Micah

This is the message the LORD gave to Micah, a man from the town of Moresheth. It came during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. It is what he saw about Samaria and Jerusalem.

1The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Note"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided saying it aloud and substituted a word meaning "Lord," and English translations follow that custom with the capitalized form. Moresheth was a small farming town in the low hills of Judah, roughly twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem. The three kings named reign in Judah over roughly 750–690 BC, so Micah is speaking in the decades when the Assyrian empire was swallowing the region. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, called Israel; Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom, called Judah. The two had been separate states for about two hundred years by Micah's time. "What he saw" is the standard way of describing a prophet's message: prophecy was spoken of as something seen, like a vision, not merely heard.

2Listen, all you peoples! Pay attention, earth, and everyone living on it! Let the Lord GOD stand as a witness who speaks against you, the Lord speaking from his holy temple.

2Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the LORD from his holy temple.

Note"Lord GOD" translates a doubled Hebrew phrase, Adonai YHWH, the ordinary word for "master" followed by the personal name. English versions print the second word as GOD in capitals to signal it is the name, not the common noun. The scene here is a lawsuit: a witness in an ancient court did not just observe but testified for or against the accused, which is why the witness "speaks against you." "His holy temple" is ambiguous in Hebrew and left so here; it can mean the sanctuary in Jerusalem or God's dwelling in heaven, and the next verse, where he comes down from his place, leans toward the second.

3Look! The LORD is coming out from where he lives. He will come down and walk on the highest places of the earth.

3For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.

Note"High places" carries two senses at once. Literally it means mountain peaks and ridgelines, which is the picture here of a giant striding across the earth. But the same Hebrew word, bamah, was the standard term for an open-air hilltop shrine, of the kind used for worship of other gods and for unauthorized worship of Israel's God. Verse 5 plays on the second sense.

4The mountains will melt under him and the valleys will split open. They will be like wax held near a fire, like water rushing down a steep slope.

4And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

5All of this is happening because of the rebellion of Jacob and the sins of the people of Israel. What is Jacob's rebellion? Is it not Samaria? And what is Judah's hilltop worship place? Is it not Jerusalem?

5For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

Note"Jacob" is the ancestor renamed Israel in Genesis, and his name is used throughout the prophets as a name for the whole nation descended from him. "Israel" here can mean either that whole people or specifically the northern kingdom, and the Hebrew does not settle it. The question-and-answer form is a rhetorical device: the accusation is that each capital city has become the very thing it should have stood against, Samaria is the nation's rebellion in concentrated form, and Jerusalem, which housed the temple, is Judah's hilltop shrine.

6So I will turn Samaria into a pile of rubble in an open field, a place where someone plants a vineyard. I will dump her stones down into the valley and lay her foundations bare.

6Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.

NoteFields in this hill country were cleared by piling the stones into heaps and building terraces for vines, so the image is of a walled city reduced to farmland, the stones that made it a city now just rubble in a vineyard. To "lay the foundations bare" means demolition so complete that the buried footings of the walls are exposed, the ancient picture of a city that will not be rebuilt. Samaria was in fact besieged and destroyed by the Assyrians around 722 BC.

7All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces, and everything she was paid will be burned in the fire. I will wipe out all her images. She collected them as a prostitute collects her pay, and they will go back to paying prostitutes again.

7And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.

Note"Carved images" and "images" are statues of gods, made of wood or stone and often plated with silver or gold; the metal is why they could be smashed and melted down and reused. The prophets routinely described worshiping other gods as prostitution or adultery, the nation was pictured as a wife going after other partners for payment. "Everything she was paid" refers to the offerings and treasures accumulated at her shrines, spoken of as a prostitute's fee. The sting of the last line is that Assyrian soldiers will carry the plundered temple metal away and spend it in the shrines of their own gods, so the fee ends up back in the same trade.

8Because of this I will cry out and wail. I will walk around stripped and barefoot. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches.

8Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

NoteWalking stripped and barefoot was not nakedness for its own sake but the recognized public dress of extreme grief, and also the condition of prisoners of war being marched away, the prophet acts out in advance what will happen to the people. The KJV's "dragons" and "owls" are old renderings of Hebrew words now generally understood as jackals and ostriches, both animals known for eerie, wailing night cries.

