This verse contains a number of figurative expressions that Revised Standard Version reproduces literally in English. These combine with an unnatural word order to make the verse almost unintelligible in that translation. The phrase “hill of the daughter of Zion” (Revised Standard Version) means simply Jerusalem and is translated as such in Good News Translation. The “hill” is in Hebrew ʿOphel (as in Jerusalem Bible), which refers particularly to the area of Jerusalem just south of the Temple, the district where the king lived. Here it stands for Jerusalem as a whole, which is very appropriate in a setting that speaks about the restoration of the city’s royal status.

The phrase “tower of the flock” (Revised Standard Version) continues the figure of the shepherd and the sheep begun in verses 6 and 7, and refers to a watchtower from which a shepherd could guard his sheep. The meaning here is that Jerusalem is the place where God, like a shepherd from his lookout tower, watches over his people. The Hebrew metaphor is thus turned into a simile by the addition of the word like, and the basis of the comparison is made explicit, namely, God protecting his people as a shepherd protects his sheep.

Note that the words from his lookout tower are omitted from the British edition of Good News Translation. This is presumably a printing error, and they should be included. A lookout tower was a tall structure usually made of stone. However, in many areas of the world there are other types of structures that serve the same purpose, such as various kinds of raised platforms. Since this is only a comparison, it will be more important to use a term meaningful to the readers than to go into detail describing a structure strange to them.

The organization of this verse may give some problems. In some areas it may seem very strange to speak to a town in this way. If so, this verse can be put in the third person, describing what will happen to Jerusalem. In Good News Translation the figure of the lookout tower comes in the middle of the sentence, but this could be put in a separate sentence, either at the beginning or at the end of the verse.

The phrase “the former dominion” (Revised Standard Version) refers to the kingdom of Israel at its greatest extent under King David and King Solomon. Later generations looked back to this period as a golden age, and prophets often spoke of future blessings in terms of the power and dominion that David and Solomon had held, as the prophet does here. Such passages have strong overtones of looking toward the coming of the Messiah. The meaning is expressed simply and plainly in Good News Translation—Jerusalem will once again be the capital of the kingdom that was yours. Most translators will need to simplify the statement in a similar way in order to convey the meaning clearly. If there is no good expression for kingdom, this can be “the great land” or something similar. Capital can be “the most important city” or even “the biggest city,” or it can be “the city where the king lives.”

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 .

This verse and the next give a series of statements parallel in structure. Each statement has two lines, or clauses, in the Hebrew. The first line describes some normal activity of the people, and the second line describes how the usual expected result of that activity will not happen. In these ways the people will be punished for their sins.

The main aspect of the punishment is hunger. The people will eat, but not be satisfied. Satisfied refers to the feeling of having had enough to eat. In some languages not be satisfied can be expressed as “you will still feel hungry.” In that case, this clause and the next will probably have to be combined.

The implication is that there will not be enough food, so that they will still be hungry. This second clause contains a word of unknown meaning. Revised Standard Version “hunger” and Good News Translation hungry are both guesses based on the context, and they fit the context well. New English Bible “your food shall lie heavy on your stomach” suggests indigestion rather than hunger, and matches neither the opening line nor the statements that follow.

The people will carry things off, but … will not be able to save them. The Hebrew does not indicate what kind of things are in mind. However, life in Micah’s day was mainly agricultural, and the references in the following verse are to farming, so that the things may refer to normal farm produce. If the people manage to keep anything long enough to save it, the Lord will destroy it in war. This is the meaning of the Hebrew “I will give to the sword” (Revised Standard Version). Such an expression usually refers to the killing of people, but it can also have an extended sense and refer to the destruction of property. This is the way Good News Translation seems to take it, and it fits with the suggestion above that the things in mind are the agricultural products of verse 15. This second half of verse 14 is then a general statement to which verse 15 adds specific examples. Carry … off is probably best understood as meaning “carrying away so that the things can be stored for future use,” as one might do with certain crops, for example.

The purpose of putting these things away is to save them, but something will happen to the things, and the people will not be able to save them. This seems to contradict the next statement, anything you do save, but it is a typical Hebrew way of speaking (compare 1.7). This contradiction may not bother readers in many languages, but if it is a problem, the translator can make some small adjustment. For example, one can say “You will hardly be able to save any of these things, and the things you do save I will destroy in war.” I will destroy in war can be translated as “I will send your enemies to destroy.”

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 .

This verse takes up again the theme of verse 4 and announces the fate of the rich oppressors. It continues to be the word of the Lord, either directly if Good News Translation is followed, or indirectly through the prophet if Revised Standard Version is followed. The rich must Get up and go into exile. The commands are intended to resemble those which an enemy soldier would give to people about to be taken away as captives, and it will be effective if the translator can use terms that fit this sort of context.

The rich can expect to find no safety here (literally “no resting place,” as in New English Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible) in the promised land any more. Their sins have finally caught up with them and doomed this place to destruction. Probably Jerusalem is the place in mind that is to be destroyed (compare Micah 3.12). Good News Translation shortens the repetitive structure of the Hebrew into more natural English, and most translators will need to follow this example.

The concept doomed … to destruction may be difficult to translate into some languages, and it may be more effective to use a wording closer to the Hebrew, if a language has expressions that can do this. The idea in Hebrew is that all of the evil acts of these people have made the land itself unclean (see Lev 18.24-28; Ezek 24.13), and the only possible result of this is for God to destroy the country. “Unclean” here means to be in a state or condition that God hates. The Hebrew uses special emphasis when referring to the destruction, so it may be good to use an expression like “terrible destruction” or “completely destroy.” Compare New International Version “it is ruined, beyond all remedy.”

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 .

Verses 7-9 speak of the effect the survivors of Israel will have on the nations among whom they live. As in the previous verses, there are a number of problems in knowing exactly what is meant, especially in verse 7. Revised Standard Version is a literal translation of the Hebrew and is thus the best starting point for a discussion of the difficulties.

The expression “remnant of Jacob” in verse 7 uses the same word for “remnant” as that in 4.7 (see the discussion of that verse). This remnant probably consists of those who were taken into exile in foreign countries, as in 4.7. This fits well with the description here of the remnant being “in the midst of many peoples.” “Jacob” here probably stands for the whole nation of Israel and Judah, and not just those taken into captivity from the northern kingdom when Samaria fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. Good News Translation understands the phrase in this wider sense and thus translates The people of Israel who survive. This wording could be misleading, however, and translators should be careful here. Because it has moved the reference to many nations to a point later in the verse, Good News Translation could be taken as referring to the people who were left in the land after the others had been carried into exile. Further, Good News Translation does not state what disaster the people have survived, nor is this made clear in the wider context. In many languages it may be necessary to make the meaning clearer and say something like “The people of Israel who have been defeated and exiled from their country will be living in many other countries. These people will be like refreshing dew….”

There follows a double simile, or comparison, in which the people are compared to “dew from the LORD” and “showers upon the grass.” In Palestine there is little rainfall in most areas, and the dew that forms on the ground, especially in the rainless summer months, is important in helping the crops to survive in the hot weather and ripen as they should. In ancient times people knew the importance of the dew supply, but they did not understand how dew was formed. (This is one of the things that the Lord challenged Job to explain in Job 38.28.) Its presence was therefore surrounded by mystery, and it was regarded as a gift from the Lord (Gen 27.28; Deut 33.28). Dew was used as a symbol of refreshment (Hos 14.5) and even of resurrection (Isa 26.19). However, it was also used as a picture of silent and stealthy approach, as of a soldier creeping up on an enemy (2 Sam 17.12). In the present context, the idea of dew is joined with the idea of “showers,” which suggests a picture of refreshment. This understanding is made explicit in Good News Translation, with its like refreshing dew sent by the LORD … like showers on growing plants. The difficulty with this understanding is that the picture it gives of the effect of Israel on the nations is very different from the picture in verse 8 (see the discussion of verse 8 below).

