Micah 4
New English Translation
Better Days Ahead for Jerusalem
4 And in future days[a] the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all;[b]
it will be more prominent than other hills.[c]
People will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come, saying,
“Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain,
to the temple of Jacob’s God,
so he can teach us his ways
and we can live by his laws.”[d]
For instruction will proceed from Zion,
the Lord’s message from Jerusalem.
3 He will arbitrate[e] between many peoples
and settle disputes between many[f] distant nations.[g]
They will beat their swords into plowshares,[h]
and their spears into pruning hooks.[i]
Nations will not use weapons[j] against other nations,
and they will no longer train for war.
4 Each will sit under his own grapevine
or under his own fig tree without any fear.[k]
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has decreed it.[l]
5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods,[m]
we will follow[n] the Lord our God forever.
Restoration Will Follow Crisis
6 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will gather the lame
and assemble the outcasts whom I injured.[o]
7 I will transform the lame into the nucleus of a new nation,[p]
and those far off[q] into a mighty nation.
The Lord will reign over them on Mount Zion,
from that day forward and forevermore.[r]
8 As for you, watchtower for the flock,[s]
fortress of Daughter Zion[t]—
your former dominion will be restored,[u]
the sovereignty that belongs to Daughter Jerusalem.”
9 Jerusalem, why are you[v] now shouting so loudly?[w]
Has your king disappeared?[x]
Has your wise leader[y] been destroyed?
Is this why[z] pain grips[aa] you as if you were a woman in labor?
10 Twist and strain,[ab] Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor!
For you will leave the city
and live in the open field.
You will go to Babylon,
but there you will be rescued.
There the Lord will deliver[ac] you
from the power[ad] of your enemies.
11 Many nations have now assembled against you.
They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated,[ae]
so we can gloat over Zion!”[af]
12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;
they do not understand his strategy.
He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed[ag] at the threshing floor.
13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!
For I will give you iron horns;[ah]
I will give you bronze hooves,
and you will crush many nations.”[ai]
You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them
and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler[aj] of the whole earth.[ak]
Footnotes
- Micah 4:1 sn Cf. Isa 2:2. See the note at Gen 49:1.
- Micah 4:1 tn Heb “will be established as the head of the mountains.”
- Micah 4:1 tn Heb “it will be lifted up above the hills.”
- Micah 4:2 tn Heb “and we can walk in his paths.”
- Micah 4:3 tn Or “judge.”
- Micah 4:3 tn Or “mighty” (NASB); KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV “strong”; TEV “among the great powers.”
- Micah 4:3 tn Heb “[for many nations] to a distance.”
- Micah 4:3 sn Instead of referring to the large plow as a whole, the plowshare is simply the metal tip which actually breaks the earth and cuts the furrow.
- Micah 4:3 sn This implement was used to prune the vines, i.e., to cut off extra leaves and young shoots (M. Klingbeil, NIDOTTE 1:1117-18). It was a short knife with a curved hook at the end sharpened on the inside like a sickle.
- Micah 4:3 tn Heb “take up the sword.”
- Micah 4:4 tn Heb “and there will be no one making [him] afraid.”
- Micah 4:4 tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord…has spoken.”
- Micah 4:5 tn Heb “walk each in the name of his god.” The term “name” here has the idea of “authority.” To “walk in the name” of a god is to recognize the god’s authority as binding over one’s life.
- Micah 4:5 tn Heb “walk in the name of.”
- Micah 4:6 sn The exiles of the nation are compared to lame and injured sheep.
- Micah 4:7 tn Heb “make the lame into a remnant.”
- Micah 4:7 tn The precise meaning of this difficult form is uncertain. The present translation assumes the form is a Niphal participle of an otherwise unattested denominative verb הָלָא (halaʾ, “to be far off”; see BDB 229 s.v.), but attractive emendations include הַנַּחֲלָה (hannakhalah, “the sick one[s]”) from חָלָה (khalah) and הַנִּלְאָה (hannilʾah, “the weary one[s]”) from לָאָה (laʾah).
- Micah 4:7 tn Heb “from now until forever.”
- Micah 4:8 tn Heb “Migdal Eder.” Some English versions transliterate this phrase, apparently because they view it as a place name (cf. NAB).
