ris3n's Apologetics Codex
Micah 2.1-2
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Passage

Micah 2.1-2

Book: Micah · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

1. Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2. And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

  1. Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughtily; for it is an evil time. 4. In that day shall they take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We are utterly ruined: he changeth the portion of my people: how doth he remove it from me! to the rebellious he divideth our fields. (Micah 2:1-4, ASV)
WEB

1. Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2. They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

  1. Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily; for it is an evil time. 4. In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’” (Micah 2:1-4, WEB)
KJV

1. Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. oppress: or, defraud

  1. Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil. 4. In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields. a doleful: Heb. a lamentation of lamentations turning: or, instead of restoring (Micah 2:1-4, KJV)
YLT

1. Woe [to] those devising iniquity, And working evil on their beds, In the light of the morning they do it, For their hand is, to God. 2. And they have desired fields, And they have taken violently, And houses, and they have taken away, And have oppressed a man and his house, Even a man and his inheritance.

  1. Therefore, thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am devising against this family evil, From which ye do not remove your necks, Nor walk loftily, for a time of evil it [is]. 4. In that day doth [one] take up for you a simile, And he hath wailed a wailing of woe, He hath said, We have been utterly spoiled, The portion of my people He doth change, How doth He move toward me! To the backslider our fields He apportioneth. (Micah 2:1-4, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Micah, pronouncing a woe; Jehovah's own sentence on the offenders follows in Micah 2:3.
  • Audience: The powerful of Judah who "covet fields, and seize them," the landholders able to take what they want "because it is in the power of their hand."
  • Location: Judah, among the family farms and houses of the countryside, the world of Micah's own lowland town.
  • Time period: Late eighth century BC, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1). Isaiah, Micah's contemporary, denounces the same practice: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field" (Isaiah 5:8).

Theological reading

Sin planned in bed. The woe falls on those "that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand." The wrong is premeditated, and the only limit they recognize is their ability to carry it out. Psalm 36:4 describes the wicked the same way: "He deviseth iniquity upon his bed."

Coveting turned into seizure. "They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away." The verb "covet" is the verb of the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house" (Exodus 20:17), and Deuteronomy 5:21 adds "his field." The commandment forbids the desire; these men have acted on it, so the inward sin and the outward theft stand together.

A man and his heritage. The verse ends on the victim: "they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." The heritage was the family's share in the land, held from God, who said "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine" (Leviticus 25:23). Naboth refused Ahab on this ground: "Jehovah forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee" (1 Kings 21:3). Taking a man's heritage took his household's place among God's people, not merely his property.

Measure for measure. Jehovah answers in kind: "against this family do I devise an evil" (2:3). They devised evil; God devises evil against them. They seized fields; their own fields will be divided "to the rebellious" (2:4), and they will have "none that shall cast the line by lot in the assembly of Jehovah" (2:5). The same word for "heritage" returns at the end of the book, where God pardons "the remnant of his heritage" (Micah 7:18): the God who defends a man's heritage also keeps his own.

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; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

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.