There is a further difficulty in verse 7, however. The two relative clauses at the end of the verse, “which tarry not for men nor wait for the sons of men” (Revised Standard Version), are parallel to each other and are clearly a double statement with a single meaning. But it is hard to know which noun these clauses describe. In Hebrew the verbs in the relative clauses are singular, and the clauses could thus describe any of the singular nouns in the earlier part of the sentence, namely “grass,” “dew,” or even “remnant.” The word “remnant” is the most distant but is taken as the antecedent of the verb in Jerusalem Bible. Knox seems to take “grass” as the antecedent, while Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, New English Bible, New International Version, and Phillips take “dew,” and Moffatt is ambiguous. The surface meaning of the relative clauses does little to help in making a decision. Neither “dew” nor “grass” can be said to wait for men in any literal sense, but probably a better figurative sense is obtained if the relative clauses are understood to refer to the dew. Dew was recognized as a direct gift of God which man could do nothing to provide for himself, and the description here is probably an allusion to this. Revised Standard Version accepts this understanding but departs from the strict grammar of the Hebrew by making the verbs in the relative clauses plural and applying the clauses to both “dew” and “showers.” All the other versions that follow this interpretation do the same. This is justifiable because it does not change the basic meaning and makes for a smoother sentence in English. Good News Translation, in an effort to avoid both the grammatical ambiguity and the figurative expression, does not use relative clauses. Instead, in a separate sentence it expresses in plain language the meaning they convey by saying They will depend on God, not man. Grammatically this sentence refers back to The people of Israel who survive. Presumably Good News Translation also understood the relative clauses to refer to the dew and the showers. But since the dew and showers are only figures used to make a point about the people, Good News Translation has simply applied this point directly to the people. In this way Good News Translation gives a fairly clear meaning to this complicated verse. This is not the only possible understanding of this verse, as will be seen in the discussion of verse 8. However, it will be best to deal with the translation of verse 7 at this point, based on the meaning given by Good News Translation.

In order to show that the dew and showers are to be understood as helpful, Good News Translation says refreshing dew and growing plants. It may be possible to combine these ideas and say “dew and rain that God sends on plants to help them to grow well.” In areas of the world that have plenty of rain, people sometimes feel that it is pointless to mention the dew. They feel that the dew itself is so insignificant that it can hardly be said to help plants grow. As has been mentioned, this was not the case in the land of Israel.

The main idea of this verse seems to be that the people of Israel are in some way helping the nations among whom they live, although this point is not completely clear in Good News Translation. There is also the point that this work is not done by men alone but is the work of God himself. The meaning may be clearer if these two points of comparison are combined, “they will depend on God, not man, and they will do good to many nations.” They will depend on God could be translated as “God, not man, is the one who commands them” or “… tells them what to do.” Many nations means “the people of many countries.”

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 .

In this verse the speaker confesses the sins of the people and sees the punishment now taking place to be a result of these sins. But he also expresses hope that the Lord will eventually restore his people. In the opening sentence Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation again convey essentially the same relationship of cause and effect between the sin and the punishment, but again they do so by different constructions. Revised Standard Version puts the result (“I will bear the indignation of the LORD”) before the reason (“because I have sinned against him”). Good News Translation puts the reason (We have sinned against the LORD) before the result (so now we must endure his anger for a while). Some languages prefer one order and some the other. Translators should of course follow the order that most naturally conveys the correct relationship in their own language.

The Lord’s anger here refers to the results of his anger, namely, the way that he is punishing the people of Israel. It may be necessary to make this clear in some languages and say something like “We have sinned against the Lord, so now he is angry with us, and we must accept our punishment.” At the end of this line Good News Translation has added for a while. This phrase brings out part of the meaning of the word “until” in the third line of Revised Standard Version, showing that the experience of punishment will not last forever.

The middle part of verse 9 again uses the language of the law court and asserts that in the end the Lord will defend us. In the end means “after a while” or “eventually.” It is not a reference to the last judgment. Defend (“pleads my cause” in Revised Standard Version) means to speak in court to convince the judge that someone is right. As in 6.1 (see the discussion there), this is figurative language, and we should not be troubled about who the judge is that the Lord is speaking to. The plain meaning is that the Lord is going to help them and see that justice is done. “Execute judgment” of Revised Standard Version is explained in more detail in Good News Translation as right the wrongs that have been done to us. In languages that require the actor to be stated, this can be restructured as “put right the wrongs our enemies have done to us.”

In the last part of the verse, some translators may need to expand Good News Translation a little and say He will bring us out of the darkness into the light. As in verse 8, the images of darkness and light refer to the time of trouble and the time of peace.

