The root words: sheʾerit, chesed, ha-poretz, jom, mi kamocha
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In-depth:
The load-bearing Hebrew (and a few Greek) words of this book, briefly explained, with the place where Micah uses them. Anyone who meets a term in the running text and wonders what precisely stands there will find the root word here. The translation has been kept concordant: the same root word receives, as far as possible, the same English word, so that the threads stay visible.
acharit ha-jamim (אַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים) — "the latter days", literally "the end of the days". The fixed end-time formula with which Micah opens his vision of salvation (4:1). It sets the horizon: what follows plays out on the furthest day.
avon (עָוֺן) — iniquity, guilt; not so much the deed as the burden of guilt it leaves behind. Micah's conclusion turns on what happens to the avon: God "bears" it away and casts it into the sea (7:18-19).
bat-Zion (בַּת־צִיּוֹן) — "daughter Zion". Not a person but the city-as-woman: Jerusalem personified. She is addressed (4:8), writhes like a woman in travail (4:10), and finally speaks herself in the conclusion (7:8-10). The female protagonist of the book.
Bozrah (בָּצְרָה) — a crux in 2:12. The word can be the city Bozrah (a place of refuge, cf. Isa. 34:6; 63:1) or an ordinary "sheepfold". The vocalization decides, and the matter is not closed.
chesed (חֶסֶד) — steadfast love: the faithful, covenant-bound love that goes beyond obligation. The hinge-word of Micah's ethics and of his theology: man must love chesed (6:8), and God is it — "for He delights in chesed" (7:18), all the way to the oath to the fathers (7:20).
chevlei mashiach (חֶבְלֵי מָשִׁיחַ) — "the birth pangs of the Messiah", a later rabbinic term for the birth-agony that precedes the redemption. The motif is already in Micah: the travail of daughter Zion (4:9-10) that issues in the birth of the Ruler (5:3; MT 5:2).
El (אֵל) — God, with the root sense "the strong one". The expanded form of the name-question in 7:18 (mi-El kamocha, "Who is a God like You") Micah shares with only one other text: the Song at the Sea (Ex. 15:11).
ha-poretz (הַפֹּרֵץ) — "the Breaker". The figure who in 2:13 breaks through the gate before the flock and leads the people out, with YHWH at their head. It is the first form of the messianic King-Shepherd who returns in Bethlehem (5:2).
har (הַר) — mountain. Micah's book stands or falls with mountains: the mountain that melts beneath God (1:4), Mount Zion that becomes a heap of rubble (3:12), and that same mountain which in the latter days is raised above all mountains (4:1). The mountain is the place where heaven and earth touch each other.
YHWH (יהוה) — the proper name of God, the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton, rendered in this book as YHWH (not replaced by "the LORD"). The name Micah carries in his own name: mi-kha-Jah, "Who is like YHWH".
jatsa (יָצָא) — to go out, to march out; the verb of the exodus. Micah weaves a thread with it: God goes out from His place (1:3), the people go out through the gate (2:13), and "as in the days when you came out of Egypt" God shows wonders again (7:15) — the second exodus.
jom (יוֹם) — day. In particular the two-sided end-time day: the jom pequdda, "day of visitation" (7:4), which brings judgment, and "in that day" the day of rebuilding and return (7:11-12). The same day, two faces.
Migdal-Eder (מִגְדַּל־עֵדֶר) — "the tower of the flock" (4:8), the watchtower by the flock. The name links Jerusalem with Bethlehem (cf. Gen. 35:21) and with the shepherd-king: the place where the dominion returns to daughter Zion.
mi kamocha (מִי כָמוֹךָ) — "Who is like You?" The question that Micah's name is, and that closes his book (7:18). See El and Appendix A.
moshel (מוֹשֵׁל) — ruler, the one who governs. The word for the figure from Bethlehem (5:2), deliberately chosen alongside "king" (melekh): a ruler whose origin is "from of old, from the days of eternity".
Nimrod (נִמְרֹד) — the first "mighty hunter" and empire-founder of Genesis 10, builder of Babel and Asshur. Micah calls Asshur "the land of Nimrod" (5:6) and so identifies the eighth-century empire as the latest mask of the ancient anti-God empire — the Hunter-empire over against the Shepherd-King.
pequdda (פְּקֻדָּה) — visitation, the moment when God comes to demand a reckoning. The "day of your visitation" (7:4) is the turning point of the book: the end of the judgment and the beginning of the reversal.
pesha (פֶּשַׁע) — transgression, in the root sense rebellion, wilful revolt against a lord. The heaviest of Micah's three guilt-words. The book opens with it (the pesha of Jacob, 1:5) and ends with God who "passes over the pesha" of His remnant (7:18).
