The Mystery of Ephraim

“NATO leaders are a coop of Chickens without heads,” Colonel Douglas Macgregor

The Prophecy of Micah, whose word of the Lord was meant for the heads of Jacob, the chief princes of the house of Israel; but then who are these princes? Are they not of the United States today?

And God says to these princes of the house of Israel through Ezekiel, “Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, the days are prolonged, and every vision faileth? The vision that he seeth is for many days, and he prophesieth of the times far off” Ezekiel 12:22, Ezekiel 12:27; that is, the message is for the endtime, our time.

For more on Ephraim and Manasseh, or the Ox without the Unicorn.

Micah 3

¹ And I said: “Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgement”

— and Micah said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob; the whole head of Jacob, the leading men and princes of the house of Israel, the ten tribes, being ringleaders in sin, who ought to have set good examples to others;

— shouldn’t you know better, Oh house of Israel, to pass judgement, of (1) when and where to hold the feasts and (2) how to determine the Sacred Calendar, which were administered by the house of Judah and the Sanhedrin; and set rules and pass judgement; to give heed which is in accordance with God’s will?

² you who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones, — who hate good and love evil, doing just the opposite of that which their leaders required of them; who pluck off their skin from off them, like wild beasts that tear off skin and flesh from the bones, and then devour them;

— or like cruel shepherds that fleece their flocks, skin them; so the Targum says, “seizing on their substance by violence, and their precious mammon they take away.”

³ who also eat the flesh of My people and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones and chop them in pieces, as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron?” — who also eat the flesh of my people; like cannibals, flay them alive and then eat their flesh, devouring their substance,

— only expressed in terms which still more set forth their savageness, barbarity, and cruelty; sound like those who operates Unit 731 during World War II; would God also intended this to mean those Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians who had their skin sprayed with Agent Orange?

⁴ Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. — then shall they, the guilty ones, cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them namely at the time of the revelation of his wrath;

— the Targum says in the time of their distress but he will not hear their prayer so as to answer it according to their desire; that is, he will not save them from danger but deliver them up and all that belong unto them into the hands of such that shall use them as they have done others;

— he will even hide his face from them at that time, refusing to pay any attention to their distress as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings and thus fully ripe for judgement.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth and cry “Peace”; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

— thus saith the Lord concerning the false shepherds and false prophets, who presumed to speak in the name of the Lord without being sent that make his people err, leading them astray, led them into mistakes about matters of religion and civil government;

— that bite with their teeth and cry, Peace! that is, who prophesy smooth things, promise all kind of prosperity and plenty when they receive a sufficient amount of tithe money, proclaim peace, prophesying as it pleases the heart of men; may even get a “Nobel Peace Prize” for so doing;

⁶ “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine. And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

— therefore darkness shall be unto these people; they shall not have good vision, but nightmares; being excluded from the light granted by the spirit of God; and they have no understanding and granted no revelation of the future;

— and the sun shall go down and the day shall be dark over these prophets; their time of prosperity will be over and they shall no more be in favour with the people, or courted and feasted by them; but shall be held in the utmost contempt and abhorrence with darkness on the Day of Judgement;

— the Targum says, “therefore ye shall blush at prophesying, and be ashamed of teaching; and tribulation as darkness shall cover the false prophets, and the time shall be darkened upon them.”

⁷ Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God.” — then shall the seers be ashamed, be disgraced on account of the fact that their false predictions and be confounded, blushing with shame on account of their miserable failures in trying to uncover the future;

— yea, they shall all cover their lips, literally “their beard” their face up to the nostrils as a sign of shame; for there is no answer from God, not that they shall be ashamed and silenced because they shall now have no insight from God for they never had any;

— the Targum says, “for there is not in them a spirit of prophecy from the Lord,” this being the most plain to all that the Lord had never spoken to them nor opened their minds;

⁸ But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgement and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. — declare unto Jacob; the whole head of Jacob, the leading men of the nation and particularly those princes of the house of Israel, the ten tribes, those northern kingdom that followed Jeroboam;

— to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin; especially of (1) when and where to hold the feasts and (2) how to determine the Calendar which were administered by the house of Judah (who has the Scepter) and the Sanhedrin; and set rules, set precedence and pass judgement;

— for more on the seriousness about the Calendar issue, see Is there a Calendar Omen?

