MY OFFICE IS on the third floor of our building. When I was younger, I often took the stairs instead of the elevator. It was almost a game to see how quickly I could get down them, and I sometimes vaulted the last two or three steps before dashing down the next flight.

Well, not any more.

It’s not that I’m unstable on my feet, at least not yet. Nor is it that I lack the energy. But my reflexes aren’t as fast as they used to be. There have been several times in recent years when I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing — perhaps distracted by saying hi to one of my students — and I’ve nearly fallen down the stairs. And that, I know, would be a fall from which I’d have a hard time bouncing back. I haven’t forgotten how a much simpler and softer fall was the beginning of the end for my father. The injury set off a chain of complications from which he never recovered.

But that, says Micah, will not be the fate of the city of David.

. . .

THROUGHOUT THE BOOK of Micah, we’ve seen the prophet’s words veer from doomsday scenarios to hope and then back again. Though the emphasis is clearly on the former, it’s significant that the last note struck in this collection of oracles is hope. In chapter 7, the final chapter, the final word of hope begins in verse 7, as Micah gives voice to his own hope. The vocation of prophet can be a grueling and isolating one. But Micah holds onto the confidence that God will hear his prayers and vindicate him.

The prophet then gives voice to Jerusalem’s hope. Though the city will experience a disastrous fall, she will one day rise; she will emerge from darkness back into light. Her fortunes will be reversed. When judgment has been delivered, God will no longer prosecute Jerusalem but defend her. Whereas her enemies had watched her downfall with arrogant delight, she will watch them fall instead.

And the city will do more than merely rise from her fall. We’ve already seen how chapter 4 predicts a glorious future in which the nations will stream to Jerusalem to seek God’s wisdom and peace will settle upon the land. Chapter 7 continues with a similarly hope-filled oracle. Here, however, Micah switches voices again. It is no longer the personified city who speaks, but the prophet himself:

The day for building your walls will come,
    the day for extending your boundaries.
In that day people will come to you
    from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
even from Egypt to the Euphrates
    and from sea to sea
    and from mountain to mountain. (Mic 7:11-12, NIV)

Remember the history we reviewed all the way back at the beginning of this study? Micah’s ministry would have been from approximately 742 to 687 BC. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar would invade Jerusalem and begin deportation of its inhabitants in 597, and the city would fall ten years later in 587, a century after Micah’s time. It would be another half century before King Cyrus of Persia would defeat Babylon and allow the exiles to return, and still roughly another century before the time of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. All in all, it would be well over two centuries before the prophesied “day for building your walls” would actually come.

But the oracle goes further. It will not only be a day for rebuilding the city’s walls, but for pushing out the boundaries of the people’s territory. The book of Ezra tells us that after the exile and return, the reconstruction of the temple had to be halted because of local opposition; it took many years and the intervention of Persia to clear the way for the project to be complete. It’s easy to imagine how even after the city walls were rebuilt many years later, there would still be enmity between God’s people and their neighbors, who would have resented not only their return but also being bullied by Persia to leave them alone. Yes, the walls would be up, but in a hostile and politically claustrophobic environment.

Not to worry, says the oracle. The day of rebuilding will also become the day for territorial expansion. The word translated as “boundaries” here suggests a formal decree, such as the apportionment of land to stakeholders, as was done long ago with the tribes of Israel. Some interpret the verses that follow as describing the return of God’s people from distant lands, but in context it’s probably better to read them as describing a return not merely to what Jerusalem was when Babylon swept in and laid waste to the city, but to what she was when Israel was a force to be reckoned with. The ancient borders would be reestablished.

There still remains, however, the question of the people’s relationship to the surrounding nations. As has been suggested in chapters 4 and 7, the good news regarding the future of God’s people has its counterpart in bad news for their enemies:

The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants,
    as the result of their deeds. (vs. 13)

After judging and punishing his people, in other words, God will judge the nations.

Jerusalem must fall, Micah prophesies. But Jerusalem will rise once more. And they will do more than merely rise: as Eugene Peterson suggests in The Message, the people will “spread their wings.” For those either anticipating or actually in exile, it’s a wonderful image of hope.

But meanwhile, as I learn to watch and wait for God’s promised future, I’m going to keep holding the handrail when I go down the stairs.