Mikha 4:11-13

4:11 Many nations have now assembled against you.

They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated, ¹ 

so we can gloat over Zion!” ² 

4:12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;

they do not understand his strategy.

He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed ³  at the threshing floor.

4:13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!

For I will give you iron horns; ⁴ 

I will give you bronze hooves,

and you will crush many nations.” ⁵ 

You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them,

and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler ⁶  of the whole earth. ⁷ 

[4:11]  ¹ tn Heb “let her be desecrated.” the referent (Jerusalem) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:11]  ² tn Heb “and let our eye look upon Zion.”

[4:12]  ³ tn The words “to be threshed” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the Lord is planning to enable “Daughter Zion” to “thresh” her enemies.

[4:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”

[4:13]  ⁵ 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.

[4:13]  ⁶ tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”

[4:13]  ⁷ 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.

[4:13]  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 Lord’s victory over the Assyrian armies in 701 b.c. foreshadowed this.