ; He led them and fed them in the wilderness as a shepherd (Ps IT-" 78^^ gQi, Hos 13^ [LXX] ^■jroi/i^.aLvdv ae iv Trj ip-qfufi, Is 63^ \ Jer 2"^ ' thou wentest after me ' — the shepherd leading) ; He will bring them back from the Dispersion (Ezk 34^-, cf. Ps 147^) ; His care for His flock comprehends the most con- siderate tending of individuals (Ps 23^'^"-, Is 40^^ Ps 119''^^ seeking the lost sheep). To David, as His vicegerent. He commits the care of His flock (2 S 5", Ps 78'^'), and He will yet set up one shep- herd over them, who shall be pre-eminent in those qualities which David in a large measure mani- fested as a ruler (Mic 5^ Ezk 34''» 37-^ Ps 2« [LXX, following Pesh., Troifiaveis avrovs eV pd^duj aidripqi, so quoted Rev 2-' 12''^ 19^^ ; cf. Briggs, Com. on Psalms, i. 22]). To Mt. this shepherd is Jesus Christ, and it is fitting that in this early chapter he should euiploy this title resjjecting Him whose life on earth, as set forth in the succeeding chapters of his Gospel, was to illustrate so abundantly His shepherd - rule in its tenderness and strength. Christ is the compassionate Shepherd (Mt 9^" 15-^) ; His flock fear no evil, because He is with them (Lk 12^-) ; He goes after that which is lost till He finds it (Mt 12", Lk IS'*-") ; He is the noble (/ca\6j) Shep- herd, who gives His life for His sheep (Jn lO-- "• "*), who provides for their being fed and tended after His departure to heaven (Jn 2P''-" ; cf. Ac 20-^ Eph 4", 1 P 5-), and who still carries on in glory His own work as ' the great shepherd of the sheej) ' (He 13-") and the dpxnrolix-qv (1 P 5-' — a title combining the two words of our present study) ; —