Isaiah 44:22

44:22 I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud,

the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. ¹ 

Come back to me, for I protect ²  you.”

Jeremiah 50:20

50:20 When that time comes,

no guilt will be found in Israel.

No sin will be found in Judah. ³ 

For I will forgive those of them I have allowed to survive. ⁴ 

I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ⁵ 

Micah 7:18-19

7:18 There is no other God like you! ⁶ 

You ⁷  forgive sin

and pardon ⁸  the rebellion

of those who remain among your people. ⁹ 

You do not remain angry forever, ¹⁰ 

but delight in showing loyal love.

7:19 You will once again ¹¹  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ¹²  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ¹³  sins into the depths of the sea. ¹⁴ 

Micah 7:1

Micah Laments Judah’s Sin

7:1 I am depressed! ¹⁵ 

Indeed, ¹⁶  it is as if the summer fruit has been gathered,

and the grapes have been harvested. ¹⁷ 

There is no grape cluster to eat,

no fresh figs that I crave so much. ¹⁸ 

Micah 1:7-9

1:7 All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces;

all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. ¹⁹ 

I will make a waste heap ²⁰  of all her images.

Since ²¹  she gathered the metal ²²  as a prostitute collects her wages,

the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.” ²³ 

1:8 For this reason I ²⁴  will mourn and wail;

I will walk around barefoot ²⁵  and without my outer garments. ²⁶ 

I will howl ²⁷  like a wild dog, ²⁸ 

and screech ²⁹  like an owl. ³⁰ 

1:9 For Samaria’s ³¹  disease ³²  is incurable.

It has infected ³³  Judah;

it has spread to ³⁴  the leadership ³⁵  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ³⁶ 

[44:22]  ¹ tn Heb “I blot out like a cloud your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud your sins.” “Rebellious deeds” and “sins” stand by metonymy for the guilt they produce. Both עָב (’av) and עָנָן (’anan) refer to the clouds in the sky. It is tempting for stylistic purposes to translate the second with “fog” or “mist” (cf. NAB, NRSV “cloud…mist”; NIV “cloud…morning mist”; NLT “morning mists…clouds”), but this distinction between the synonyms is unwarranted here. The point of the simile seems to be this: The Lord forgives their sins, causing them to vanish just as clouds disappear from the sky (see Job 7:9; 30:15).

[44:22]  ² tn Heb “redeem.” See the note at 41:14.

[50:20]  ³ tn Heb “In those days and at that time, oracle of the Lord, the iniquity [or guilt] of Israel will be sought but there will be none and the sins of Judah but they will not be found.” The passive construction “will be sought” raises the question of who is doing the seeking which is not really the main point. The translation has avoided this question by simply referring to the result which is the main point.

[50:20]  ⁴ sn Compare Jer 31:34 and 33:8.

[50:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” In this case it is necessary to place this in the first person because this is already in a quote whose speaker is identified as the Lord (v. 18).

[7:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “Who is a God like you?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!”

[7:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “one who.” The prayer moves from direct address (second person) in v. 18a to a descriptive (third person) style in vv. 18b-19a and then back to direct address (second person) in vv. 19b-20. Due to considerations of English style and the unfamiliarity of the modern reader with alternation of persons in Hebrew poetry, the entire section has been rendered as direct address (second person) in the translation.

[7:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “pass over.”

[7:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”

[7:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he does not keep hold of his anger forever.”

[7:19]  ¹¹ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ¹² 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 Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ¹³ 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.

[7:19]  ¹⁴ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).

[7:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “woe to me!” In light of the image that follows, perhaps one could translate, “I am disappointed.”

[7:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “for.”

[7:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I am like the gathering of the summer fruit, like the gleanings of the harvest.” Micah is not comparing himself to the harvested fruit. There is an ellipsis here, as the second half of the verse makes clear. The idea is, “I am like [one at the time] the summer fruit is gathered and the grapes are harvested.”

[7:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “my appetite craves.”

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and all her prostitute’s wages will be burned with fire.”

[1:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I will make desolate” (so NASB).

[1:7]  ²¹ tn Or “for” (KJV, NASB, NRSV).

[1:7]  ²² tn No object is specified in the Hebrew text; the words “the metal” are supplied from the context.

[1:7]  ²³ 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 Lord’s fiery judgment would reduce the metal images to their original condition.

[1:8]  ²⁴ tn The prophet is probably the speaker here.

[1:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “stripped.” The precise meaning of this Hebrew word is unclear. It may refer to walking barefoot (see 2 Sam 15:30) or to partially stripping oneself (see Job 12:17-19).

[1:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “naked.” This probably does not refer to complete nudity, but to stripping off one’s outer garments as an outward sign of the destitution felt by the mourner.

[1:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I will make lamentation.”

[1:8]  ²⁸ tn Or “a jackal”; CEV “howling wolves.”

[1:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “[make] a mourning.”

[1:8]  ³⁰ tn Or perhaps “ostrich” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

[1:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ³² tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

[1:9]  ³³ tn Heb “come to.”

[1:9]  ³⁴ tn Or “reached.”

[1:9]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.

[1:9]  ³⁶ tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.