The First Dominion
IT is refreshing indeed, ere the sad story of failure and sin is resumed, to turn our eyes for a little time to the glad scenes depicted in the first half of this chapter.
The three opening verses are an almost exact duplicate of Isa. 2:2-42And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:2‑4). We need not inquire whether the charge of plagiarism should be brought against the elder or the younger prophet. We have not here to do with the literature of men, but with the inspired Word of God. He says, “The testimony of two men is true;” and He has given the same promise of millennial blessing through both Micah and Isaiah, that all may know that neither wrote from himself, but as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. It need be no matter of surprise that He chose to use the same language on each occasion.
In the last days, the time to which all prophecy points, “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains.” The future millennial temple will not stand on mount Moriah, but on a magnificent table-land, lifted up above all the surrounding hills, after the land has gone through some remarkable topographical changes, caused by a great earthquake, which will occur when the feet of the Lord Jesus stand again on the mount of Olives. See Ezek. 40:22In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south. (Ezekiel 40:2) and 48:8-12; Zech. 14:44And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. (Zechariah 14:4).
There, in commanding position, shall the house of the God of the whole earth be located, and thither shall the nations come up regularly to worship and to inquire the ways of Jehovah. From this sanctuary the law will go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, the metropolis of the world in the age to come.
At last all delegated rule shall have ceased in the closing up of the times of the Gentiles. Henceforth our once-rejected Lord Jesus shall “show who is that blessed and only Potentate, King of kings, and Lord of lords.” He shall minister unerring justice, and bring in everlasting righteousness. No more will nation lift up sword against nation; but all warlike instruments shall be destroyed, and the implements of peaceful agricultural pursuits take their place.
In that day of universal blessing there will be no curse of poverty to contend with, no vexatious property questions to settle, no struggle to acquire or conflicts to hold what can never be properly administered; but in contentment and comfort “every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.” What men have vainly striven to attain through socialist propaganda, or other equally impracticable economic systems, will then have been reached, and will be maintained for a thousand years by the personal presence of Him whose right it is to reign (vers. 1-4). The statement of the fourth verse is not found in Isaiah, but the call to walk in the ways of the Lord ours immediately after what is here found in ver. 3. Micah presents the more nearly complete picture, and then gives the remnant’s answer to the exhortation of Isa. 2:55O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:5) in the lovely words, “For all people will walk everyone in the name of his god, and [or, but] we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.” It is faith laying hold of the promise, and the believer walking now by the glory that is coming.
But the nation to whom “the first dominion” is yet to be given must, ere that day of triumph, be scattered among all nations because of their sins. Therefore the Lord Himself will regather them ere the kingdom is set up in power. So the prophet goes on to tell how Jehovah will assemble the halting and afflicted remnant, and bring them back by omnipotent power to the land of their fathers. The nation, as such (continuing in unbelief, and accepting the false Christ when he arrives), will never be restored; but a repentant remnant will be found in the last days who will become the nucleus of a new nation in the land. Over them “the Lord shall reign in mount Zion from henceforth, even forever.” Then shall the first dominion indeed have come for Israel, when Jerusalem shall be the joy of the whole earth (vers. 6-8).
But much had to elapse ere the glorious vision should be fulfilled. The daughter of Zion, as a travailing woman, should first pass through her hours of bitter anguish. She was to be carried to Babylon, and there made the sport of unfeeling Gentiles who were blind to her beauty and ignorant of her wondrous destiny. Her enemies are to magnify themselves against her till the hour when the set time to favor her has come, and the Lord Himself shall appear, to act the part of her Kinsman-Redeemer, delivering her from her bondage and bringing her into everlasting blessing. In that day their wealth shall be devoted to Him through whom all their joys shall come, and their substance will gladly be held at His bidding (vers. 9-13).