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| MICAH |
| Explanatory Footnotes |
| 1:15 A Passion for Punning Puns stump even the best translators. In 1:10-15 Micah plays on the names of a series of Israelite towns - probably marking the path Assyrian invaders followed. The puns were not meant to be funny. They extracted grief from the place-names of the invasion. Footnotes explain Micah's Hebrew puns, which are virtually untranslatable. 3:12 A Prophecy That Saved Jeremiah's Life One hundred years after this clear prophecy of its destruction, Jerusalem still stood. By that time Jeremiah was making similar predictions, which led to his arrest for treason. Some of the city leaders, however, quoted Micah's "ancient" prophecy, pointing out that since Micah had not been put the death, neither should Jeremiah be (Jeremiah 26:18-19). Their memory probably saved Jeremiah's life. Within another 20 years, both Micah's and Jeremiah's predictions came true and Jerusalem was reduced to rubble. 4:3 Parallel with Isaiah Micah 4:1-3, which describes the wonderful future in store for the world, has an almost exact parallel in Isaiah 2:2-4. Isaiah must have quoted Micah, or vice versa, or perhaps both quoted a third unknown prophet. Both prophets spoke in Jerusalem at about the same time. 6:5 The Meaning of Strange Names Speaking to people who knew their own history well, Micah needed only to mention names like Balaam and Balak to recall God's goodness and humankind's disobedience. Numbers 22-24 tells the story of Balaam, in which Balak tried to get Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam gave this famous reply: "How can I curse those |