The final clause of Revised Standard Version, “I shall behold his deliverance,” is expanded to we will live to see him save us in Good News Translation. This makes the participants explicit, and many translators will wish to do the same. Good News Translation has translated live to see, where Revised Standard Version follows the Hebrew more literally with one word, “behold.” These words are apparently spoken in a time of great trouble, when it would be easy to think that there is no hope and that all the people will be killed. These words not only express hope that the Lord will save them, but that the speakers themselves will actually see this happen. This idea is expressed well in English by the expression “live to see,” but in other languages it may be enough simply to say “we will see,” as the Hebrew does.

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 .

The second paragraph in this section consists of verses 5-7. Verse 5 consists of four elements, the second parallel to the first, and the fourth parallel to the third. In the first pair the meanings of the two elements are synonymous and repetitive, as the Revised Standard Version text shows. Good News Translation has therefore dropped the parallel form and repetition of meaning, and expressed the total meaning in a single sentence with the two verbs sinned and rebelled. The double mention of “Jacob” and “the house of Israel” is combined into a single term the people of Israel. As the second half of the verse shows by mentioning both Samaria and Jerusalem, the prophet has both northern and southern kingdoms in mind.

All this refers to the terrible events described in verses 2-4. Whether the translator says will happen or “is happening” depends on whether “come down” in verse 3 (as well as the rest of verses 3 and 4) was translated as a future event, or as a present event that the people could actually see happening.

The rest of the sentence in Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version gives the reason why God is doing (or, will do) these things. It is because the people of Israel have sinned and rebelled. “To sin” is “to do bad things” or “to do things God does not like.” “To rebel” is “to refuse to obey God.” However, these two words are saying almost the same thing in this verse, so it is not necessary for a translator to use two terms. The word translated “rebel” is sometimes translated “to commit a crime.”

The meanings of the second pair of elements in verse 5 are not synonymous, and they are therefore kept as separate units in Good News Translation. In Hebrew each element consists of a rhetorical question, followed by a second question that is in fact the answer to the first. These second questions are translated as statements in Good News Translation in order to make clear that they do indeed serve as answers and are not really further questions. The first question asks Who is to blame for Israel’s rebellion? and thus takes up the verb rebelled from the first part of the verse. The answer, that Samaria is responsible, would have been unexpected and unwelcome to its inhabitants because, as Good News Translation makes explicit, it was the capital city of the northern kingdom. Samaria had become a center for the worship of the fertility gods Baal and Asherah after Jezebel, the pagan wife of King Ahab (874-853 B.C.), started this worship there. See 1 Kgs 16.29-33. Samaria thus became a major source of religious corruption for the whole of Israel, and in due course for Judah also, as is implied in verse 9. Samaria here stands for its inhabitants, and this may need to be made clear in some languages.

The literal meaning in the first question is simply “What is the transgression (or rebellion, or crime) of the northern kingdom?” We might expect a particular evil act to be mentioned as an answer. But the answer is given as Samaria itself. The people of Samaria are not a sin, however, but the cause of sins, or the ones who do sins. Good News Translation has tried to give this idea by asking the question as Who is to blame for Israel’s rebellion?

Who is to blame…? may be translated as “Who is the cause of…?” or “Who is it that has led the people of Israel to rebel?”

The answer is literally a rhetorical question, “Is it not Samaria?” (Revised Standard Version). If a language has a way of putting a question so that the answer is obviously “Yes,” then this can be used here. If there is any danger that a question used as an answer will sound like a real question, it is better to make the answer a statement, as in Good News Translation. The full form of the answer may be stated as “The people of Samaria, the capital city of Israel, are to blame.” But in many languages it will be better to leave out part of this, as it will sound more natural and will still be understood.

The second question in the verse is parallel to the first one. It asks who is responsible for idolatry in Judah, and the second answer is also parallel—it is Jerusalem. It may be necessary in some translations to state again that this is the capital city and that the city stands for its inhabitants. In the second question, Revised Standard Version with its “What is the sin of the house of Judah?” is not translating the Hebrew text but is following the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament begun in the third century B.C. The Hebrew literally asks “What are the high places of Judah?” (King James Version [King James Version]). “High places” is a common Old Testament name for the sites where idolatrous worship was practiced. The meaning of the question is thus “Who is to blame for the high places where the people of Judah go to worship idols?” or “Who is it in Judah who is guilty of going to high places to worship idols?” The main point is of course the idolatry and not the place where it was practiced, and Good News Translation has preferred not to mention the high places themselves. Many translators will prefer to follow the example of Good News Translation, but if the “high places” are mentioned, they can be translated as “hilltops.” However, this should not imply that they are the peaks of high mountains.

