Jesus, Deliverer from the Assyrians?
Making Sense of the Use of Micah 5:2 in Matthew 2:6
I got a great question earlier this week that I decided to bump to the front of the mailbag line as I start catching up. This one is on the seeming disconnect between the original context of Micah 5 and the Gospel of Matthew’s use of Micah 5:2 as a messianic proof-text about Jesus.
Do you happen to know why Matthew would view Micah 5:2 as a Messianic prophecy during his time given the full chapter of Micah 5 it seems to be talking about a military ruler hoped for during the Assyrian siege of Micah's time? As you know, I'm a Christian but it seems pretty out of context. For instance, in Micah 5:5-6 "And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land", "He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land and march across our borders."
This is a terrific question that also touches on a constant debate about whether the New Testament authors considered the context of the verses they cite or whether they just haphazardly chose proof-texts based on whatever wording they needed to make their point conveniently.
In this case, I think Matthew definitely has the fuller context in mind, though in a way that surely would’ve surprised the prophet himself. As a reminder, as cited by Matthew, the verse goes like this: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are in no way least among the rulers of Judah; for from you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Matt 2:6).
Matthew’s citation doesn’t exactly mirror either the extant Hebrew version or the Greek (LXX) versions, as the Gospel writer has adapted the wording of the prophetic text to his situation, including some verbal hyperlinks to other related passages, most notably the use of “shepherd,” which links this passage to 2 Sam 5:2 while also drawing on Micah 5:4, only a couple verses later.
Interestingly, Matthew omits the final portion of Micah 5:2, which would have been especially well-suited for his larger presentation of Jesus: “His going forth is from ancient times, from days of eternity.” This omission only serves to illustrate how the Gospel authors often leave space for the reader to fill based on their knowledge of the scriptures being quoted or alluded to.
But what about the references to deliverance from the Assyrians? How could that possibly be relevant to Matthew’s portrayal and understanding of Jesus centuries after the Assyrian empire had collapsed?
This is where I think it’s especially important to remember that many early Jewish sources treat their own context as merely a continuation of the situation that began with the Assyrian invasions and deportations of Israel centuries earlier. Take, for example, the reference to the Persian emperor as the “king of Assyria” in Ezra 6:22—hardly a mistake, since the narrator gets it right a few verses earlier (6:14).
Similarly, the book of Judith opens by calling the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar “the king of Assyria,” which is akin to beginning with something like, “When George Washington was the king of England.” Nebuchadnezzar turns out to be only a representation of the Seleucids, and the point is, as I argue in The Idea of Israel, that:
Seleucid rule [is] but a continuation of the foreign domination stretching back to the Assyrians, with their defeat through Judith’s actionsmarking the beginning of the end (or the end of the beginning) of that period. In the fantasy world of the story, Judith’s actions entirely erase the consequences and memory not only of the Babylonian Exile but also of the initial Assyrian victory over Israel.
Other examples could be marshaled (the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, include multiple texts that regard the present as merely a continuation of Assyrian domination), but the point is that Matthew is borrowing this motif and presenting Jesus as the one who brings this Age of Wrath—the period beginning with the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians—to an end.
This also reinforces the geographic portrayal of Jesus’ ministry that Matthew adopts from Mark, starting in Galilee (the first region to be deported by the Assyrians) and then expanding to the borders of traditional northern Israel before heading south to Judah. Effectively, as Jesus goes through these areas, casting out demons and vanquishing the various deities that have taken control in those regions, the Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ spiritual re-conquest of the Land. He takes back the hegemony that had been given over to foreign nations (and their gods; see Deut 28:64) but with a different form of conquest that befits his heavenly authority.
Matthew’s use of Micah is therefore designed to set up this understanding of what Jesus is doing in his ministry and to highlight how Jesus is bringing the Age of Wrath initiated by the Assyrians to an end and bringing the favor and peace promised by Micah.
The idea of Jesus' re-conquest of the land from North to South is so interesting. I think it kind of echoes the idea of Him reenacting and embodying moments of Israel's history to take His place as the Faithful Israel. Very cool.
Somewhat tangential, but do you see any connection between Micah 5:5 with the phrase "this One will be our peace" when comparing it to Genesis 5:29 at the birth of Noah?
Thanks for this excellent article. It appears that we even see evidence of what these later Jewish sources are doing within the book of Micah itself. The book connects Zion's restoration and the promise of the future Davidic ruler to deliverance from exile in Babylon (4:9-10) but also deliverance from Sennacherib's siege (4:11-13; 5:1-2). The Assyrian and Babylonian crises are thus prototypes of the subjugation of Zion that continue until the birth of the promised ruler and the final deliverance. It's chronologically jumbled, but the Assyrians and Babylonians are prototypes. The final redactors of the book are doing what these later Jewish sources were doing in seeing the deliverance from Assyria and Babylon as essentially one contiguous event.