raʿa (רָעָה) — to shepherd, to tend. The verb of the shepherd-king: the Ruler "will stand and shepherd" (5:4), and the remnant prays "shepherd your people with your staff" (7:14). Also, ironically, of the hostile shepherds who "shepherd the land of Nimrod with the sword" (5:6).
riv (רִיב) — dispute, lawsuit, indictment. The juridical ground-form of Micah 6-7: God "has a riv with His people" (6:2), calls the mountains as witnesses, and the people finally confess that He "will plead my riv" and bring it to justice (7:9). The book is a covenant lawsuit.
setuma / petucha (סתומה / פתוחה) — the "closed" and "open" paragraph marks with which the Masoretes divided the text into units. They are no part of the original text but the oldest preserved reading-division; this book uses them among other places at 5:2-6 (MT 5:1-5; one continuous paragraph — see Part V).
sheerit (שְׁאֵרִית) — remnant: what remains after the judgment and carries the restoration. Micah's most characteristic word (five times, three of them "the remnant of Jacob"). Two-sided: among the nations dew and lion (5:7-8), and the one whose guilt God bears away (7:18).
shimʿu (שִׁמְעוּ) — "Hear!", the plural imperative of shama (to hear). The opening word of each of Micah's three great oracles (1:2; 3:1; 6:1) — the command that divides the book into three movements.
shava (שָׁבַע) — to swear, to take an oath. The closing word of the book: God will show His faithfulness "as You swore to our fathers" (7:20). The redemption rests not on man but on God's sworn oath.
we-atta (וְאַתָּה) — "and you". Important to distinguish from the identical-sounding we-atta (וְעַתָּה, "and now", from atta = now). The personal pronoun we-atta (וְאַתָּה) links Migdal-Eder (4:8) with Bethlehem (5:2) into one address — the inclusio that encloses the heart of the book (see Parts IV and V).
jeshuvun (יְשׁוּבוּן) — "they shall return" (5:3). The verb of turning and returning (shuv): the rest of the brothers returns to the children of Israel. In Micah's closing logic God too "returns" to have compassion (cf. 7:19; Hos. 5:15-6:2).
Greek, where it plays a part: the Septuagint (LXX) translates the "origins" of 5:2 with exodoi, "goings-out", "exoduses", and the "remnant" with epiloipoi — the same word that Revelation 12:17 uses for "the rest of her offspring". Small words, but they bind Micah to the last book of the Bible.
The load-bearing Hebrew (and a few Greek) words of this book, briefly explained, with the place where Micah uses them. Anyone who meets a term in the running text and wonders what precisely stands there will find the root word here. The translation has been kept concordant: the same root word receives, as far as possible, the same English word, so that the threads stay visible.
acharit ha-jamim (אַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים) — "the latter days", literally "the end of the days". The fixed end-time formula with which Micah opens his vision of salvation (4:1). It sets the horizon: what follows plays out on the furthest day.
avon (עָוֺן) — iniquity, guilt; not so much the deed as the burden of guilt it leaves behind. Micah's conclusion turns on what happens to the avon: God "bears" it away and casts it into the sea (7:18-19).
bat-Zion (בַּת־צִיּוֹן) — "daughter Zion". Not a person but the city-as-woman: Jerusalem personified. She is addressed (4:8), writhes like a woman in travail (4:10), and finally speaks herself in the conclusion (7:8-10). The female protagonist of the book.
Bozrah (בָּצְרָה) — a crux in 2:12. The word can be the city Bozrah (a place of refuge, cf. Isa. 34:6; 63:1) or an ordinary "sheepfold". The vocalization decides, and the matter is not closed.
chesed (חֶסֶד) — steadfast love: the faithful, covenant-bound love that goes beyond obligation. The hinge-word of Micah's ethics and of his theology: man must love chesed (6:8), and God is it — "for He delights in chesed" (7:18), all the way to the oath to the fathers (7:20).
chevlei mashiach (חֶבְלֵי מָשִׁיחַ) — "the birth pangs of the Messiah", a later rabbinic term for the birth-agony that precedes the redemption. The motif is already in Micah: the travail of daughter Zion (4:9-10) that issues in the birth of the Ruler (5:3; MT 5:2).
El (אֵל) — God, with the root sense "the strong one". The expanded form of the name-question in 7:18 (mi-El kamocha, "Who is a God like You") Micah shares with only one other text: the Song at the Sea (Ex. 15:11).
ha-poretz (הַפֹּרֵץ) — "the Breaker". The figure who in 2:13 breaks through the gate before the flock and leads the people out, with YHWH at their head. It is the first form of the messianic King-Shepherd who returns in Bethlehem (5:2).
har (הַר) — mountain. Micah's book stands or falls with mountains: the mountain that melts beneath God (1:4), Mount Zion that becomes a heap of rubble (3:12), and that same mountain which in the latter days is raised above all mountains (4:1). The mountain is the place where heaven and earth touch each other.
