This verse forms the climax to the section and is expressed in a direct manner without the use of any wordplays. In Hebrew the verse is addressed to a singular rather than a plural “you.” This may simply be a way of talking to the whole nation by referring to each person individually. This seems to be the understanding of Good News Translation, which clearly states that the people addressed are the People of Judah. Others believe that this verse is addressed to Jerusalem, as though the town is a “parent” and all of the small towns and villages that the enemy is capturing are Jerusalem’s “children.” The Good News Translation interpretation seems preferable.
The two verbs, “make … bald” and “cut off your hair” (Revised Standard Version), are synonyms used for poetic effect, and many languages will follow Good News Translation in rendering them as a single verb cut off your hair. If both ideas are used, it will probably sound better to say “cut off your hair and make yourselves bald,” as baldness is the result of cutting off the hair. The shaving of the head was a common sign of mourning among the Israelites and is referred to several times in the Old Testament, for instance in Isa 15.2; Jer 16.6; Amos 8.10. In areas where this custom is not followed, the meaning of the action should be made explicit, as Good News Translation makes it with the words in mourning.
The people are to go into mourning for their children. This is not because the children have died but because they have been taken away from them, as the rest of the verse makes clear. The children are referred to as the children you love or “the children that give you joy.”
The second half of the verse begins by repeating the thought of the first half, Make yourselves as bald as vultures. In Hebrew there was no consistent distinction made between various large birds, and the same word sometimes means “eagle” (as in Obadiah verse 4) and sometimes “vulture,” as here. Revised Standard Version “eagle” in this verse is almost certainly wrong, as only the vulture has the bare, featherless head and neck that is the whole point of the reference here. This is recognized by Moffatt, New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Good News Translation, and New International Version. However, this is not primarily a literal reference to a particular bird but is a point of comparison for baldness. Therefore whatever bird is used in the translation, it should be a bird that is known to be bald. If there is no such bird known in the culture, it will probably be better to drop the comparison and say simply “completely bald.”
The final clause expands on what was said in the first half of the verse, by giving the reason for the mourning. This is that your children will be taken away from you into exile. It was the regular policy of the Assyrian kings, and later of the Babylonian kings also, to deport the surviving populations of territories that they had conquered. This policy was known and feared even by people who had not yet experienced its terrors. Such exile had been threatened before for the northern kingdom of Israel, for instance in Amos 5.27; 7.17, and here the same threat is extended to the southern kingdom of Judah. If the passage comes from a period later than 722 B.C., when Israel fell to the Assyrians, then the people had before them the example of a similar prophecy already fulfilled, to add urgency to Micah’s warnings. As it actually happened, the judgment on Judah was put off for over a century, and it was not until 586 B.C. that Jerusalem was captured by King Nebuchadnezzar and its surviving population was taken into exile by his Babylonian armies. See 2 Kgs 25.1-21.
For a discussion of the translation of going into exile, see 1.11. The ones who take the children away are of course the enemies, and some languages will need to make this explicit.
There are several features of this verse that come from the fact that it is poetry, and it may sound better if it is restructured. The whole point of the verse is saved for the last line. This is effective in poetry and may be good in some prose translations as well. But in some languages it may be necessary to put it first. Also it may be better to refer only once to cutting off the hair, rather than to mention it in two parts of the verse. If a translator made both these adaptations, the result could be something like this: “People of Judah, you love your children, but your enemies will take them away into exile. Therefore you should go into mourning for them, and should show this by cutting off your hair, thus making yourselves as bald as vultures.”
Most commentators, however, feel that the children of this verse really stand for Jerusalem’s neighboring towns and villages. If a translator wants to make this understanding explicit, then the verse can be handled in at least two different ways. First, it may be necessary in some languages to drop the figure of speech and give the plain meaning. The verse can then be addressed to the people of Jerusalem: “People of Jerusalem, your enemies are going to capture all the people of the towns and villages near you, and take them away into exile. Therefore you should….” Second, it may be possible to keep the figure, in which case the verse should address Jerusalem herself: “Jerusalem, the towns and villages near you are like children to you, and you love them. But your enemies will take them away into exile. Therefore….”
The tense of the Hebrew verb in the last line literally suggests that the children have already gone into exile, and this fits more with the command that the people should go into mourning now. However, the Hebrew prophets often spoke of things that they were predicting as though they had already taken place. This is a way of showing that the prophet is certain that they will take place, and it made his predictions more vivid to the people who heard the prophet’s messages. Perhaps the prophet had actually seen it already in a vision. Some of the English translations retain this tense literally as “they have gone into exile” (New English Bible and Jerusalem Bible, for example), but the meaning is really future, as Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation translate.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on Micah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .