² tn Heb “Micah’s house.”

¹ tn Heb “These went into Micah’s house and took.”

³ tn Heb “and it was in Micah’s house.”

¹ tn Heb “the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house.”

¹ tn Heb “He came to the Ephraimite hill country, to Micah’s house, making his way.”

² tn Heb “the carved image that Micah had made.”

³ tn Heb “They came to the Ephraimite hill country, to Micah’s house, and spent the night there.”

¹ sn The same description of a false prophet is found in Micah 2:11.

¹ sn The prophet Micah speaks here and contrasts himself with the mercenaries just denounced by the Lord in the preceding verses.

⁵ sn Micah compares the social injustice perpetrated by the house of Jacob/Israel to cannibalism because it threatens the very lives of the oppressed.

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.

² tn Heb “houses of ivory.” These houses were not made of ivory, but they had ivory panels and furniture decorated with ivory inlays. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 139-48.

¹ sn “In future days” refers generally to the future, but here and in Micah 4:1 it may also refer to the final period of history (see the note at Gen 49:1).

² tn The meaning of the Hebrew term וְתַסֵּג (v^etasseg) is unclear. The translation assumes it is a Hiphal imperfect from נָסַג/נָשַׂג (nasag/nasag, “reach; overtake”) and that hunting imagery is employed. (Note the reference to hunger in the first line of the verse.) See D. R. Hillers, Micah (Hermeneia), 80.

³ sn The plowman will catch up to the reaper. Plowing occurred in October-November, and harvesting in April-May (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109.) But in the future age of restored divine blessing, there will be so many crops the reapers will take all summer to harvest them, and it will be time for plowing again before the harvest is finished.

⁶ sn The grape harvest occurred in August-September, the planting in November-December (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109). But in the future age described here there will be so many grapes that the workers who stomp them will still be working when the next planting season arrives.

¹ sn Like kings, many in Israel’s wealthy class owned both winter and summer houses (cf. 1 Kgs 21:1, 18; Jer 36:22). For a discussion of archaeological evidence relating to these structures, see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 64-65.

¹ sn Micah from Moresheth was a contemporary of Isaiah (compare Mic 1:1 with Isa 1:1) from the country town of Moresheth in the hill country southwest of Jerusalem. The prophecy referred to is found in Mic 3:12. This is the only time in the OT where an OT prophet is quoted verbatim and identified.

¹ tn Heb “He said to them, ‘Such and such Micah has done for me.’” Though the statement is introduced and presented, at least in part, as a direct quotation (note especially “for me”), the phrase “such and such” appears to be the narrator’s condensed version of what the Levite really said.

² tn Heb “and his head shall be unbound, and he shall cover on [his] mustache.” Tearing one’s clothing, allowing the hair to hang loose rather than bound up in a turban, and covering the mustache on the upper lip are all ways of expressing shame, grief, or distress (cf., e.g., Lev 10:6 and Micah 3:7).