YHWH (יהוה) — the proper name of God, the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton, rendered in this book as YHWH (not replaced by "the LORD"). The name Micah carries in his own name: mi-kha-Jah, "Who is like YHWH".
jatsa (יָצָא) — to go out, to march out; the verb of the exodus. Micah weaves a thread with it: God goes out from His place (1:3), the people go out through the gate (2:13), and "as in the days when you came out of Egypt" God shows wonders again (7:15) — the second exodus.
jom (יוֹם) — day. In particular the two-sided end-time day: the jom pequdda, "day of visitation" (7:4), which brings judgment, and "in that day" the day of rebuilding and return (7:11-12). The same day, two faces.
Migdal-Eder (מִגְדַּל־עֵדֶר) — "the tower of the flock" (4:8), the watchtower by the flock. The name links Jerusalem with Bethlehem (cf. Gen. 35:21) and with the shepherd-king: the place where the dominion returns to daughter Zion.
mi kamocha (מִי כָמוֹךָ) — "Who is like You?" The question that Micah's name is, and that closes his book (7:18). See El and Appendix A.
moshel (מוֹשֵׁל) — ruler, the one who governs. The word for the figure from Bethlehem (5:2), deliberately chosen alongside "king" (melekh): a ruler whose origin is "from of old, from the days of eternity".
Nimrod (נִמְרֹד) — the first "mighty hunter" and empire-founder of Genesis 10, builder of Babel and Asshur. Micah calls Asshur "the land of Nimrod" (5:6) and so identifies the eighth-century empire as the latest mask of the ancient anti-God empire — the Hunter-empire over against the Shepherd-King.
pequdda (פְּקֻדָּה) — visitation, the moment when God comes to demand a reckoning. The "day of your visitation" (7:4) is the turning point of the book: the end of the judgment and the beginning of the reversal.
pesha (פֶּשַׁע) — transgression, in the root sense rebellion, wilful revolt against a lord. The heaviest of Micah's three guilt-words. The book opens with it (the pesha of Jacob, 1:5) and ends with God who "passes over the pesha" of His remnant (7:18).
raʿa (רָעָה) — to shepherd, to tend. The verb of the shepherd-king: the Ruler "will stand and shepherd" (5:4), and the remnant prays "shepherd your people with your staff" (7:14). Also, ironically, of the hostile shepherds who "shepherd the land of Nimrod with the sword" (5:6).
riv (רִיב) — dispute, lawsuit, indictment. The juridical ground-form of Micah 6-7: God "has a riv with His people" (6:2), calls the mountains as witnesses, and the people finally confess that He "will plead my riv" and bring it to justice (7:9). The book is a covenant lawsuit.
setuma / petucha (סתומה / פתוחה) — the "closed" and "open" paragraph marks with which the Masoretes divided the text into units. They are no part of the original text but the oldest preserved reading-division; this book uses them among other places at 5:2-6 (MT 5:1-5; one continuous paragraph — see Part V).
sheerit (שְׁאֵרִית) — remnant: what remains after the judgment and carries the restoration. Micah's most characteristic word (five times, three of them "the remnant of Jacob"). Two-sided: among the nations dew and lion (5:7-8), and the one whose guilt God bears away (7:18).
shimʿu (שִׁמְעוּ) — "Hear!", the plural imperative of shama (to hear). The opening word of each of Micah's three great oracles (1:2; 3:1; 6:1) — the command that divides the book into three movements.
shava (שָׁבַע) — to swear, to take an oath. The closing word of the book: God will show His faithfulness "as You swore to our fathers" (7:20). The redemption rests not on man but on God's sworn oath.
we-atta (וְאַתָּה) — "and you". Important to distinguish from the identical-sounding we-atta (וְעַתָּה, "and now", from atta = now). The personal pronoun we-atta (וְאַתָּה) links Migdal-Eder (4:8) with Bethlehem (5:2) into one address — the inclusio that encloses the heart of the book (see Parts IV and V).
jeshuvun (יְשׁוּבוּן) — "they shall return" (5:3). The verb of turning and returning (shuv): the rest of the brothers returns to the children of Israel. In Micah's closing logic God too "returns" to have compassion (cf. 7:19; Hos. 5:15-6:2).
Greek, where it plays a part: the Septuagint (LXX) translates the "origins" of 5:2 with exodoi, "goings-out", "exoduses", and the "remnant" with epiloipoi — the same word that Revelation 12:17 uses for "the rest of her offspring". Small words, but they bind Micah to the last book of the Bible.