Bret Devereaux

In its context, the verse contemplates a future world at peace under God's rule. But Washington, most famously in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, took the verse as an ideal for the American republic, where people of every stripe "shall sit...

As Washington put it, "All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights"

Of course Washington's assertion that "the Government of the United States [...] gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance" rings a little hollow given that he held other men in bondage and that the government would indeed long sanction that bigotry.

But I think the aspiration, if not the reality, of Washington's use of Micah 4:4's vine and fruit tree, is a powerful and salutary vision for a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious republic. I'm always glad to see that vision put forward.

it's an interesting verse to think on; it's worth contemplating the vision of civic republicanism it puts forward that each person should have a certain share of wealth, and land in particular, so that they are not constantly in fear of poverty or loss of their home

but it's the "and no one shall make them afraid" that i keep coming back to as succinct a statement of the politics of non-domination one can find that no one should live in fear of the arbitrary power of another, whether the government or a private agency

that no one should fear that ICE is going to take them in the night, or take their families in the night that no one should fear the loss of their living or their health care so much that they cannot leave their nightmarish boss or job