- Micah 4:8 sn The city of David, located within Jerusalem, is addressed as Daughter Zion. As the home of the Davidic king, who was Israel’s shepherd (Ps 78:70-72), the royal citadel could be viewed metaphorically as the watchtower of the flock.
- Micah 4:8 tn Heb “to you it will come, the former dominion will arrive.”
- Micah 4:9 tn The Hebrew form is feminine singular, indicating that Jerusalem, personified as a young woman, is now addressed (see v. 10). In v. 8 the tower/fortress was addressed with masculine forms, so there is clearly a shift in addressee here. “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation at the beginning of v. 9 to make this shift apparent.
- Micah 4:9 tn Heb “Now why are you shouting [with] a shout.”
- Micah 4:9 tn Heb “Is there no king over you?”
- Micah 4:9 tn Traditionally, “counselor” (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). This refers to the king mentioned in the previous line; the title points to the king’s roles as chief strategist and policy maker, both of which required extraordinary wisdom.
- Micah 4:9 tn Heb “that.” The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is used here in a resultative sense; for this use see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.
- Micah 4:9 tn Heb “grabs hold of, seizes.”
- Micah 4:10 tn Or perhaps “scream”; NRSV, TEV, NLT “groan.”
- Micah 4:10 tn Or “redeem” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
- Micah 4:10 tn Heb “hand.” The Hebrew idiom is a metonymy for power or control.
- Micah 4:11 tn Heb “let her be desecrated.” The referent (Jerusalem) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Micah 4:11 tn Heb “and let our eye look upon Zion.” This is a Hebrew idiom for a typically smug or condescending look by someone in a superior position.
- Micah 4:12 tn The words “to be threshed” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the Lord is planning to enable “Daughter Zion” to “thresh” her enemies.
- Micah 4:13 tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”
- Micah 4:13 sn Jerusalem (Daughter Zion at the beginning of the verse; cf. 4:8) is here compared to a powerful ox which crushes the grain on the threshing floor with its hooves.
- Micah 4:13 tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”
- Micah 4:13 tn Heb “and their wealth to the master of all the earth.” The verb “devote” does double duty in the parallelism and is supplied in the second line for clarification.sn In vv. 11-13 the prophet jumps from the present crisis (which will result in exile, v. 10) to a time beyond the restoration of the exiles when God will protect his city from invaders. The Lord’s victory over the Assyrian armies in 701 b.c. foreshadowed this.
Micah 4
New Living Translation
The Lord’s Future Reign
4 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house
will be the highest of all—
the most important place on earth.
It will be raised above the other hills,
and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.
2 People from many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of Jacob’s God.
There he will teach us his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion;
his word will go out from Jerusalem.
3 The Lord will mediate between peoples
and will settle disputes between strong nations far away.
They will hammer their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer fight against nation,
nor train for war anymore.
4 Everyone will live in peace and prosperity,
enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees,
for there will be nothing to fear.
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies
has made this promise!
5 Though the nations around us follow their idols,
we will follow the Lord our God forever and ever.
Israel’s Return from Exile
6 “In that coming day,” says the Lord,
“I will gather together those who are lame,
those who have been exiles,
and those whom I have filled with grief.
7 Those who are weak will survive as a remnant;
those who were exiles will become a strong nation.
Then I, the Lord, will rule from Jerusalem[a]
as their king forever.”
8 As for you, Jerusalem,
the citadel of God’s people,[b]
your royal might and power
will come back to you again.
The kingship will be restored
to my precious Jerusalem.
9 But why are you now screaming in terror?
Have you no king to lead you?
Have your wise people all died?
Pain has gripped you like a woman in childbirth.
10 Writhe and groan like a woman in labor,
you people of Jerusalem,[c]
for now you must leave this city
to live in the open country.
You will soon be sent in exile
to distant Babylon.
But the Lord will rescue you there;
he will redeem you from the grip of your enemies.
11 Now many nations have gathered against you.
“Let her be desecrated,” they say.
“Let us see the destruction of Jerusalem.[d]”
12 But they do not know the Lord’s thoughts
or understand his plan.
These nations don’t know
that he is gathering them together
to be beaten and trampled
like sheaves of grain on a threshing floor.
13 “Rise up and crush the nations, O Jerusalem!”[e]
says the Lord.
“For I will give you iron horns and bronze hooves,
so you can trample many nations to pieces.
You will present their stolen riches to the Lord,
their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.”
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