A prophet speaks:--
_And it shall come to pass in the issue of the days,_[875] _That the Mount of the House of Jehovah shall be established on the tops_[876] _of the mountains,_ _And lifted shall it be above the hills,_ _And peoples shall flow to it,_ _And many nations shall go and say:_ "_Come, and let us up to the Mount of Jehovah,_ _And to the House of the God of Jacob,_ _That He may teach us of His ways,_ _And we will walk in His paths._" _For from Zion goeth forth the law,_ _And the word of Jehovah from out of Jerusalem!_ _And He shall judge between many peoples,_ _And decide_[877] _for strong nations far and wide;_[878] _And they shall hammer their swords into ploughshares,_ _And their spears into pruning-hooks:_ _They shall not lift up, nation against nation, a sword,_ _And they shall not any more learn war._ _Every man shall dwell under his vine_ _And under his fig-tree,_ _And none shall make afraid;_ _For the mouth of Jehovah of Hosts has spoken._
What connection this last verse is intended to have with the preceding is not quite obvious. It may mean that every family among the Gentiles shall dwell in peace; or, as suggested above, that with the voluntary disarming of the surrounding heathendom, Israel herself shall dwell secure, in no fear of border raids and slave-hunting expeditions, with which especially Micah's Shephelah and other borderlands were familiar. The verse does not occur in Isaiah's quotation of the three which precede it. We can scarcely suppose, fain though we may be to do so, that Micah added the verse in order to exhibit the future correction of the evils he has been deploring in chap. iii.: the insecurity of the householder in Israel before the unscrupulous land-grabbing of the wealthy. Such are not the evils from which this passage prophesies redemption. It deals only, like the first oracles of Amos, with the relentlessness and ferocity of the heathen: under Jehovah's arbitrament these shall be at peace, and whether among themselves or in Israel, hitherto so exposed to their raids, men shall dwell in unalarmed possession of their houses and fields. Security from war, not from social tyranny, is what is promised.
The following verse (5) gives in a curious way the contrast of the present to that future in which all men will own the sway of one God. _For_ at the present time _all the nations are walking each in the name of his God, but we go in the name of Jehovah for ever and aye_.
To which vision, complete in itself, there has been added by another hand, of what date we cannot tell, a further effect of God's blessed influence. To peace among men shall be added healing and redemption, the ingathering of the outcast and the care of the crippled.
_In that day--'tis the oracle of Jehovah--I will gather the halt,_ _And the cast-off I will bring in, and all that I have afflicted;_ _And I will make the halt for a Remnant,_[879] _And her that was weakened_[880] _into a strong people,_ _And Jehovah shall reign over them_ _In the Mount of Zion from now and for ever._
Whatever be the origin of the separate oracles which compose this passage (iv. 1-7), they form as they now stand a beautiful whole, rising from Peace through Freedom to Love. They begin with obedience to God and they culminate in the most glorious service which God or man may undertake, the service of saving the lost. See how the Divine spiral ascends. We have, first, Religion the centre and origin of all, compelling the attention of men by its historical evidence of justice and righteousness. We have the world's willingness to learn of it. We have the results in the widening brotherhood of nations, in universal Peace, in Labour freed from War, and with none of her resources absorbed by the conscriptions and armaments which in our times are deemed necessary for enforcing peace. We have the universal diffusion and security of Property, the prosperity and safety of the humblest home. And, finally, we have this free strength and wealth inspired by the example of God Himself to nourish the broken and to gather in the forwandered.