Micah 1:16

1:16 Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; ¹ 

shave your foreheads as bald ²  as an eagle, ³ 

for they are taken from you into exile.

Micah 7:17

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

like serpents crawling on the ground. ⁴ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ⁵ 

they will be terrified ⁶  of you. ⁷ 

Micah 5:2

A King Will Come and a Remnant Will Prosper

5:2 (5:1) As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, ⁸ 

seemingly insignificant ⁹  among the clans of Judah –

from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, ¹⁰ 

one whose origins ¹¹  are in the distant past. ¹² 

Micah 6:8

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what the Lord really wants from you: ¹³ 

He wants you to ¹⁴  promote ¹⁵  justice, to be faithful, ¹⁶ 

and to live obediently before ¹⁷  your God.

[1:16]  ¹ tn Heb “over the sons of your delight.”

[1:16]  ² tn Heb “make wide your baldness.”

[1:16]  ³ tn Or “a vulture” (cf. NIV, TEV); CEV “a buzzard.” The Hebrew term נֶשֶׁר (nesher) refers to the griffon vulture or eagle.

[7:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ⁵ 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.”

[7:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ⁷ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.

[5:2]  ⁷ sn Ephrathah is either an alternate name for Bethlehem or the name of the district in which Bethlehem was located. See Ruth 4:11.

[5:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “being small.” Some omit לִהְיוֹת (lihyot, “being”) because it fits awkwardly and appears again in the next line.

[5:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “from you for me one will go out to be a ruler over Israel.”

[5:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his goings out.” The term may refer to the ruler’s origins (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) or to his activities.

[5:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from the past, from the days of antiquity.” Elsewhere both phrases refer to the early periods in the history of the world or of the nation of Israel. For מִקֶּדֶם (miqqedem, “from the past”) see Neh 12:46; Pss 74:12; 77:11; Isa 45:21; 46:10. For מִימֵי עוֹלָם (mimey ’olam, “from the days of antiquity”) see Isa 63:9, 11; Amos 9:11; Mic 7:14; Mal 3:4. In Neh 12:46 and Amos 9:11 the Davidic era is in view.

[6:8]  ¹⁰ sn What the Lord really wants from you. Now the prophet switches roles and answers the hypothetical worshiper’s question. He makes it clear that the Lord desires proper attitudes more than ritual and sacrifice.

[6:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”

[6:8]  ¹² tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”

[6:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”

[6:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”