“Idols” are “false gods” or “statues.” Idolatry means the worship of idols.

The full form of the answer to this question may be stated as “It is the people of Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah, who worship idols” or “… who are to blame for the idolatry of Judah.”

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 .

One of the ways in which the wealthy used the riches they had wrongly obtained was in building luxury houses (see Amos 5.11 for a similar charge against the rich in Samaria). These fine buildings no doubt beautified Jerusalem outwardly, but they could not hide the fact that the city’s moral foundation was one of murder and injustice: the rich could only afford these buildings because they were cruel and oppressive to the poor. That Jerusalem was God’s city made the rulers’ actions all the more hateful to him. Good News Translation has combined the repetitive parallelism of the Hebrew into a single main clause. The literal “with blood and … with wrong” (Revised Standard Version) become murder and injustice. Note that “blood” is a figure of speech called metonymy, which is given its plain meaning of murder in Good News Translation.

The twin names of the city, “Zion” and “Jerusalem,” are translated literally in Revised Standard Version. Jerusalem is the normal geographical name for the city and is the one used in Good News Translation. “Zion” refers to the same city but is a term that emphasizes here its religious importance as the site of the temple and the center of the worship of God. This sense is conveyed by Good News Translation with the words God’s city.

The figure of speech in this verse is translated by most English versions as though “blood” and “wrong” are the materials that the leaders are building Jerusalem with. In Good News Translation the figure has been changed slightly to suggest that murder and injustice are the foundation on which the city is being built. Most translators should be able to use one or the other of these figures. But if it is impossible, the figure can be dropped to say something like “You are able to do so much building in the city only because of the murder and injustice by which you gain your money and your power.”

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 .

The words of the Lord continue in this verse and the next. The argument proceeds by stating some of the ways in which the Lord had blessed his people and thus carried out his obligations to them under the covenant. The two statements I brought you out of Egypt and I rescued you from slavery are two ways of referring to the events of the exodus. These two expressions are often joined together (see Exo 13.3; Deut 5.6; 6.12; Jer 34.13). God’s covenant with the people of Israel was actually based on the fact that he had saved them from Egypt (Exo 20.2). The acts of mercy mentioned in this verse therefore occurred before the covenant itself, before the Lord had such formal obligations to the people.

Slavery is literally “the house of slaves,” which is a figurative way of talking about Egypt in terms of the experience of the Israelite people there. If there is no good term for slavery in a language, this may be translated “the place where we were forced to work very hard.” A term like “prison labor” may be correct in some languages. Translators should be sure that it is clear that the two expressions (brought you out of Egypt and rescued you from slavery) refer to the same act, not to two completely separate acts.

It is also important to be sure that the connection between verses 3 and 4 is clear. One suggestion about this was given at the end of the discussion on verse 3. Moffatt connects them by putting verse 4 in the form of rhetorical questions such as “Did I not bring you up from Egypt’s land?” Traduction œcuménique de la Bible uses ironical questions that ask “Did I trouble you by bringing you up from Egypt?” and so on. In Hebrew the word for “be a burden” in verse 3 also sounds very much like “bring you out” in verse 4, which helps to show the contrast between what the people seem to think God did and what he actually did for them. In some languages it may be effective to use words with similar sounds, as the Hebrew does.

Another thing that the Lord had done was to send Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as leaders of the people, at the time of the exodus and afterward. Aaron and Miriam are mentioned only here in the writings of the prophets. They were both older than Moses, and probably Miriam was the oldest of the three. Translators need to consider the rules of their languages and decide whether it will be more natural to list the most important first or the oldest first. In languages where it is the custom to mention the oldest of a family first, the translator may give the names in reverse order: Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. In Hebrew and English, Moses is mentioned first because he was the main leader of the people. I sent them to lead you may be translated as “I chose them as your leaders.”

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 .