MICAH 4:9 -- A SKIM-THROUGH VERSE

Inhabitants in the East and West Coast sometimes dismissively refer to any of the in-between states as “fly-over states.” The clear implication is that they have nothing whatsoever to recommend themselves and represent a necessary evil that must be passed through to get to where the action really is. The unfortunate analog is when we read the Bible and just skip through the seemingly unimportant parts looking for the high points, the familiar verses that are perfect for stenciling on the wall as appropriate mottoes by which to live.

But when we take that attitude, we are likely to miss much of interest. Just keep in mind Paul's advice to Timothy in II Timothy 3:16 regarding the importance of “all Scripture,” not just selected passages. Look at the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness. The whole time period is bracketed by two outstanding miracles: the crossing of the Red Sea on dry ground followed by the destruction of the Egyptian army and the similar crossing of the Jordan River on dry ground followed by the destruction of the city of Jericho. But if we were just to concentrate on those two spectacular events, we would totally miss the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.

The same thing applies to much more concentrated passages in the Bible. As a random example, I decided to look at the book of Micah. Looking through this prophetic book, one comes across the well known verse Micah 4:3 – “Nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” That became the marching song of the anti-war movement decades ago.

Skipping through the book from that point, we soon come across an even more important prophecy in Micah 5:2 – “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the small clans of Judah. From you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days.” There is no clearer prophecy of the Incarnation in the whole Old Testament.

But what about the “skim-through” verses in between those two high points? I decided to chose one of them at random, Micah 4:9, to see if there was anything at all we could learn from it or whether it was just another necessary evil to get us from one interesting place to another.

Andersen and Freedman render the standard Hebrew text as follows:

    “Now, why dost thou scream a scream? Is thy king not in thee? Hast thy adviser perished? For agony has gripped thee – like a woman in childbirth!”

But the earliest translation of this passage that we have is that of the Greek Septuagint, which actually may have been derived from an even earlier Hebrew text:

    “And now, why hast thou known bad things? Thou didst not have a king, didst thou? Or has thy counsel failed because birth pangs have overcome thee – like a woman in childbirth?

Some additional English translations are shown below:

    “Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you. Has your counselor perished that pangs have seized you like a woman in labor?” (NRSV) The Jerusalem Bible rendering is quite similar.

    The Message paraphrase takes the same general approach to the meaning of the verse: “So why the doomsday hysterics? You still have a king, don't you? But maybe he's not doing his job and you're panicked like a woman in labor.”

    However, The Living Bible reads, “But for now, now you scream in terror. Where is your king to lead you? He is dead! Where are your wise men? All are gone! Pain has gripped you like a woman in labor.”

Note that the major difference between these two approaches is in regard to the tense of the verb. In other words, have the Israelites already lost their leadership or are they just acting as if they had (possibly for good reason)?

The next thing we could consider in trying to make sense of this verse is how it is structured. Since it appears in a poetic section of the book, we can suspect that the same general idea will probably be repeated twice. And that is indeed the case. Using the Anchor Bible translation (updated slightly), we see the following general arrangement:

    A'. Now, why do you scream?

        B. Don't you have a king?

        B'. Has your adviser died?

    A. For agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth?

In both A and A', we see that the people are panicking as if the world is at an end. But in B and B', God reminds them that they still have their own rulers over them.

Next, looking at the general context of this verse, Hicks notes, “In three paragraphs the humiliation and travail which Israel must experience in the near future (see 'now' in 4:9, 11, and 5:1) are contrasted with her final triumph.” So we see that the literary effect of that small repeated word “now” in these in-between verses separating the high points of 4:3-8 and 5:2-15 as they signal the necessary valley experiences that Israel must undergo before reaching her final goal.

Hicks' analysis even fits it into the larger organization of the whole book of Micah according to Redditt, who sees it as consisting of four parallel cycles each of which expresses a different theme. But all of them consist of a doom section (with accompanying punishment) followed by a section of hope (with accompanying promise). One such cycle is Micah 4:9-5:15 in which 4:9-5:1 expresses doom and 5:2-15 contains the hope and promise.

I am reminded of a dear Christian sister in our Sunday school class who recently passed away. For years she had to undergo many physical challenges, but she went through them cheerfully and with unabated service to her Lord and now has arrived at her intended destination. This leads in to R.A. Taylor's comment on the last line of Micah 4:9: “Micah's metaphor may intend the coming captivity, which like childbirth may be the painful means of the nation's new birth.”

A consideration of the historical context of God's words through Micah's words is also important to understand, and here there are two basically different viewpoints. For example, Archer states, “Amazingly enough, the prophet foretells the land of their [Judah's] captivity: not Assyria (which was then mistress of the Middle East), but Babylon, which in Micah's day was only a subject province of Assyria.” According to this conservative view, the book was written to predict the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. followed by much of the populace being sent into Babylonian exile.

But because of this amazing prophecy, liberal critics believe it must have been written after the fact, hundreds of years later than the supposed historical context. As Hicks says, “the passage fits the 6^th century B.C., not the 8^th century.” And when Firth states, “Micah insists that the absence of king and counselor is not the end, for Yahweh is Israel's ultimate leader,” he is expressing a noble sentiment, but one which presumes that the Judaean monarchy is indeed dead and gone, not just “wounded” as in the 700's.

I will assume the conservative view on this subject, along with scholars such as D.J. Clark who says, “In a situation like that of 701 B.C., the leadership was as impotent as though it no longer existed, as though there were no king or counselor...The words in v. 9 are a question [as in NRSV and JB], not a statement [as in Living Bible], and may perfectly well be understood figuratively.”

As for a figurative meaning, Archer says that due to “Judah's unfaithfulness and apostasy, the kingdom will be bereft of effective leadership by David's descendants. Lacking a king with God's blessings and power to support him, having no leader who had access to God's will and plan (as David did) , the commonwealth is reduced to utmost anguish...” It was as if they had no leadership at all.

In fact, the whole verse should actually be read as irony. R.L. Smith puts it this way: “The prophet asks satirically why the people did not get help from their king or counselor. The truth is their human leaders had failed. They were powerless to help.”

Allen chimes in with the same thought when he says that Micah 4:9-10 is “steeped in satire.” “The prophet affects surprise. Surely there was no cause for despair. After all, they had their king to direct operations and counsel them with his royal wisdom. What better guide could they have? They had trusted him and applauded his policies so long that it was inconsistent now to refuse to back him to the bitter end. So Micah satirizes the failure of human leadership and implicitly accuses his hearers of lack of faith in God.”

And lest you think that these words were written recently by a liberal writer as a dig at those many evangelical Christians who continue to back a former president “to the bitter end” despite recent revelations of his behavior, Allen penned this in 1976. But whatever your political views are, conservative or liberal, Micah 4:9 provides a powerful reminder for us not to place too much faith in political leadership's ability to steer our nation through any coming crises. We are only to place our faith in God Himself and his leading. But it certainly helps if we chose our future leaders by their spiritual attributes.