5:11 I will destroy the cities of your land,
and tear down all your fortresses.
1:7 All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces;
all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. 1
I will make a waste heap 2 of all her images.
Since 3 she gathered the metal 4 as a prostitute collects her wages,
the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.” 5
3:7 The prophets 6 will be ashamed;
the omen readers will be humiliated.
All of them will cover their mouths, 7
for they will receive no divine oracles.” 8
5:9 Lift your hand triumphantly against your adversaries; 9
may all your enemies be destroyed! 10
7:16 Nations will see this and be disappointed by 11 all their strength,
they will put their hands over their mouths,
and act as if they were deaf. 12
7:19 You will once again 13 have mercy on us;
you will conquer 14 our evil deeds;
you will hurl our 15 sins into the depths of the sea. 16
1:2 Listen, all you nations! 17
Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth! 18
The sovereign Lord will testify 19 against you;
the Lord will accuse you 20 from his majestic palace. 21
1:5 All this is because of Jacob’s rebellion
and 22 the sins of the nation 23 of Israel.
How has Jacob rebelled, you ask? 24
Samaria epitomizes their rebellion! 25
Where are Judah’s pagan worship centers, you ask? 26
They are right in Jerusalem! 27
2:12 I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob,
I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. 28
I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, 29
like a flock in the middle of a pasture; 30
they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. 31
3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family 32 of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation 33 of Israel!
You 34 hate justice
and pervert all that is right.
4:5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods, 35
we will follow 36 the Lord our God forever.
6:16 You implement the regulations of Omri,
and all the practices of Ahab’s dynasty; 37
you follow their policies. 38
Therefore I will make you an appalling sight, 39
the city’s 40 inhabitants will be taunted derisively, 41
and nations will mock all of you.” 42
7:2 Faithful men have disappeared 43 from the land;
there are no godly men left. 44
They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; 45
they hunt their own brother with a net. 46
4:13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!
For I will give you iron horns; 47
I will give you bronze hooves,
and you will crush many nations.” 48
You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them,
and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler 49 of the whole earth. 50
1 tn Heb “and all her prostitute’s wages will be burned with fire.”
2 tn Heb “I will make desolate” (so NASB).
3 tn Or “for” (KJV, NASB, NRSV).
4 tn No object is specified in the Hebrew text; the words “the metal” are supplied from the context.
5 tn Heb “for from a prostitute’s wages she gathered, and to a prostitute’s wages they will return.” When the metal was first collected it was comparable to the coins a prostitute would receive for her services. The metal was then formed into idols, but now the
1 tn Or “seers.”
2 tn Or “the mustache,” or perhaps “the beard.” Cf. KJV, NAB, NRSV “cover their lips.”
3 tn Heb “for there will be no answer from God.”
1 tn Heb “let your hand be lifted against your adversaries.”
2 tn Heb “be cut off.”
1 tn Or “be ashamed of.”
2 tn Heb “and their ears will be deaf.” Apparently this means the opposing nations will be left dumbfounded by the
1 tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the
2 tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the
3 tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.
4 sn In this metaphor the
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
4 tn Heb “the
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).
1 tn Heb “and because of.” This was simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 tn Heb “house.”
3 tn Heb “What is the rebellion of Jacob?”
4 tn Heb “Is it not Samaria?” The negated rhetorical question expects the answer, “It certainly is!” To make this clear the question has been translated as a strong affirmative statement.
5 tn Heb “What are Judah’s high places?”
6 tn Heb “Is it not Jerusalem?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “It certainly is!”
1 tn Heb “the remnant of Israel.”
2 tc The MT reads בָּצְרָה (batsrah, “Bozrah”) but the form should be emended to בַּצִּרָה (batsirah, “into the fold”). See D. R. Hillers, Micah (Hermeneia), 38.
3 tc The MT reads “its pasture,” but the final vav (ו) belongs with the following verb. See GKC 413 §127.i.
4 tn Heb “and they will be noisy [or perhaps, “excited”] from men.” The subject of the third feminine plural verb תְּהִימֶנָה (tÿhimenah, “they will be noisy”) is probably the feminine singular צֹאן (tso’n, “flock”). (For another example of this collective singular noun with a feminine plural verb, see Gen 30:38.) In the construction מֵאָדָם (me’adam, “from men”) the preposition is probably causal. L. C. Allen translates “bleating in fear of men” (Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah [NICOT], 300), but it is possible to take the causal sense as “because of the large quantity of men.” In this case the sheep metaphor and the underlying reality are mixed.
1 tn Heb “house.”
2 tn Heb “house.”
3 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).
1 tn Heb “walk each in the name of his god.” The term “name” here has the idea of “authority.” To “walk in the name” of a god is to recognize the god’s authority as binding over one’s life.
2 tn Heb “walk in the name of.”
1 tn Heb “the edicts of Omri are kept, and all the deeds of the house of Ahab.”
2 tn Heb “and you walk in their plans.”
3 tn The Hebrew term שַׁמָּה (shammah) can refer to “destruction; ruin,” or to the reaction it produces in those who witness the destruction.
4 tn Heb “her”; the referent (the city) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “[an object] of hissing,” which was a way of taunting someone.
6 tc The translation assumes an emendation of the MT’s עַמִּי (’ammi, “my people”) to עַמִּים (’ammim, “nations”).
1 tn Or “have perished”; “have been destroyed.”
2 tn Heb “and an upright one among men there is not.”
3 tn Heb “for bloodshed” (so NASB); TEV “for a chance to commit murder.”
4 sn Micah compares these ungodly people to hunters trying to capture their prey with a net.
1 tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”
2 sn Jerusalem (Daughter Zion at the beginning of the verse; cf. 4:8) is here compared to a powerful ox which crushes the grain on the threshing floor with its hooves.
3 tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”
4 tn Heb “and their wealth to the master of all the earth.” The verb “devote” does double duty in the parallelism and is supplied in the second line for clarification.