Discovery BoxMicah 2:12 
Context2:12 I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob,
I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. 1
I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, 2
like a flock in the middle of a pasture; 3
they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. 4
Micah 4:13
Context4:13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!
For I will give you iron horns; 5
I will give you bronze hooves,
and you will crush many nations.” 6
You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them,
and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler 7 of the whole earth. 8
Micah 6:15
Context6:15 You will plant crops, but will not harvest them;
you will squeeze oil from the olives, 9 but you will have no oil to rub on your bodies; 10
you will squeeze juice from the grapes, but you will have no wine to drink. 11
Micah 7:14
Context7:14 Shepherd your people with your shepherd’s rod, 12
the flock that belongs to you, 13
the one that lives alone in a thicket,
in the midst of a pastureland. 14
Allow them to graze in Bashan and Gilead, 15
as they did in the old days. 16
1 tn Heb “the remnant of Israel.”
2 tc The MT reads בָּצְרָה (batsrah, “Bozrah”) but the form should be emended to בַּצִּרָה (batsirah, “into the fold”). See D. R. Hillers, Micah (Hermeneia), 38.
3 tc The MT reads “its pasture,” but the final vav (ו) belongs with the following verb. See GKC 413 §127.i.
4 tn Heb “and they will be noisy [or perhaps, “excited”] from men.” The subject of the third feminine plural verb תְּהִימֶנָה (tÿhimenah, “they will be noisy”) is probably the feminine singular צֹאן (tso’n, “flock”). (For another example of this collective singular noun with a feminine plural verb, see Gen 30:38.) In the construction מֵאָדָם (me’adam, “from men”) the preposition is probably causal. L. C. Allen translates “bleating in fear of men” (Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah [NICOT], 300), but it is possible to take the causal sense as “because of the large quantity of men.” In this case the sheep metaphor and the underlying reality are mixed.
5 tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”
6 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.
7 tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”
8 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
9 tn Heb “you will tread olives.” Literally treading on olives with one’s feet could be harmful and would not supply the necessary pressure to release the oil. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 119. The Hebrew term דָּרַךְ (darakh) may have an idiomatic sense of “press” here, or perhaps the imagery of the following parallel line (referring to treading grapes) has dictated the word choice.
10 tn Heb “but you will not rub yourselves with oil.”
11 tn Heb “and juice, but you will not drink wine.” The verb תִדְרֹךְ (tidrokh, “you will tread”) must be supplied from the preceding line.
12 tn Or “with your scepter” (the Hebrew term can mean either “rod” or “scepter”).
13 tn Heb “the flock of your inheritance.”
14 tn Or “in the midst of Carmel.” The Hebrew term translated “pastureland” may be a place name.
sn The point seems to be that Israel is in a vulnerable position, like sheep in a thicket populated by predators, while rich pastureland (their homeland and God’s blessings) is in view.
15 sn The regions of Bashan and Gilead, located in Transjordan, were noted for their rich grazing lands.
16 tn Heb “as in the days of antiquity.”
