This verse is a further comment by the prophet upon the punishment of the rich. Just as the loss of land meant destruction of the family for the poor (verse 2), so the rich will lose not only their land but also their hope of having descendants.
Micah here refers to the original division of the promised land among the tribes of Israel by lot (Josh 14.2) and implies that the time will come for the land to be given back to the LORD’s people. But by then the families of the rich oppressors will be extinct, and thus there will be no share for any of them in the restored land. This will be the full punishment for their reckless greed in Micah’s own day. The expression “the assembly of the LORD” (Revised Standard Version) is the regular expression for Israel as a religious community (see, for example, Num 16.3; 20.4). To be excluded from this group meant not merely the loss of land in any future distribution, but even the loss of the covenant relationship with the Lord.
As in 1.7-8, so in 2.4 the words of the Lord end suddenly, and it is generally agreed that 2.5 is a comment by the people himself. The situation is rather complicated here, because the Lord’s words end in verse 4 with the song that refers to the Lord in the third person. A translator is fortunate if his language has clear ways of showing that someone’s speech has ended, but in any case he should make it clear that verse 5 is not still part of the song or even of the Lord’s speech. Note that the prophet addresses the rich evildoers directly. The verse is not just a comment about them.
The verse begins with So then or “Therefore” (Revised Standard Version). This shows that the situation described here will be a further result of the punishment that the evildoers will receive. As understood by Good News Translation, Micah is assuming here that not only the rich but all of the LORD’s people will lose their land and go into exile, but that the time will come when they will get back the land. The idea of exile was mentioned in chapter 1, but there has been no mention up till now of the idea of the people returning. Each translator will have to decide how much of this information will need to be made explicit here in order to make this verse clear.
When the exiles return, the families of the rich people will have no share or plot of land. This is the meaning of the Hebrew, which refers more specifically to the process by which the family shares were chosen. The “lot” (Revised Standard Version) was probably a set of stones with special markings on them. The stone chosen would show what God’s will was in that particular case. The “line” of Revised Standard Version is the measuring line used to mark out the family plots. The lots may have been used to show where the measuring line should be placed.
“You will have none” (Revised Standard Version) refers to the descendants or family of the rich oppressors. Good News Translation does not mention the descendants explicitly but simply says any of you. It may be clearer in many languages to say “any of your family” or “any of your descendants.”
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 .