Micah 7:15-17

7:15 “As in the days when you departed from the land of Egypt,

I will show you ¹  miraculous deeds.” ² 

7:16 Nations will see this and be disappointed by ³  all their strength,

they will put their hands over their mouths,

and act as if they were deaf. ⁴ 

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

like serpents crawling on the ground. ⁵ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ⁶ 

they will be terrified ⁷  of you. ⁸ 

[7:15]  ¹ tn Heb “him.” This probably refers to Israel in a collective sense. Because the switch from direct address to the third person is awkward, some prefer to emend the suffix to a second person form. In any case, it is necessary to employ a second person pronoun in the translation to maintain the connection for the English reader.

[7:15]  ² sn I will show you miraculous deeds. In this verse the Lord responds to the petition of v. 14 with a brief promise of deliverance.

[7:16]  ³ tn Or “be ashamed of.”

[7:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “and their ears will be deaf.” Apparently this means the opposing nations will be left dumbfounded by the Lord’s power. Their inability to respond will make them appear to be deaf mutes.

[7:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

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

[7:17]  ⁸ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.