Insignificant? Not To God.

Micah 5 v. 2

Nothing is ‘insignificant’ to God

‘O little town of Bethlehem ……………..’

The first time that Bethlehem appears in the scriptures

is in Genesis 35.

We can read how Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham loved Rachel and married her

after working for her brother Laban for 14 years.

Rachel died after giving birth to Benjamin, her 2nd son,

Joseph of the many coloured coat fame being her firstborn.

Rachel was buried just outside Bethlehem

and when Genesis 35 was written

it says ‘to this day’ the pillar that Jacob set over her tomb

was still there.

I first visited Bethlehem in 1995

when I stayed at the Ramat Rahel kibbutz,

and I saw Ramat Rahel or Rachel’s tomb

which is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

In Judges 12 verse 8 we learn that one of the inhabitants of Bethlehem

was a man called Ibzan, who had 30 sons and 30 daughters,

and who was a Judge over Israel for 7 years.

In Judges 17 verses 7 and 9 there is an account of a Levite

who lived in Bethlehem who left the town

in search of a job as a priest somewhere else.

In the book of Ruth, chapter 1, we learn about a time

when there was a famine in Judah,

so a resident of Bethlehem called Elimelech

went with his wife Naomi and their 2 sons

to live in the country of Moab.

The sons married Moabite girls, but did not live happily after

because the two sons died and so did their father.

One of the Moabite widows went back to her family

but the other one, Ruth,

stayed with her mother-in-law when she returned to Bethlehem.

Ruth would eventually marry Boaz and have a son called Obed

who would in turn have a son called Jesse,

who would be the father of David, King of Israel,

which is why Bethlehem is often called ‘Royal David’s city’.

We can read in 1st Samuel chapter 16

how the Lord told Samuel to go from his home town of Ramah

to Bethlehem

to anoint David the son of Jesse as King of Israel,

as God was displeased with King Saul.

In 2nd Samuel chapter 23 we can read about a time

when David was being besieged by the Philistines

and was ‘holed up’ in the cave of Adullam.

The Philistines had captured and occupied Bethlehem.

In 2nd Samuel 23 verse 15 we learn how David,

who often ‘thought out loud’

exclaimed how he longed to be able to drink some water,

but not just any water,

specifically water from the well near to the gate of Bethlehem,

and near to Rachel’s tomb.

Probably he was just wishing that the battle was over

and that he and his men could have free access to Bethlehem.

Anyway, the 3 mighty men who had fought the Philistines

along with him, Josheb-Basshebeth, Eleazar and Shammah,

took it upon themselves to make the king’s wish come true.

They fought their way through the Philistine lines

and got to the well and drew water and carried it back to David,

probably in an animal-skin bag.

David was so impressed by their valour,

and probably so ashamed by his own lack of it,

that he refused to drink a drop,

but poured it out as an offering to God.

Apart from these few instances

Bethlehem is not mentioned anywhere else in the OT,

being merely an insignificant town a few miles south,

perhaps an hour’s walk, from Jerusalem;

and in the NT it is not mentioned at all

apart from in the birth narratives.

Jesus was brought up in Nazareth, preached

and spent most of his time in or around Capernaum,

and died and was resurrected in Jerusalem,

and it will be to Jerusalem that he will return

after his parousia or 2nd Coming.

Bethlehem in the county of Ephrathah in Judah

was never an important place in Israel,

compared to Jerusalem or Bethel, Shechem or Shiloh,

and some would say that even these places were not very significant

compared to cities such as London or New York,

but God communicated through the prophet Micah

some time between 750 and 686BC,

during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah,

that this otherwise insignificant little town

would be the birthplace of the Messiah.

Micah predicted the fall of Ephraim, the Northern kingdom of Israel

which separated from the southern kingdom of Judah

after the death of Solomon, and it did fall, to the Assyrians in 721BC.

This is why Micah is called a ‘prophet of doom’.

However, he also prophesied the coming one day

of the Messianic Deliverer,

and this is why Micah is also called a ‘prophet of hope’.

Bethlehem today is still a ‘little town’,