Verse 1
God’s Enemies Are Determined To Demonstrate Their Power And To Smite YHWH’s Anointed (Micah 5:1 ).
The warning of the previous verse having been ignored the nations gather their forces for the attack on God’s people.
‘Now will you gather yourself in troops,
O daughter of troops.
He has laid siege against us;
They will smite the judge of Israel,
With a rod upon the cheek.
The nations are still determined to attack Judah in spite of Micah’s warning concerning the future. They gather themselves in troops, because they are ‘daughters of troops’, in other words that is the kind of people that they are. And thus their leader has laid siege against Jerusalem.
Their aim is to humiliate the one who is the judge of Israel. This may indicate Hezekiah. There was certainly nothing that Sennacherib wanted more to do than humiliate Hezekiah. He gloated over the fact that he had shut him up like a caged bird in Jerusalem. But the unusual term Judge may signify that the Judge of Israel is in mind, YHWH Himself. Either way they want to smite him with a rod on his cheek. The idea is of a symbol of authority being used to smite him across the cheek as a sign of his defeat, humiliation and submission.
As we know, because YHWH intervened in response to Hezekiah’s prayer it did not happen immediately. Indeed His enemies were then decimated by the angel of YHWH (2 Kings 19:35). But it did occur in the days of Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh (compare Micah 4:10).
But whenever it happened it would not be the end, for YHWH would eventually raise up a champion Who would accomplish His purposes.
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