9Samaria's wound cannot be healed. The same trouble has now reached Judah. It has come right up to the gate of my own people, all the way to Jerusalem.

9For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

NoteThe city gate was the fortified entrance and the weakest point in a wall; an enemy "at the gate" means the attack has reached the capital itself and only the last defense remains.

10Do not announce it in Gath. Do not weep at all. In Beth-leaphrah, the town of dust, roll yourself in the dust.

10Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust.

NoteVerses 10–15 are a chain of puns: the name of each town sounds like the Hebrew word for the disaster that strikes it. The wordplay cannot survive translation, so the towns simply sound like names in English. "Do not announce it in Gath" quotes David's lament over Saul (2 Samuel 1:20); Gath was one of the five Philistine cities, long-standing enemies, and the point is not to let hostile neighbors enjoy the news. The name Gath also sounds like the Hebrew verb "tell." Beth-leaphrah means roughly "house of dust," and rolling in dust or ashes was the standard gesture of mourning. "Do not weep at all" is uncertain in the Hebrew and some read it as another place name; the ambiguity is left standing here.

11Move on, you who live in Shaphir, stripped bare and ashamed. Those who live in Zaanan do not come out. Beth-ezel is mourning, and it takes away from you the support it once gave.

11Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Bethezel; he shall receive of you his standing.

NoteShaphir means something like "pleasant" or "beautiful", a pretty town paraded away stripped, as captives were. Zaanan sounds like the Hebrew for "come out," and the townspeople do not come out. Beth-ezel means roughly "house at the side," a name suggesting a neighbor to lean on, and this neighbor can no longer support anyone. The last clause is obscure in the Hebrew and translations differ.

12The people of Maroth waited anxiously for something good to come. But disaster came down from the LORD instead, right to the gate of Jerusalem.

12For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem.

NoteMaroth sounds like the Hebrew word for "bitter." The line turns on the contrast between the good the town waited for and the disaster that arrived instead.

13You who live in Lachish, harness your fastest horses to the chariot. Lachish was where sin began for the people of Zion, because the wrongs of Israel were found in you.

13O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

NoteLachish was Judah's second city, a heavily fortified garrison town guarding the southwestern approach to Jerusalem, and its name sounds like the Hebrew word for a team of chariot horses, hence the order to harness up and run. "Daughter of Zion" is a standard poetic way of addressing a city as a woman; Zion is the hill Jerusalem stood on, so it means Jerusalem and its people. What sin Lachish began is not specified in the text, and interpreters have suggested either its reliance on chariots and foreign military alliances or its importing of northern-kingdom worship.

14So you will hand over parting gifts to Moresheth-gath. The houses of Achzib will turn out to be a false hope for the kings of Israel.

14Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moreshethgath: the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

NoteMoresheth-gath is Micah's own hometown, and its name sounds like the Hebrew word for a woman promised in marriage. "Parting gifts" translates a word used for the dowry or send-off presents given when a bride left her father's house for good, the town is being handed over to a new owner and will not come back. Achzib sounds like the Hebrew for "deception," and the related word is used of a streambed that runs in winter and is dry when you need it in summer; a false hope is exactly that.

15I will bring against you someone who will take over what is yours, you who live in Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come as far as Adullam.

15Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel.

NoteMareshah sounds like the Hebrew word for an heir or dispossessor (the one who takes over your property. Adullam was a cave-riddled district where David hid from Saul (1 Samuel 22:1), so "the glory of Israel") its nobility and leadership, ending up at Adullam means the country's great men reduced to hiding in caves like fugitives.

16Shave your head bald and cut off your hair to mourn for the children you love. Make your bald spot as wide as an eagle's, because your children are being taken away from you as prisoners.

16Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.

NoteShaving the head and cutting the hair was a customary act of mourning for the dead in this region, and here it is mourning for children still alive but being marched off into exile, which amounted to the same loss. The "eagle" is more precisely the griffon vulture, whose head and neck are bare of feathers, the comparison is to a bald patch that covers the whole head.