And many nations will certainly go and say: ‘Come, you people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem.

But does a temple for the worship of Jehovah crown the top of the mountain where the house for the worship of Jehovah stood down till 70 C.E.? No, but the Dome of the Rock for the worship of the Mohammedan deity, Allah, stands there, and people of many nations visit it as a tourist attraction. Beyond all contradiction this has been no fulfillment of the prophecy of Micah 4:1-4.

 6. Why, though, is Micah 4:1-4 undergoing fulfillment, and why does earthly Jerusalem not figure in the fulfillment?

⁶ Still, that prophecy has been undergoing fulfillment since the postwar year of 1919. How so? Well, because a higher Jerusalem is involved. Let us recall how, on Nisan 9, 33 C.E., Jesus Christ as the Governor out of Bethlehem made his triumphal ride into Jerusalem but was not accepted as King. Two days later, on Nisan 11, he was moved to bewail that earthly Jerusalem, saying: “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks together under her wings! But you people did not want it. Look! Your house [your temple] is abandoned to you [people].” (Matt. 23:37, 38) Three days later, on Nisan 14, Jesus suffered martyrdom at Calvary outside Jerusalem. Then, for his part, Jehovah God abandoned that temple though it had been dedicated to him. No longer was it his place of approved worship. Its destruction in 70 C.E. dramatized that fact!

 7. When did the heavenly Jerusalem become the mother of the disciples of Jesus, and how does Paul refer to this?

⁷ Forty days after Jesus’ resurrection he ascended back to heaven and 10 days later, on the day of Pentecost, he poured out the holy spirit upon his disciples waiting in earthly Jerusalem. With that event Jerusalem above became their mother. As regards this, the Christian apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the congregations in Galatia: “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” (Gal. 4:26) However, later on, when writing to Hebrew Christians in general, the same apostle wrote: “But you have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels, in general assembly, and the congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens, and God the Judge of all.” (Heb. 12:22, 23; Rev. 21:2) It is with respect to this New Jerusalem, the spiritual Jerusalem, on a spiritual Mount Zion, that Micah 4:1-4 prophesies. Upon this spiritual Jerusalem, the Messianic kingdom, Micah’s prophecy is being fulfilled today!

 8. Since 1914, to what extent has the worship of the one true God been exalted with respect to the earth?

⁸ Since the war-wracked years of 1914-1918 the worship of the God whose worship used to be carried on at the “house,” or temple, that stood atop one of the mountains of ancient Jerusalem, keeps being exalted. This worship of Jehovah has been “established above the top of the mountains” on which temples to the false gods of this system stood or still stand. Thus the worship of the one living and true God has been “lifted up above the hills.”

 9. After World War I, how was the situation opened up for the elevation of Jehovah’s worship, and what did Micah 2:12, 13 say with regard to this?

⁹ Particularly after the close of World War I in the autumn of 1918 the worship of Jehovah as the Most High God was elevated heaven high. How was that? Because, first in the postwar period of time, was restoration possible for the worshipers of Jehovah from the oppressed, dispersed, restricted state that was like the condition of the Jewish exiles in Babylon during 607-537 B.C.E. Micah’s prophecy foretold the regathering of the spiritual Israelites and the breaking open of the way for them to escape from such a Babylonish servitude, saying: “‘I shall positively gather Jacob, all of you; I shall without fail collect the remaining ones of Israel together. In unity I shall set them, like a flock in the pen, like a drove in the midst of its pasture; they will be noisy with men.’ The one making a breakthrough will certainly come up before them; they will actually break through. And they will pass through a gate, and they will go out by it. And their king will pass through before them, with Jehovah at the head of them.”​—Mic. 2:12, 13.

10. Who was the “king” taking part in Micah’s prophecy, and how and when and for whom did he make the “breakthrough”?

¹⁰ When, in 537 B.C.E., the Israelites left Babylon according to the decree of the Persian conqueror, Cyrus the Great, there was no human king of the royal house of David leading them out. Zedekiah, the last Davidic king to reign at old Jerusalem, was by then dead, buried at Babylon. Evidently, then, Micah’s prophecy must have spiritual application.