Passage

Micah 1.1

Book: Micah · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

1. The word of Jehovah that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord Jehovah be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3. For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. (Micah 1:1-3, ASV)

WEB

1. Yahweh’s word that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3. For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. (Micah 1:1-3, WEB)

KJV

1. The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. ^{all ye: Heb. ye people, all of them} ^{all that: Heb. the fulness thereof} 3. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. (Micah 1:1-3, KJV)

YLT

1. A word of Jehovah that hath been unto Micah the Morashite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, that he hath seen concerning Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear, O peoples, all of them! Attend, O earth, and its fulness, And the Lord Jehovah is against you for a witness, The Lord from His holy temple. 3. For lo, Jehovah is going out from His place, And He hath come down, And hath trodden on high places of earth. (Micah 1:1-3, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: The editorial heading of the book, introducing "the word of Jehovah that came to Micah the Morashtite." Micah is the prophet; the words are presented as Jehovah's.
Audience: Judah, the readers of the collected oracles. The oracles concern "Samaria and Jerusalem," the capitals of the northern and southern kingdoms.
Location: Judah. "Morashtite" marks Micah as a man of Moresheth, the Moresheth-gath of Micah 1:14, a town in the Judean lowlands (the Shephelah) away from the capital.
Time period: The reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, in the late eighth century BC. Samaria fell to Assyria in 722 BC, so the oracles against Samaria (Micah 1:6-7) most naturally date from before or around its fall. Isaiah 1:1 names the same three kings, after Uzziah.

Theological reading

A word that was seen. The heading calls the book "the word of Jehovah" which Micah "saw." The prophet is not presented as the author of his own opinions but as a man who received a word and a vision together, the same pattern as Isaiah 1:1 and Amos 1:1. The authority of everything that follows rests on this claim.

Two capitals, one indictment. The vision concerns "Samaria and Jerusalem," and Micah 1:5 explains the pairing: "What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?" The sins Micah exposes are located in the capitals, where the kings, judges, priests and prophets lived (Micah 3:9-11). Judah is not spared because the north falls first.

A name the book explains. Micah's name means "Who is like Yah?", and the book closes on that question turned into praise: "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity" (Micah 7:18). The heading names the prophet; the ending shows what the name confesses.

A prophet remembered. About a century later, when Jeremiah faced death for predicting the temple's ruin, elders of the land recalled that "Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah" and quoted Micah 3:12 (Jeremiah 26:18). Hezekiah's fear of Jehovah in response to Micah was cited as the precedent for sparing Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:19), so the book's own heading is confirmed by the way Micah's words were remembered and obeyed.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.