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<p>These verses relate to Zion and Jerusalem, here called the <i>tower of the flock</i> or the <i>tower of Edor</i>; we read of such a place (<a class="bibleref" title="Gen.35.21" href="/passage/?search=Gen.35.21">Gen. 35:21</a>) near Bethlehem; and some conjecture it is the same place where the shepherds were keeping their flocks when the angels brought them tidings of the birth of Christ, and some think Bethlehem itself is here spoken of, as <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.5.2" href="/passage/?search=Mic.5.2">Mic. 5:2</a>. Some think it is a tower at that gate of Jerusalem which is called the <i>sheep-gate</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Neh.3.32" href="/passage/?search=Neh.3.32">Neh. 3:32</a>), and conjecture that through that gate Christ rode in triumph into Jerusalem. However, it seems to be put for Jerusalem itself, or for Zion the <i>tower of David</i>. All the sheep of Israel flocked thither three times a year; it was the <i>stronghold</i> (<i>Ophel</i>, which is also a name of a place in Jerusalem, <a class="bibleref" title="Neh.3.27" href="/passage/?search=Neh.3.27">Neh. 3:27</a>), or castle, of the <i>daughter of Zion</i>. Now here,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. We have a promise of the glories of the spiritual Jerusalem, the gospel-church, which is; the tower of the flock, that one fold in which all the sheep of Christ are protected under one Shepherd: “<i>Unto thee shall it come</i>; that which thou hast long wanted and wished for, <i>even the first dominion</i>, a dignity and power equal to that of David and Solomon, by whom Jerusalem was first raised, that <i>kingdom</i> shall again <i>come to the daughter of Jerusalem</i>, which it was deprived of at the captivity. It shall make as great a figure and shine with as much lustre among the nations, and have as much influence upon them, as ever it had; this is the <i>first</i> or <i>chief</i> dominion.” Now this had by no means its accomplishment in Zerubbabel; his was nothing like the first dominion either in respect of splendour and sovereignty at home or the extent of power abroad; and therefore it must refer to the kingdom of the <i>Messiah</i> (and to that the Chaldee-paraphrase refers it) and had its accomplishment when God gave to our Lord Jesus <i>the throne of his father David</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Luke.1.32" href="/passage/?search=Luke.1.32">Luke 1:32</a>), set him king <i>upon the holy hill of Zion</i> and <i>gave him the heathen for his inheritance</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.2.6" href="/passage/?search=Ps.2.6">Ps. 2:6</a>), <i>made him, his first-born, higher than the kings of the earth</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Ps.89.27,Dan.7.14" href="/passage/?search=Ps.89.27,Dan.7.14"><span class="bibleref" title="Ps.89.27">Ps. 89:27</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Dan.7.14">Dan. 7:14</span></a>. <i>David, in spirit, called him Lord</i>, and (as Dr. Pocock observes) he witnessed of himself, and his witness was true, that he was greater than Solomon, none of their dominions being like his for extent and duration. The common people welcomed Christ into Jerusalem with <i>hosannas to the son of David</i>, to show that it was the <i>first dominion</i> that came <i>to the daughter of Zion</i>; and the evangelist applies it to the promise of Zion’s king coming to her, <a class="bibleref" title="Matt.21.5,Zech.9.9" href="/passage/?search=Matt.21.5,Zech.9.9"><span class="bibleref" title="Matt.21.5">Matt. 21:5</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Zech.9.9">Zech. 9:9</span></a>. Some give this sense of the words: To Zion, and Jerusalem that tower of the flock, to the nation of the Jews, <i>came the first dominion</i>; that is, there the kingdom of Christ was first set up, the <i>gospel of the kingdom</i> was first <i>preached</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Luke.24.47" href="/passage/?search=Luke.24.47">Luke 24:47</a>), there Christ was first called <i>king of the Jews</i>.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. This is illustrated by a prediction of the calamities of the literal Jerusalem, to which some favour and relief should be granted, as a type and figure of what God would do for the gospel-Jerusalem in the last days, notwithstanding its distresses. We have here,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">1. Jerusalem put in pain by the providences of God. “She <i>cries out aloud</i>, that all her neighbours may take notice of her griefs, because there is <i>no king in her</i>, none of that honour and power she used to have. Instead of ruling the nations, as she did when she <i>sat a queen</i>, she is ruled by them, and has become a captive. Her <i>counsellors</i> have <i>perished</i>; she is no longer at her own disposal, but is given up to the will of her enemies, and is governed by their counsellors. <i>Pangs have taken her</i>.” (1.) She is carried captive to Babylon, and there is in pangs of grief. “She <i>goes forth out of the city</i>, and is constrained to <i>dwell in the field</i>, exposed to all manner of inconveniences; she <i>goes even to Babylon</i>, and there wears out <i>seventy tedious</i> years in a miserable captivity, all that while <i>in pain, as a woman in travail</i>, waiting to be delivered, and thinking the time very long.” (2.) When she is delivered out of Babylon, and redeemed from the hand of her enemies there, yet still she