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As taken from the Christian New Testament ....Matthew 2:5-2:6
And they said to him (concerning the birth of the King of the Jews), 'In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written through the prophet, "And you Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, are not the least among the princes of Juda: Out of you one shall come, a Governor, who is to be the ruler of my people Israel."'
The following is taken from the Jewish Masoretic Text which is believed to be the source text for the New Testament fulfillment in Matthew.
[Micah 5:1 - "And you [of] Beth-Lechem of [the district of] Ephrasah, you should have been the lowest [person] of the tribe of Judah [because of your questionable lineage]. [Yet instead,] out of you one shall come to Me who is to be a ruler over all of Israel."
I have got good news for you. This is a Messianic verse, but you will notice that the Christian version seems to look a bit different than the original as taken from the Jewish Palestinian text (the unaltered Masoretic Text).
First, the Christian quoted "fulfillment" speaks of an area called Judaea, which had since taken over the province called Ephratah. At the time of Jesus, the district of Ephrasah no longer existed. That is why over and over we read in the Christian bible "Bethlehem of Judea." My guess is that the author of "Matthew," whoever he was, was afraid what that pesky word ("Ephrasah/Ephratah") would do to the prophecy and so he simply removed it since it was necessary to make Jesus the fulfillment and connect him to Judaea.
Now please pay close attention. The other problem, however, is that this verse does not speak of where the Moshiach will be born, but from where his beginnings lie. You'll see that more clearly in a moment.
Next, the Christian version makes it sound like we are talking about a town instead of a person. There is no town that is of the tribe of Judah! We are speaking of a person, and not a place. The person is primary to the prophecy. It would not matter where the man in this passage lived. No matter where he lived, there would still be a Messianic line. The prophet Micah is not predicting where the Messiah will be born, but is recalling the source of the Messianic lineage before speaking of the Moshiach.
A good example of this type of grammer is where we read in First Chronicles 2:51. One might incorrectly read it as "sons of Salma, Beth-Lechem and Netophati..." Instead, it actually reads: "[The] sons of Salma [were living in] Beth-Lechem and Netophati...". We know that Beth-Lechem and Netophali were towns, so therefore their relationship to "sons" were not names but must be places relating to the sons. In this case, they are locations, and so I infer this with "were living in" to make the sentence more grammatically accurate.
Next, the writer of the Gospel of "Matthew" left out the portion about "you should have been the lowest of the clans of Judah."
Answer for yourself: Why is this person the lowest of the other members of the tribe of Judah?
This is because the man who lived there had a Moabite grandmother, and therefore had questionable lineage. A Moabite man is forbidden to convert to Judaism and the problem of a Moabite woman also came into question. It was later ruled as not a problem for a woman, but some people still questioned anyone of that descent. Because of that, this man was the least likely of all of the tribe of Judah to be the source of Moshiach.
[1 Samuel 17:12 - "And David was the son of this Ephrasah man from Beth-Lechem of Judea."
Yishai believed that David's mother was an adulteress and that David was not his son (which was untrue). So again, David too was the least likely candidate for King over all of Israel. It is from this lineage that Moshiach will be born. Hence, this passage was not stating where Moshiach would be born, but, rather, where his roots had already begun.
The other part of the modified translation is that G-d says that this offspring will "come to me". This becomes a problem when we read in Christian theological tradition that Jesus came from G-d. Therefore, in order to get rid of this annoying problem, the author of "Matthew" simply removed it from his version of the quote. But you might find some Christian who will respond with "See! It says right there that the Messiah would leave this world by going to G-d, and then return once more to be king!" In response to that, please note that the order of this prophecy is important. First, the Moshiach will embrace Torah and, in essence, come to G-d. Next he will become king of Israel. Then he will lead the Jewish people. But be warned, when you go down that road, you will sooner or later hit the "second coming" defense. You can always point out that "to me" is not in the Christian version, only the Jewish version, and one must therefore suspect that the author of "Matthew" didn't want to go down that road either. Again dear one, we are dealing with a “corrupted” translation. That is what Bet Emet has been trying to tell you for the last 10 years.The evidence is overwhelming if one only looks.
The rest of this passage speaks of the time period when Zion will be lead by a warrior king who will establish his kingdom with the help of several princes. As far as we can tell, Jesus was not the warrior king! In fact, unlike a real king, Jesus was never anointed with oil by any prophet. Remember, Beth-lechem is not only the prophecy about where the lineage would begin, but what such a person would do. There were lots and lots of baby boys born in Beth-Lechem, but not one of them did what this prophecy says that the Moshiach will do. And since this prophecy has not been fulfilled, Jesus did not fulfill it either.
As you can see, this verse from Micah was not talking about where the Moshiach would be born, but from where the Messianic dynasty would begin: It began with Dovid HaMelech.
Answer for yourself: So why pick a verse that Jesus never fulfilled?
That is not too hard. The author of the "Matthew," who evidently was not fully aware of the Micah prophecy and what it truly meant, was looking for some prophecy that had the name Beth-Lechem in it, and this was the best support that he could come up with to connect Jesus and David. Even more problematic, when you think about it, according to the conflicting genealogies of Matthew and Luke we have major problems, not to mention the “virgin-birth” stories in the New Testament. Considering both of these it is rather simple that Jesus could not be from that lineage, and since he did not fulfill the requirement of leading the Jews (the idea of a "second coming" is a non-Jewish one!) this verse does not pertain to him. It is time for the Christians to get a Jewish Tanakh and re-learn the true Messianic prophecies and see if they have actually been fulfilled, and if not try to understand why. Along with this it is way past time (2000 years) that the Christian comes to terms with the falsified prophecies in the New Testament. Jesus would want you to do so...and it brings him no honor that lies are believed in his name.
Shalom.
Bennoah1@verizon.net