⁹ Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgement and pervert all equity: — Micah prays, hear this, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, the very leaders whose wickedness had been described above;

— that abhor judgement, precedence, the law and ordinances; everything that was right or just, making crooked paths that which should have been kept straight; hate to do that which was right and just; and pervert all the rules and laws of justice and equity, clearing the guilty and condemning the innocent.

¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. — the Targum says, “who build their houses in Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with deceits.”

¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us.”

— the heads thereof judge for reward being influenced in their decisions by bribes; and the priests, who were first hired by king Jeroboam after payment of bribes and fees from the lowest of people, people who were not qualified but for money;

— and the prophets thereof hired for money, their oracles being fashioned according to the presents which men gave them; yet will they lean upon the Lord, insisting that they were performing the work of their office by authority the God living in the midst of his people;

— and say, Is not the Lord among us? namely, with his power and protection. No evil can come upon us: namely pestilence, famine, sword and captivity that the prophets of the Lord had threatened them with.

¹² Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. — therefore shall Zion be destroyed for your sake on account of your wickedness in making the Lord’s Temple a den of murderers, be plowed as a field, the king’s quarter turned into tillable soil;

— Jerusalem and the rest of the city shall become heaps, piles of broken stones and the mountain of the house, that is, of the Temple, as the high places of the forest, being overgrown with brush and trees. It is a vivid description of the ruin which comes upon the enemies of the Lord.

Micah 4

¹ But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains; and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it.

— but in the last days, in the great Millennium or the Messianic Age, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord, of the Kingdom of God, shall be established in the top of the mountains which also mean a new Ezekiel Temple built on Mount Moriah where the divine Majesty would reside; the ideal Zion being elevated above all else in the world;

— and it shall be exalted above the hills, visible before all nations; and people of all the nations of the world come come to keep the feasts; should they refuse, there would be no rain, but plagues:

“And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles” Zechariah 14:18

— (more at end of this chapter)

² And many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. And He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

— and all nations shall come, namely, the elect whom the Lord had choosen and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths, in agreement with the Scriptures;

— and no nation will be paying homage to the Queen of heaven of Egypt: Astarte, dubbing it Easter, the day of Christ resurrection;

— neither would they pay homage to Mithras of Babylon, whose birthday is on December 25th, by dubbing it Christmas; nor they be Sun-worshippers, whose services are always on Sundays; and Pentecost on Whitsundays;

— for the Law, as the revelation of the holy and righteous will of God, shall go forth of Zion and the Word of the Lord, from Jerusalem, where the house of Judah has dominion: for the proclamation of the Word, in speaking of the law, statutes and ordinances, of sin, justice and judgement, of redemption and grace, all in the hands of the Saints.

— and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, both in an earthly, temporal Millennial peace of which men are dreaming from time to time, but also in the spiritual peace in him where heretic doctrines are beaten into plowshares and their hatred among men into pruning-hooks;

— nation shall not lift up a sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more, this being said of the inner peace and harmony of the Kingdom of God, in whom there will be truly peace on earth.

³ And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

— and the God of the covenant shall judge among many people, between Ishmaelites and the sons of Isaac; between Esau and Jacob; between the house of Israel and the house of Judah; teaching them true justice in accordance with his spoken and unspoken will, and rebuke strong nations afar off, to make them cease their enmity against him;

— and God will gather her that is driven out; out of the land of Israel, and scattered among the nations of the world; even driven out by the Lord himself, because of their transgressions against him; Jeremiah 16:15;

— and through her that God have afflicted; with calamities, pestilence, famine and sword and in captivity and deaths; the Targum adds, “for the sins of my people” the Israelites for their Sun-worshipping (Mithras) and idolatry to the Queen of heaven, Astarte; and the Jews for the rejection of their Messiah.

⁴ But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. — but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; expressive of the greatest tranquillity, security and enjoyment of prosperity; 1 Kings 4:25;

— when persons need not keep within their walled towns and cities and lock themselves up in their houses but may sit down in their gardens, fields and vineyards and enjoy the fruit thereof; as the Targum interprets it, “under the fruit of his vine and under the fruit of his fig tree.”

⁵ For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. — for all people, all those concerned in this prophecy, will walk every one in the name of his God in the power of the one true God forever and ever.

⁶ “In that day,” saith the Lord, “will I assemble her that is halt, and I will gather her that is driven out and her that I have afflicted. — in that day, in the great Millennium or the Messianic Age, will God assemble the lame and gather those who were dispersed, along with those he afflicted, all worshipping the God of Abraham.

