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Many nations are gathered against thee - The Chaldeans, who were composed of many nations. And, we may add, all the surrounding nations were their enemies; and rejoiced when the Chaldean army had overthrown Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and led the people away captive.
Let her be defiled - This was their cry and their wish: Let Jerusalem be laid as low as she can be, like a thing defiled and cast away with abhorrence; that their eyes might look upon Zion with scorn, contempt, and exultation.
Now also - (And now.) The prophet had already spoken of the future before them, with this word Now. Then, he distinctly prophesied the captivity to Babylon. Twice more he begins anew; as Holy Scripture, so often, in a mystery, whether speaking of evil or of good, of deliverance or of punishment, uses a threefold form. In these two, no mention is made of the enemy, and so there is some uncertainty. But the course must apparently be either backward or forward. They must either be two nearer futures before the Captivity, or two more distant after it. This second gathering might, in itself, either be that of the Assyrian hosts under Sennacherib out of all the nations subject to him; or that of the many petty nations in the time of the Maccabees, who took advantage of the Syrians‘ oppression, to combine to eradicate the Jews (Isaiah 10:24-34; Isaiah 14:24, Isaiah 14:5; Isaiah 17:12-14; Isaiah 29:7-8; Nahum 1:10-13. Then also, if the course of the description was backward:
1) the captivity in Babylon
2) the destruction of Sennacherib
There is no earlier event to correspond with “the smiting of the judge of Israel on the cheek” (Micah 5:1-4 in Hebrew). The malice also of the nations gathered against Zion suits better with the abiding character of the petty nations, and of their hereditary envy against Israel and its high claims. To Nineveh and Babylon, Israel was but one little corner of ground, which rounded their territory and connected them with Egypt. They disdained them, even while they sought to subdue them. Micah describes the exultation of petty gratified rivalry.
That say, let her be defiled - The bad have a keen eye for the haltings and inconsistencies and falls of God‘s people, for which they are ever on the watch. Like Satan, they are first tempters, then the accusers; first desecrators, then sanctimonious justiciaries. God, in His judgment, leaves what has been inwardly defiled to be outwardly profaned. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple are ye” 1 Corinthians 3:17. “The faithful city had become a harlot” Isaiah 1:21. “The land had become polluted by its inhabitants” Jeremiah 3:9; Psalm 106:38; Isaiah 24:5. Now it was to be polluted by the enemy. Its seducers ask for the judgment of God. “It has become like us in its deeds; let it no more be distinguished from us by the name of the people of God.”
And let our eye look upon Zion - With pleasure upon its desolation, and feed itself with its misery.: “Where the eye, there love; where the hand, there pain.” “They opened their mouth wide against me: they said, Aha, Aha, our eye hath seen” Psalm 35:21. The world hates the Church; Edom, Israel; it cannot be satisfied with beholding its chastisements Micah 7:10; Obadiah 1:12. The sufferings of the Martyrs were the choice spectacle of the pagan.
“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down.” Jeremiah 4:19, 20, 23-26. Ed 181.1
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7. Ed 181.2
“Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” Isaiah 26:20. Ed 181.3
Read in context »“I am pained at my very heart; ... I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled.” Jeremiah 4:19, 20. PK 538.1
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7. PK 538.2
“Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge,
Even the Most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee,
Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”
PK 538.3