Micah 7:16-18

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Micah 7:16 tn Or “be ashamed of.”
2. Micah 7:16 tn Heb “and their ears will be deaf.” Apparently this means the opposing nations will be left dumbfounded by the Lord’s power. Their inability to respond will make them appear to be deaf mutes.
3. Micah 7:17 tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.
4. Micah 7:17 tn The translation assumes that the phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (ʾel y^ehvah ʾelohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”
5. Micah 7:17 tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”
6. Micah 7:17 tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.
7. Micah 7:18 sn The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!” The claim is supported by the following description.
8. Micah 7:18 tn Heb “one who,” a substantival participle. The descriptions in the rest of vv. 18-19 fill out the rhetorical question, “Who is a God like you?” That is, they provide descriptions of God as reasons that make him without equal. This context uses two participles, e.g. “who forgives” and “who pardons,” and then independent clauses with third person verbs. A similar construction occurs in Ps 113:5-9, with participles and a third person finite verb in v. 7. Here, making the two participles grammatically dependent on the rhetorical question and then switching to the third person is confusing English style. It masks that all these descriptions are serving the same function as a list of unique qualities of God, who is addressed in the second person. To tie these together in English, all the descriptions can be made into second person statements (so NIV), though this does not clarify the distinction of when the original text deliberately switches back to second person in v. 20. Another approach would be to translate the third person clauses as indefinite and dependent, e.g. “Who is…like you, someone who does X, someone who does Y?” Or the interrogative force can be be extended, e.g. “Who is the one who does not stay angry?”
9. Micah 7:18 tn Heb “passes over.”
10. Micah 7:18 tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”