is in pangs of fear; the end of one trouble is but the beginning of another; for <i>now also</i>, when Jerusalem is in the rebuilding, <i>many nations are gathered against her</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.11" href="/passage/?search=Mic.4.11">Mic. 4:11</a>. They were so in Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s time, and did all they could to obstruct the building of the temple and the wall. They were so in the time of the Maccabees; they said, <i>Let her be defiled</i>; let her be looked upon as a place polluted with sin, and be forsaken and abandoned both of God and man; let her holy places be profaned and all her honours laid in the dust; <i>let our eye look upon Zion</i>, and please itself with the sight of its ruins, as it is said of Edom (<a class="bibleref" title="Obad.1.12" href="/passage/?search=Obad.1.12">Obad. 1:12</a>; <i>Thou shouldst not have looked upon the day of thy brother</i>); let our eyes see our desire upon Zion, the day we have long wished for. When they hear the enemies thus combine against them, and insult over them, no wonder that they are in pain, and cry aloud. <i>Without are fightings, within are fears</i>.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">2. Jerusalem made easy by the promises of God: “<i>Why dost thou cry out aloud</i>? Let thy griefs and fears be silenced; indulge not thyself in them, for, though things are bad with thee, they shall end well; thy pangs are great, but they are like those of a <i>woman in travail</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.9" href="/passage/?search=Mic.4.9">Mic. 4:9</a>), that <i>labours to bring forth</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.10" href="/passage/?search=Mic.4.10">Mic. 4:10</a>), the issue of which will be good at last.” Jerusalem’s pangs are not as dying agonies, but as travailing throes, which after a while will be forgotten, for joy that a child is born into the world. Let the literal Jerusalem comfort herself with this, that, whatever straits she may be reduced to, she shall continue until the coming of the Messiah, for there his kingdom must be first set up, and she shall not be destroyed while that blessing is in her; and when at length she is ploughed as a field, and become heaps (as is threatened, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.3.12" href="/passage/?search=Mic.3.12">Mic. 3:12</a>), yet her privileges shall be resigned to the spiritual Jerusalem, and in that the promises made 1ea3 to her shall be fulfilled. Let Jerusalem be easy then, for, (1.) Her captivity in Babylon shall have an end, a happy end (<a class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.10" href="/passage/?search=Mic.4.10">Mic. 4:10</a>): <i>There shalt thou be delivered, and the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thy enemies there</i>. This was done by Cyrus, who acted therein as God’s servant; and that deliverance was typical of our redemption by Jesus Christ, and the release from our spiritual bondage which is proclaimed in the everlasting gospel, that <i>acceptable year of the Lord</i>, in which Christ himself preached <i>liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those that were bound</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Luke.4.18,Luke.4.19" href="/passage/?search=Luke.4.18,Luke.4.19"><span class="bibleref" title="Luke.4.18">Luke 4:18</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Luke.4.19">19</span></a>. (2.) The designs of her enemies against her afterwards shall be baffled, nay, they shall turn upon themselves, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.12,Mic.4.13" href="/passage/?search=Mic.4.12,Mic.4.13"><span class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.12">Mic. 4:12</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Mic.4.13">13</span></a>. They promise themselves a day of it, but it shall prove <i>God’s day</i>. They are <i>gathered against Zion</i>, to destroy it, but it shall prove to their own destruction, which Israel and Israel’s God shall have the glory of. [1.] Their coming together against Zion shall be the occasion of their ruin. They <i>associate themselves, and gird themselves</i>, that they may break Jerusalem in pieces, but it will prove that they shall be broken in pieces, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.8.9" href="/passage/?search=Isa.8.9">Isa. 8:9</a>. <i>They know not the thoughts of the Lord</i>. When they are gathering together, and Providence favours them in it, they little think what God is designing by it, nor do they understand his counsel; they know what they aim at in coming together, but they know not what God aims at in bringing them together; they aim at Zion’s ruin, but God aims at theirs. Note, When men are made use of as instruments of Providence in accomplishing its purposes it is very common for them to intend one thing and for God to intend quite the contrary. The king of Assyria is to be a rod in God’s hand for the correction of his people, in order to their reformation; <i>howbeit he means not so, nor does his heart think so</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.10.7" href="/passage/?search=Isa.10.7">Isa. 10:7</a>. And thus it is here; the nations are gathered against Zion, as soldiers into the field, but God gathers them <i>as sheaves into the floor</i>, to be beaten to pieces; and they could not have been so easily, so effectually, destroyed, if they had not <i>gathered together against Zion</i>. Note, The desig
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