The description of the heathen nations’ reaction to the Lord’s miracles continues, and again symbolic actions are used. The first two lines of Revised Standard Version, “they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth,” are two parallel lines expressing a single idea. Good News Translation unites them into a single clause, They will crawl in the dust like snakes. This picture is meant to show the humiliation of the nations, and if this meaning will not be clear, it should be made explicit. One way to express this may be “They will lie with their faces in the dust (like snakes) to show that they are weak and unimportant people.”

In the rest of the verse, Revised Standard Version gives the order of elements as they occur in the Hebrew. Good News Translation reorders the lines to cut down the repetition and to give a smoother style in English. In they will come from their fortresses, trembling and afraid, the word afraid represents what is a whole line in Revised Standard Version, “and they shall fear because of thee.” Thus the nations will acknowledge their defeat and will turn in fear to the LORD our God. Fortresses here refers to places that can be easily defended, where people go to be safe from their enemies. They are not necessarily towns, but it is all right to translate it as “strong town” if no better term seems to be available. Trembling and afraid can also be expressed as “trembling with fear” or “so much afraid that they are trembling.”

The expression turn … to … God is sometimes used in English to refer to people giving up their old ways and becoming true followers of God. The Hebrew includes the idea of somehow turning to God, but the major emphasis is that these heathen nations are afraid of the LORD our God and recognize him as great and powerful. Good News Translation has tried to express both the fear and the idea of yielding to God in They will turn in fear to…. If it is too difficult to express both ideas, it may be enough to express the idea simply as “they will come out from their fortresses, trembling and afraid before you, the Lord our God” (compare Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and New English Bible). Note that Good News Translation does not make explicit that these words are addressed to God as “you,” but there is no reason why this should not be included.

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 .