The passage is taken from the prophet Micah, who was a cotemporary with Jeremiah, and prophesied under the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He lived during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the great enemy of the Jewish nation, and witnessed a large share of the miseries he inflicted upon that people. We would infer from the first verse of the fifth chapter, that his book was written at a time when the armies of the king of Babylon were encamped around the walls of Jerusalem. "Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: _he hath laid siege against us_; they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." Looking forward to the time when the Jewish people will be delivered from the power of Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrian nation, and of their conquest by some other power, the prophet, aroused by a prophetic spirit, announces that the time is coming when Israel shall again be free: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet opt of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide; for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth." (_Micah_ v. 2, 3, 4.) In the tenth verse of the fourth chapter, the captivity of the Jews, and their transportation to Babylon, is distinctly announced, and they are told that while in the hands of the Assyrians, they shall be as a woman in travail; but that, like her, they should in time be delivered from suffering. The third verse of the fifth chapter declares that God will not interfere in the mean time, and that they must wait for deliverance, and submit to their sufferings, as unavoidable as in the case of the woman; that at the appointed time a deliverer would come, who would save and bring back a remnant of the people, who shall grow powerful and "be great to the ends of the earth." Now it is deliverance from Assyrian captivity that is referred to, and it is to violate the fitness of time, place, history, and the state of the Jews to apply it to anything else. Amidst the awful fate impending over the Jewish people, they wanted something to encourage and sustain them; and the prophet undertook to do so, by a promise, that in time their captivity should cease, and they be allowed to return to their own country.