What will better days look like, far ahead, beyond the battles?
Will they include simple pleasures like a fresh fig?
Micah, witnessing the tragic dissolution of Jerusalem 2,800 years ago, sees far into a future where at last the people will get what everybody wants: A bit of peace and quiet.
And fresh fruit.
Many of the images and words he uses here to describe the end of time are identical to the poetic aspirations we already heard from his contemporary, Isaiah:
וְיָשְׁב֗וּ אִ֣ישׁ תַּ֧חַת גַּפְנ֛וֹ וְתַ֥חַת תְּאֵנָת֖וֹ וְאֵ֣ין מַחֲרִ֑יד כִּי־פִ֛י יְהֹוָ֥ה צְבָא֖וֹת דִּבֵּֽר׃
And then every family shall sit
Under its own vine and fig tree
With no one to disturb them.
For it was YHWH of Hosts who spoke.
Micah 4:3
Robert Alter explores the similarities between the two prophetic texts and why this matters:
“The first four verses of this chapter duplicate Isaiah 2:2-4, constituting the most extensive such duplication between two prophets. Different explanations have been offered for the duplication: that Micah borrowed from Isiah, that Isaiah borrowed from Micah, that both drew on a common source, that a later editor inserted the passage in both books. This last alternative seems the least likely; and an unknown common source is merely a conjectural hypothesis.
These two prophets were roughly contemporaneous, but given the fact that Isaiah was the more prominent figure--it may be more plausible that Micah took from Isaiah. Scrolls of the prophecies evidently had some circulation in the prophet’s lifetime.”
Whoever said it best, the hopeful images of peaceful days in the shade of one’s own orchard, alongside other memorable verses that include the transformation of swords into spades and no more war - made it into the canon. These are the earliest prophetic phrasings that begin to build the case for the Messianic idea - the building blocks of future-thinking ideologies developed as a way to give the trauma-dealt exiles a message of endurance and hope.
Rabbi Natasha Mann explores the emergence of the messianic idea and its complexities in Micah’s visions of hope:
“These visions differ significantly in tone and content. They become a swirl of messianic ideas, tilting from universal to particular, from comforting to concerning and back again. One of the most significant differences is the place of the nations. Will the nations be joining us in Jerusalem to worship the Universal Divine in a time of peace (4:1-5), or will the nations attack Jacob and be consequently crushed by Jacob’s God (5:6-14)? Micah does not resolve this apparent contradiction, nor does he seem to see an issue with presenting these diverse images of the future.
Perhaps these visions differ so significantly because we are witnessing the birth and development of the messianic idea. The early messianic texts seem interwoven with the promise to return from the first exile and rebuild the Temple. These concepts are so connected that it is often difficult to tell whether the prophets are talking about the return from Babylon or the eschatological vision. To the historical eye, it seems that the messianic hope - the eschatological return - grows out of the more pressing question of returning from the Babylonian Exile. In that case, what we are witnessing in the texts of the literary prophets is the birth of the messianic ideal.”
Micah’s proto-messianic messagings, as Rabbi Mann suggests, include different paths towards a more ideal future of equity and serenity. Some, like fig trees, have perhaps become more popular and easier to digest than others. Some, like this one, are more complex:
כִּ֚י כׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים יֵלְכ֕וּ אִ֖ישׁ בְּשֵׁ֣ם אֱלֹהָ֑יו וַאֲנַ֗חְנוּ נֵלֵ֛ךְ בְּשֵׁם־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ לְעוֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד׃
Though all the peoples walk
Each in the names of its gods,
We will walk
In the name of YHWH our God
Forever and ever.
Micah 4:5
Most have interpreted these words to be a vision of exclusion and division - lack of unity as each nation holds on to its God, including ours.
But perhaps some of the prophetic repairs ahead of us on whatever messianic futures are already starting to look like -- include a more pluralistic and ecumenical interpretation - imagining this as a healthy reality, when more of us, of all faiths and pov’s, commit to naming our sacred sources, unique and divine to us, with distinct pride, as we somehow also march, all together, committed to the greater cause that unites us, onwards towards the safe shelters inside the fig orchards that grow within?
Let it be so. Hope, healing, peace and better days for all.
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I wonder whether the reader-hearer is to recall Jonah under his fig tree, bitter and still in quarrel with God, and Micah et all reframe that image unto oine of contentment.