Reading for October 12th

Read Micah 4.6-5.1 God gathers the exiles to Jerusalem.
In verse 6 this characterization of the returning exiles as lame recalls other exilic
descriptions of them as similarly disabled (Zeph 3.19-20; Isa 35.5-10).
In verse 8 the phrase former dominion looks back to the time of the prophet Micah when
Jerusalem was capital of an independent kingdom.
In verses 9-10 the image of a woman in labor, commonly used to describe excruciating pain,
is also employed by Jeremiah to describe the suffering of the exiles (30.1-7).
In verse 10 Babylon is the Mesopotamian city to which Jerusalem's leaders were deported
when the city fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE.
In verse 13 the image of an ox threshing grain is used to describe God's judgment of the
nations that have oppressed and exiled the Israelites (Isa 41.14-16).
Comments or Questions...