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. ¹ 

I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, ² 

like a flock in the middle of a pasture; ³ 

they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. ⁴ 

Micah 4:6

Restoration Will Follow Crisis

4:6 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will gather the lame,

and assemble the outcasts whom I injured. ⁵ 

Micah 4:12

4:12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;

they do not understand his strategy.

He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed ⁶  at the threshing floor.

Micah 1:7

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

all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. ⁷ 

I will make a waste heap ⁸  of all her images.

Since ⁹  she gathered the metal ¹⁰  as a prostitute collects her wages,

the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.” ¹¹ 

[2:12]  ¹ tn Heb “the remnant of Israel.”

[2:12]  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.

[2:12]  ³ tc The MT reads “its pasture,” but the final vav (ו) belongs with the following verb. See GKC 413 §127.i.

[2:12]  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.

[4:6]  ⁵ sn The exiles of the nation are compared to lame and injured sheep.

[4:12]  ⁹ tn The words “to be threshed” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the Lord is planning to enable “Daughter Zion” to “thresh” her enemies.

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all her prostitute’s wages will be burned with fire.”

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will make desolate” (so NASB).

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for” (KJV, NASB, NRSV).

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn No object is specified in the Hebrew text; the words “the metal” are supplied from the context.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ 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.