Micah 5

¹ Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

² But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.

³ Therefore he will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel.

⁴ He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. They will live, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth.

⁵ He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men.

⁶ They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its gates. He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he invades our land, and when he marches within our border.

⁷ The remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, that don’t wait for man nor wait for the sons of men.

⁸ The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, among many peoples, like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is no one to deliver.

⁹ Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all of your enemies be cut off.

¹⁰ “It will happen in that day”, says the LORD, “that I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots.

¹¹ I will cut off the cities of your land and will tear down all your strongholds.

¹² I will destroy witchcraft from your hand. You shall have no soothsayers.

¹³ I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars from among you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands.

¹⁴ I will uproot your Asherah poles from among you; and I will destroy your cities.

¹⁵ I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath on the nations that didn’t listen.”

Around Micah 5

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Micah as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

The leaders of Jerusalem have an answer ready for anyone who warns them. “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will come on us.” Micah has seen what lies behind it. Rulers who take bribes, prophets who say what pays, and the powerful who seize the fields of the poor. To Micah, none of this goes unseen.

So he announces that the two cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, will fall.

But the warnings are threaded with promise, as if the speaker could not stop himself. Nations stream to learn God’s ways. Out of the teaching comes peace: “They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” And out of the small town of Bethlehem will come a ruler. The book keeps turning between what is coming and what is hoped for.

Background

Micah came from Moresheth, a country town in Judah, and prophesied in the late eighth century before Christ, at the same time as Isaiah. He spoke as an outsider to the capital. A century later, Jeremiah’s defenders quoted him in court when his own life was at stake (Jeremiah 26).

How Christians read it

Micah 6:8 is one of the best-known summaries of what God asks of people: “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Matthew quotes the promise about Bethlehem in the story of Jesus’ birth. The book ends by marveling at God: “Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity,” and who delights in mercy.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 21 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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