⁷ And I will make her that is halt (or lame) a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from hence forth, even for ever. — “The people of that ‘crippled’ city will be the only ones left alive (ERV);

— and God will make them into a strong nation; the Lord will be their king who will rule from Mount Zion forever.

⁸ And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.”

— and thou, O tower of the flock, the term being applied to a tower of refuge for flocks in time of danger, here as a fort from which the great King and Shepherd, the Messiah himself, observes and guards his flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, the impregnable palace of the Kingdom of God;

— unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion, the glory of the earliest OT Saints: Enoch, Noah, Abraham and to the Patriarchs, Job? compared with that of the kingdom of Israel, when established, which are the latter OT Saints, under its mightiest king; King David; and before that: Moses, Joshua, Samuel;

— the Kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem: King Hezekiah, King Josiah; Daniel and his three friends, Ezra and Nehemiah; since the earthly Jerusalem is always at the foundation of the kingdom, the afflictions of the Jewish capital are made typical of the experiences of the Lord’s people.

⁹ Now why dost thou cry out aloud? Is there no king in thee? Is thy counselor perished? For pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. — now, why dost thou cry out aloud? at the approach of the Chaldean invasion; Nebuchadnezzar was described as “My servant” or at other times, the Sword;

— is there no king in thee? is there no visible representative of the capable king to keep and protect them? Is thy counselor perished? to counsel, instruct and comfort them and at last to deliver and save them this name also being applied to the reigning member of the house of David?

— for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail, the true believers in Israel feeling the deepest grief and sorrow over the desolation of the kingdom; and in modern times a time of Jacob’s trouble.

¹⁰ Be in pain and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field. And thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

— be in pain and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion like a woman in travail, the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the exile of the people being imminent; that was for ancient Judah which were for a period of 70 years; but for Ezekiel’s Israel and Judah could be 190/40 years; (for more, see Ezekiel Timeline – 190/40 Years)

— for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, after it had been taken by the enemies, their houses taken away from them; and thou shalt dwell in the field if they could survive and thou shalt go even to Babylon, being dragged into captivity again;

— there shalt thou be delivered, namely, when a modern Cyrus issued the decree setting the captives free and thus laid the foundation upon which later arose the Messianic Age or the great Millennium there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies so that the people of the covenant would be restored to the Promise Land, the land where the Messiah was to reign.

¹¹ Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, “Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion!” — now also, namely, at the time of Jacob’s deepest humiliation, a time known as Jacob’s trouble;

— that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion, namely, in malicious joy over her downfall; many nations are gathered against thee, in bold hostility, starting with those of the South and spread to the North.

¹² But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel; for He shall gather them as the sheaves onto the threshing floor. — but they know not the thoughts of the Lord, the object which he has in mind in thus dealing with his people; one example is the slaughtering of his people spreading from the South to the North (for more see notes from Ezekiel 20:45-21:5)

— neither do they understand God’s unspoken will:

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts: ‘The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love the truth and peace.’ Zechariah 8:19

But surprisingly, these were the unspoken Word of God! Like parents, they have their secret wishes for their children. So is God. But how do we know God’s unspoken will if they were unspoken? To be unspoken would also mean unwritten. More on the unspoken will of God for a deeper insight, click here.

¹³ Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass. And thou shalt beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

— arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, all the Saints that will gathered in Jerusalem, who live according to his commands; for God will make thine horn iron and he will make thy hoofs brass, giving to his Saints a new and unconquerable strength;

— and thou shall beat in pieces many people, not by victories of the flesh, but by those of the spirit; and God will consecrate their gain, what the enemies had gotten by robbery and plunder;

— unto the Lord, as devoted to him, all their possessions, unto the Lord of the whole earth, the Saints will now have a dominion, kingdom and cities given by the Ancient of Days that so all people, nations and languages shall serve him, Daniel 7:14.

~~~

More from Zachariah 14: the great Millennium or the Messianic Age

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass that every one who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

¹⁷ And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

¹⁸ And if the family of Egypt go not up and come not, upon whom there is no rain, there shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen who come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

¹⁹ This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

²⁰ In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses: “Holiness Unto The Lord.” And the pots in the Lord’S house shall be like the bowls before the altar;

²¹ yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts, and all those who sacrifice shall come and take of them and boil therein. And in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.

For more on the Calendar issue, see Is there a Calendar Omen?

For more on Ezekiel Timeline, see Ezekiel Timeline – 190/40 Years

For more about The Sword from the South to the North!

~ by Joel Huan on February 1, 2023.

Posted in Minor Prophets