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 1:5

1:5 All this is because of Jacob’s rebellion

and ⁶  the sins of the nation ⁷  of Israel.

How has Jacob rebelled, you ask? ⁸ 

Samaria epitomizes their rebellion! ⁹ 

Where are Judah’s pagan worship centers, you ask? ¹⁰ 

They are right in Jerusalem! ¹¹ 

Micah 2:12

The Lord Will Restore His People

2:12 I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob,

I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. ¹² 

I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, ¹³ 

like a flock in the middle of a pasture; ¹⁴ 

they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. ¹⁵ 

Micah 3:9

3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family ¹⁶  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ¹⁷  of Israel!

You ¹⁸  hate justice

and pervert all that is right.

Micah 4:5

4:5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods, ¹⁹ 

we will follow ²⁰  the Lord our God forever.

Micah 6:16

6:16 You implement the regulations of Omri,

and all the practices of Ahab’s dynasty; ²¹ 

you follow their policies. ²² 

Therefore I will make you an appalling sight, ²³ 

the city’s ²⁴  inhabitants will be taunted derisively, ²⁵ 

and nations will mock all of you.” ²⁶ 

Micah 7:2

7:2 Faithful men have disappeared ²⁷  from the land;

there are no godly men left. ²⁸ 

They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; ²⁹ 

they hunt their own brother with a net. ³⁰ 

[1:2]  ¹ tn Heb “O peoples, all of them.”

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “O earth and all its fullness”; KJV “and all that therein is.”

[1:2]  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).

[1:2]  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).

[1:2]  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).

[1:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “and because of.” This was simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[1:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “What is the rebellion of Jacob?”

[1:5]  ⁹ 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.

[1:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “What are Judah’s high places?”

[1:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Is it not Jerusalem?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “It certainly is!”

[2:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the remnant of Israel.”

[2:12]  ¹² 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.

[2:12]  ¹³ tc The MT reads “its pasture,” but the final vav (ו) belongs with the following verb. See GKC 413 §127.i.

[2:12]  ¹⁴ 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.

[3:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).

[4:5]  ²¹ 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.

[4:5]  ²² tn Heb “walk in the name of.”

[6:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the edicts of Omri are kept, and all the deeds of the house of Ahab.”

[6:16]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and you walk in their plans.”

[6:16]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew term שַׁמָּה (shammah) can refer to “destruction; ruin,” or to the reaction it produces in those who witness the destruction.

[6:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “her”; the referent (the city) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “[an object] of hissing,” which was a way of taunting someone.

[6:16]  ³¹ tc The translation assumes an emendation of the MT’s עַמִּי (’ammi, “my people”) to עַמִּים (’ammim, “nations”).

[7:2]  ³¹ tn Or “have perished”; “have been destroyed.”

[7:2]  ³² tn Heb “and an upright one among men there is not.”

[7:2]  ³³ tn Heb “for bloodshed” (so NASB); TEV “for a chance to commit murder.”

[7:2]  ³⁴ sn Micah compares these ungodly people to hunters trying to capture their prey with a net.