Micah 1:2

The Judge is Coming

1:2 Listen, all you nations! ¹ 

Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth! ² 

The sovereign Lord will testify ³  against you;

the Lord will accuse you ⁴  from his majestic palace. ⁵ 

Micah 5:4

5:4 He will assume his post ⁶  and shepherd the people ⁷  by the Lord’s strength,

by the sovereign authority of the Lord his God. ⁸ 

They will live securely, ⁹  for at that time he will be honored ¹⁰ 

even in the distant regions of ¹¹  the earth.

Micah 6:2

6:2 Hear the Lord’s accusation, you mountains,

you enduring foundations of the earth!

For the Lord has a case against his people;

he has a dispute with Israel! ¹² 

Micah 7:17

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ¹³ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ¹⁴ 

they will be terrified ¹⁵  of you. ¹⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “O peoples, all of them.”

² tn Heb “O earth and all its fullness”; KJV “and all that therein is.”

³ tn Heb “May the sovereign Lord testify against you.” The verb וִיהִי (vihiy) is jussive, which normally conveys a volitional sense of an urgent request or prayer (“may he testify!”). However, GKC 325-26 §109.k notes that here the jussive form is used without any volitional sense for the ordinary imperfect, as a rhythmic shortening at the beginning of a sentence, thus removed as far as possible from the principal accent (cf. Gen 49:17; Deut 28:8; 1 Sam 10:5; 2 Sam 5:24; Hos 6:1; 11:4; Amos 5:14; Zeph 2:13; Zech 9:5; Pss 72:16-17; 104:31; Job 18:12; 20:23, 26, 28; 27:8; 33:21; 34:37; Ruth 3:4). Thus, the translation here renders the jussive as an ordinary imperfect. Some translations render it in a traditional jussive sense: (1) urgent request: “And let my Lord God be your accuser” (NJPS); or (2) dependent purpose/result: “that the Sovereign Lord may witness against you” (NIV).

⁴ tn Heb “the Lord from his majestic palace.” Since the verb is omitted it is unclear whether the implied term be supplied from the preceding line (“he will testify against you”) or the following line (“he is leaving”). So the line may be rendered “the Lord will accuse you from his majestic temple” or “the Lord will come forth from his majestic temple.” Most translations render it literally, but some remove the ambiguity: “the Lord God accuses you from his holy temple” (CEV); “He speaks from his holy temple” (TEV).

⁵ tn Or “his holy temple” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This refers to the Lord’s dwelling in heaven, however, rather than the temple in Jerusalem (note the following verse, which describes a theophany).

⁶ tn Heb “stand up”; NAB “stand firm”; NASB “will arise.”

⁷ tn The words “the people” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁸ tn Heb “by the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.”

⁹ tn The words “in peace” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Perhaps וְיָשָׁבוּ (vÿyashavu, “and they will live”) should be emended to וְשָׁבוּ (vÿshavu, “and they will return”).

¹⁰ tn Heb “be great.”

¹¹ tn Or “to the ends of.”

¹¹ tn This verse briefly interrupts the Lord’s statement (see vv. 1, 3) as the prophet summons the mountains as witnesses. Because of this v. 2 has been placed in parentheses in the translation.

¹⁶ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

¹⁷ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

¹⁹ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.