Bob Becking provides the following translation of Mic 3:9-12:
9 Hear this now
heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
and twist everything that is straight,
10 who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with injustice.
11 Her heads judge for a bride.
her priests instruct for a price.
her prophets divine for silver.
Nevertheless they lean on YHWH, saying:
“is YHWH not in our midst?
Evil will not come upon us!”
12 Therefore on your account,
Zion will be plowed into a field.
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins.
The mountain of the house will become high places with forest. (Bob
Becking, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB
24I; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023], 148)
Becking
notes that:
The section culminates in a prophecy
of doom for Zion and Jerusalem, which will be destroyed by an unknown enemy
(3:12). It is this verse that is said to have saved the life of the prophet
Jeremiah. When he was accused of being too negative a prophet, some of the
leaders proclaimed that Micah had been a prophet of doom too and was not killed
by Hezekiah, the king of Judah (Jer. 26:18-19). In their quotation of Mic 3:12,
the friends of Jeremiah place the prophecy of doom in the reign of Hezekiah. This
has led to a discussion on the exact date and circumstances in which Micah
would have given this prophecy. Taking the campaign of Sennacherib against
Hezekiah in 701 BCE as a context is certainly a possibility (see Andersen and
Freedman 2000, 386-87). That campaign, however, was not the only moment of
threat to the independence of Jerusalem. (Ibid., 149)
And
that:
The whole of Micah 3 ends with a fierce
prophecy of doom. Once more, the leading elite in Judah are reproached for
their breaking of the social and religious codes of ancient Israel and for
their lack of responsibility in a time of crisis (Zimran 2021). The people in
charge are condemned because they value money as a central item in their
mindscape (Arena 2020, 159). Even the word of God has its price on the free
market. In thinking and acting this way, they build Jerusalem with blood and
not upon the foundation of justice (see also R. L. Smith 1984, 3435; Gignilliat
2019, 140-47).
This judgment will be a catastrophe.
The beautiful city and its temple mount will be ruined and turned into pieces
of land that can be plowed (not into an undesirable wilderness; contra Bail
2004, 32-38). Ironically, the author uses words for this shift that echo the
language of haughtiness to be found in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions in the description
of the fate of the capital city of a disloyal vassal.
There is more at stake than human
pride, which will have its fall. Micah criticizes the economic system of his
days in which the elite act as if there is no moral code. This acting with God
between brackets is still very common. (Ibid., 153-54)
Commenting
on the phrase in v. 12, “will be plowed”:
The Ni of the verb ḥāraš
indicates the act of being plowed. In most contexts in the Hebrew Bible,
plowing is a preparation before sowing aimed at a harvest that could feed the population
(Hopkins 1985, 213-32). As a result of the forthcoming judgment, the area on
which Zion was built will receive a change in allocation: the city area will
turn into its more original use as agricultural land (Hopkins 1985, 118). In
other words, divine judgment for some turns into grace for others: the village
farmers can use the area for their own well-being. Reading here an aggressive
sexual connotation—plowing as a metaphor for rape—is not impossible, but the
agrarian language is more dominant. The proposed parallel, “My vulva is a well-watered
field--/ Who will plow it?” (Frymer-Kensky 1991, 5253; Runions 2001, 150), is
not attested in the indicated text. The theme of Dumuzi plowing the vulva of
Inanna, however, is omnipresent in all parts of the love lyrics of Ishtar and
Dumuzi. In these texts, the vulva is mentioned expressis verbi while the
plowing is the great desire of Inanna—two elements that are absent in Mic 3:12.
(Ibid., 151-52)
On
“a heap of ruins”:
The non ‘î, “ruin,” is written
in an exceptional plural: ‘iyyîn. The standard Hebrew plural,
‘iyyîm, is attested in the quotation of Mic 3:12 in
Jer 26:18 as well as in Ps 79:1. A plural ending in -n is known from
Moabite and Aramaic. Around 700 BCE, there was not much Aramaic influence on
the Hebrew language; hence, an Aramaism is not very plausible (with Wagenaar
2001a, 124; contra McKane 1998, 113-14; Jeremias 2007, 157). Influence from
Moabite cannot be excluded not the remainder of an archaic or local form (M.
Wagner 1966, 134-35; Hillers 1984, 37; Shaw 1993, 99). Van der Woude’s (1976,
130) proposed to construe ‘iyyîn as a pluralist intensivus is
compelling. . . . Of greater importance is the image depicted. The authors take
up the imagery of destruction from Mic 1:6 . . . The same idea is present in Ps
79:1, which opens with the complaint that the nations have laid “Jerusalem in
ruins.” Turning a city into a ruin resting in a desolate field is a standard
topos in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions describing the fate of a city that had
rebelled and was conquered by the king . . . An Aramaic treaty curse contains
parallel wording:
May his kingdom turn into a kingdom of
sand
. . .
May his meadows be destroyed unto wasteland
And may Arpad become a heap of ruins.
(K[anaanäische und] A[ramäische]
I[nschriften] 222 A:32-33; see
Hillers 1964, 44-54; 1984, 48)
A parallel curse is also present in
the treaty between Ashurnerari V of Assyria and Matiel of Arpad: “may his land
[be reduced] to wasteland, may only an area of the size of a brick (be left)
for [him to stand upon]” (S[tate]A[archives of]A[ssyria] 2.2.i 4-6). See also
the curse in the loyalty oaths to Esarhaddon: “May šamaš with an iron plow [overtu]rn yo[ur] city and your
district” (SAA 2.6:545-46 [§68]; Shaw 1993, 113; Smith-Christopher 2015, 125).
Appropriating the language of the outside enemy concerning the punishment for
violating a binding agreement, the author threatens the elite of Jerusalem with
a reversal of fortune.
In an inscription found at Deir Allah,
written in a hitherto unknown Semitic script, the noun ’y occurs in the
following lines:
(1) The houses have fallen in heaps of ruins (‘ym)
(2) and the spring has poured out covering
them,
(3) and a curse has been placed. (Deir Allah no. 1140; see Shea 1989, 103-7)
The noun “curse” indicates an element
of punishment. As in Biblical Hebrew, the noun z’m refers to divine rage
that was inspired by human acts. (Ibid., 152-53)