Micah 7:4

7:4 The best of them is like a thorn;

the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. ¹ 

The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen –

your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, ² 

and then you will experience confusion. ³ 

Micah 1:9

1:9 For Samaria’s ⁴  disease ⁵  is incurable.

It has infected ⁶  Judah;

it has spread to ⁷  the leadership ⁸  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ⁹ 

[7:4]  ¹ tn Heb “[the] godly from a row of thorn bushes.” The preposition מִן (min) is comparative and the comparative element (perhaps “sharper” is the idea) is omitted. See BDB 582 s.v. 6 and GKC 431 §133.e.

[7:4]  ² tn Heb “the day of your watchmen, your appointed [time], is coming.” The present translation takes “watchmen” to refer to actual sentries. However, the “watchmen” could refer figuratively to the prophets who had warned Judah of approaching judgment. In this case one could translate, “The day your prophets warned about – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way.”

[7:4]  ³ tn Heb “and now will be their confusion.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ⁵ tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “come to.”

[1:9]  ⁷ tn Or “reached.”

[1:9]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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.