Matthew Poole and continuators on Micah 4:1

1 BUT in the last dayes it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains e, and it shall be exalted above the hills , and people shall flow unto it .

This particle which ushers in the following promise doth also bid us look to somewhat before spoken, of a very different Complexion; that was news of a Total and a long continued Desolation, but this is of a happy Restitution, which doth refer both to a Temporal Deliverance out of Babylons Captivity, and to a Spiritual Deliverance out of Ignorance, Superstition and all other wayes of false Worship. This latter is the principal, the former is Typical, and so shall we consider them.

Or the latter dayes, at the expiring of the seventy years Captivity, (near 200 years from Micah's time) as Type of the dayes of the Messiah's Kingdom, which are most usually call'd the last dayes.

The City Ierusalem; or, more particularly, the Mountain on which the Temple did stand, called the House of the Lord, the Hieroglyphick of the Church of Christ in Gospel times.

Literally, and in the Type fulfilled when the second Temple was built by the Iews return'd out of Captivity. Spiritually and in the Antitype accomplish'd, when Christ did establish his Church by the Preaching of the Gospel, and laid the Foundations of it so that the Gates of Hell should never prevail against it, and made it this promise.

As the mountain, or hill on which the Temple stood, was by this honoured above other mountains and hills, so shall it, after desolation and reproach of 70 years, be honoured with the Temple rebuilt upon it for Gods true Worship, whereas on other hills the Heathens worship Idols. So the Gospel Church and the way of Worship to God shall excel all modes of Religion.

The Gentiles as Antitype,, those who came up with Israel out of Babylon said to be servants and maids, Ezra 2.65, above 7337▪ many, if not all, of them proselyted to the Iewish Religion and a Type, as well as first fruit of the Gentiles to be converted in the times of the Messiah. This number we are sure of; as for that Iosephus reports of 4074 of a mixed multitude, we look on with no more credit given than to his report of four millions six hundred and twenty eight thousand of Iudah and Benjamin, lib. 11. cap. 4. of Antiq.

Come in freely, continually, and in multitudes, which in the Type was fulfilled, partly at the return out of Babylon, and partly in after dayes when Darius Hystaspis favoured the Iewes and encouraged them, as Iosephus reports, Antiq. lib. 11. cap. 4. consonant with Ezra 6. from ver. 3. to the 12. and we have reason to believe that God so disposed Darius's mind to favour them, that it might occasion some to embrace the Iewish Religion. But all this Type was eminently fulfill'd in the Conversion of those multitudes we read of brought in to Christ by the Preaching of the Gospel in the Apostolical times.

Marginal references: I[illegible: 1 letter]a. [illegible: 1 span]