Mic 5:2    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.

    

This is another one of those echoes from the mind of God that came through to His prophets that speaks of a Coming One, one who will be a ruler. We don't say this because it fits what happened but because the Jews of those times saw it as such and it was part of the Messianic literature.

 

What is amazing is that there were about 300 of these snippets pointing to the Messiah. This one shows some of the detail that was in God's mind. Centuries later, an engaged couple living in Nazareth, she expecting a baby, are required by the Roman Emperor to go to the ‘family town', the ‘city of David', Bethlehem, in the area of Ephrathah.  Did God put the thought in the Emperor's mind or did He simply know what would happen? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that one way or another, this was going to happen, this would be one of the many bits of the jigsaw that would be the Son of God's life on earth.

 

God knows. God has a plan and God is going to work it out. It was formulated before the foundation of the world, it was seen in the life of Israel, and then in the life of Jesus, and it continues today, and will continue on into eternity. If we are Christians we know we are a part of that plan that stretches into eternity. For our short period of life on this earth we have a part to play in His plan. Hallelujah!