The Birth Pangs of Dominion: Micah 4:9-10
Introduction: The Strange Math of the Kingdom
The prophet Micah has just finished painting a glorious, sun-drenched picture of the last days. He has described a time when the mountain of the Lord's house will be established as the highest of the mountains, when all nations will stream to it, when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and when every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, with none to make them afraid. This is the postmillennial hope in brilliant color. It is the vision of the victorious kingdom of Jesus Christ, growing like a great mustard tree until it fills the whole earth.
And then, with a jarring screech of the brakes, Micah plunges us into darkness. From the heights of eschatological glory, we are thrown into a scene of panic, confusion, and agonizing pain. Zion is screaming like a woman in labor. She is kingless, leaderless, and about to be violently expelled from her home and dragged off to Babylon. How do these two pictures fit together? Our modern evangelical sensibilities want to keep them in separate boxes. We want the victory without the battle, the crown without the cross, the resurrection without the crucifixion. We want a gospel of glory, but not a gospel that travels through the valley of the shadow of death.
But the Bible will not allow us this comfort. The logic of the kingdom is a cruciform logic. The way up is down. The way to life is through death. The way to glory is through suffering. The way to enthronement is through exile. What Micah is showing us here is not a contradiction, but a process. The glorious kingdom he just described in verses 1 through 8 does not come about in spite of the agony of verses 9 and 10. It comes about through it. The exile to Babylon is not a detour from the path to glory; it is the path. The birth pangs are not a sign that the promise has failed; they are the sign that the promise is being fulfilled. This is the strange and glorious mathematics of the Kingdom of God.
The Text
"Now, why do you make a loud shout? Is there no king among you, Or has your counselor perished, That writhing has taken hold of you like a woman in childbirth? Writhe and labor to give birth, Daughter of Zion, Like a woman in childbirth; For now you will go out of the city, Dwell in the field, And go to Babylon. There you will be delivered; There Yahweh will redeem you From the hand of your enemies." (Micah 4:9-10 LSB)
The Kingless Cry (v. 9)
We begin with the Lord's sharp, diagnostic question to His people.
"Now, why do you make a loud shout? Is there no king among you, Or has your counselor perished, That writhing has taken hold of you like a woman in childbirth?" (Micah 4:9)
Zion is in a panic. They are screaming, but not in praise. It is the shout of terror and confusion. God's question cuts to the heart of their unbelief. "Why are you acting like orphans? Why are you behaving as though you have been abandoned?" He puts His finger on the source of their terror: they perceive themselves as kingless and without counsel. And from their earthly perspective, this was about to be true. The Davidic monarchy, the visible sign of God's rule, was going to be shattered. King Zedekiah would see his sons slaughtered before his eyes, and then his own eyes would be put out before he was hauled off to Babylon in chains. Their counselors, the royal court, the wise men, would all be swept away.
They had put their trust in the visible form of the kingdom, in the earthly throne and the political structures. And when God, in His severe mercy, began to dismantle that scaffolding, they concluded that all was lost. They thought God's promise had failed because the packaging was being torn off. Their loud shout was the cry of those whose idol has just been broken. They were looking at the empty throne in Jerusalem and concluding that there was no king in Israel.
The pain that seizes them is compared to a woman in childbirth. This is a common biblical metaphor for intense, inescapable anguish. But it is never just about pain. It is always pain with a purpose. It is productive pain. It is pain that leads to new life. The people of Zion feel only the writhing, the agony of the contractions. They cannot see the child that is to be born. God is asking them, "Do you not understand what I am doing? Do you think this agony is pointless? Do you think I have abandoned my project?" Their terror was a failure to see the invisible King who was still on His throne, orchestrating these very events for His own glorious purposes.
The Commanded Agony (v. 10a)
In a staggering turn, God does not comfort their pain by promising to remove it. Instead, He commands them to enter into it fully.
"Writhe and labor to give birth, Daughter of Zion, Like a woman in childbirth; For now you will go out of the city, Dwell in the field, And go to Babylon." (Micah 4:10a)
This is a severe mercy. God is telling them not to resist the process. "Lean into the pain. Writhe. Labor. Give yourself over to these birth pangs, because this is how I am bringing about your salvation." He is telling them that the way forward is through the agony of judgment. They must be expelled from the city, the place of covenant privilege. They must dwell in the field, exposed and unprotected. And they must go all the way to Babylon, the heart of the pagan empire, the central office of the serpent's kingdom on earth.
