Episode
Many Voices, One God
- Podcast
- Grace for All
- Published
- Aug 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 474
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://graceforall.captivate.fm/episode/many-voices-one-god
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Summary
Micah 5:2-5 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace. There is a question that serious readers of Scripture eventually have to face: why do two great religious traditions — Jewish and Christian — read the same ancient texts and arrive at different conclusions? Is one of them simply wrong? Or is something else going on? The prophet Micah gives us one of the most remarkable passages in all of the Old Testament. Writing some seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, he points to Bethlehem — the smallest and most overlooked of Judah’s towns — as the birthplace of a coming ruler whose origins stretch back to ancient times, perhaps to eternity itself. Ancient Jewish interpreters, including the great medieval scholar Rashi, read this as a clear messianic prophecy. The Aramaic Targum of Jonathan, written before the time of Christ, translated the passage explicitly: out of Bethlehem shall the Messiah come forth. The Jewish tradition has always known that this passage points toward something — someone — of cosmic significance. Where Jewish and Christian readings part ways is not over whether the passage is messianic, but over whether that Messiah has already come. Jewish tradition reads Micah’s words as a promise still leaning forward, still awaiting its fulfi…