This is covenantal judgment. Because Israel had played the harlot with other gods and behaved like the pagan nations, God was going to send them to live with the pagans. He was giving them over to their desires in order to cure them of their desires. The exile was a bitter medicine, designed to purge the idolatry from their hearts. They wanted to be like Babylon, so God sent them to Babylon to get their fill of it. This is a terrifying aspect of God's fatherly discipline. He will sometimes let us have the sin we are determined to have, until we are sick to death of it and cry out for home.
Notice the imperative: "Writhe and labor." This is not a passive experience. They are to participate in this judgment. This is the posture of repentance. It is the recognition that this suffering is deserved, that it is the just consequence of their sin. They are not to go to Babylon kicking and screaming about how unfair it is. They are to go as a woman who accepts the labor because she desires the child. They are to accept the discipline of God, knowing that He disciplines those He loves.
The Paradoxical Promise (v. 10b)
And here, in the darkest moment, at the very heart of the judgment, Micah delivers one of the most stunning promises in all of Scripture.
"There you will be delivered; There Yahweh will redeem you From the hand of your enemies." (Micah 4:10b)
Where will they be delivered? In Jerusalem, after they have cleaned up their act? No. "There." Where is "there?" In Babylon. In the belly of the beast. In the heart of the enemy's territory. This is the gospel in its raw, paradoxical power. God's redemption will break out in the most unlikely of places. Salvation will come not by avoiding Babylon, but in the midst of it. Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God, will march right into the enemy's capital city and plunder it, taking back His people.
This is a prophecy that looks forward to multiple fulfillments. First, it was fulfilled literally when Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon and issued the decree for the Jews to return to their land. God redeemed them from the hand of their Babylonian enemies. But the ultimate fulfillment is found in the work of Christ. We, like Israel, were in exile. We were captives in the Babylon of sin and death, under the dominion of the prince of the power of the air. We were without a king, without a counselor, and without hope.
And what did God do? He sent His Son, not to a sanitized and safe Jerusalem, but into the occupied territory. Jesus came into the "field," into the wilderness of this fallen world. He went all the way to the cross, the ultimate symbol of pagan Roman power, the Babylon of its day. And there, at the cross, in the heart of darkness, He delivered us. There, in the place of execution, He redeemed us from the hand of our enemies: sin, death, and the devil. He conquered the strong man by entering his house and binding him. The greatest victory in the history of the world was won in the place of apparent, total defeat.
Conclusion: Your Babylon is Your Birthplace
This passage teaches us how to think about our own lives and the life of the Church. We live between the "already" of Christ's victory and the "not yet" of its final consummation. We have the glorious promises of Micah 4:1-8 ringing in our ears, the vision of a world discipled, of peace and prosperity under the reign of Christ. And yet, we look around and often see what looks like a kingless people. We feel the writhing, the cultural contractions, the hostility of a world that is still very much Babylon.
The temptation is to cry out in a loud shout of panic, to think that our Counselor has perished and that the promises have failed. We are tempted to despair when we are forced out of the comfortable "city" of cultural respectability and made to dwell in the "field" of public scorn.
But Micah's prophecy fortifies us. It tells us to lean into the labor. This is not the end. These are birth pangs. God is commanding us to writhe and labor, to engage in the spiritual warfare, to preach the gospel, to build faithful families and churches, right here in the middle of Babylon. Because it is precisely here that we will be delivered. It is here that Yahweh will redeem us from the hand of our enemies.
Every small victory for the gospel, every soul converted, every Christian institution built, every family that holds fast to the Word of God in a hostile culture, is Yahweh marching into Babylon and liberating His people. The pain is real, but it is productive. It is the pain of childbirth. A new world is being born through the suffering and faithful witness of the Church. Our King has not perished; He is reigning from on high, and He has promised that the gates of Hell, the very seat of Babylon's power, shall not prevail against His church. Therefore, do not fear the labor. The King is with us, and the child will be glorious.