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LXX Micah

Septuagint

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Chapter 2

1 They meditated troubles, and worked wickedness on their beds, and they put it in execution with the daylight; for they have not lifted up their hands to God.⁠ 2 And they desired fields, and plundered orphans, and oppressed families, and robbed a man and his house, even a man and his inheritance. 3 Therefore thus says the Lord; Look, I devise evils against this family, out of which you shall not lift up your necks, neither shall you walk upright speedily: for the time is evil. 4 In that day shall a parable be taken up against you, and a plaintive lamentation shall be uttered, saying, We are thoroughly miserable: the portion of my people has been measured out with a line, and there was none to hinder him so as to turn him back; our fields have been divided. 5 Therefore you shall have no one to cast a line for the lot in the assembly of the Lord. 6 Do not weep with tears, neither let any weep for these things; for he shall not remove the reproaches, 7 who says, The house of Jacob has provoked the Spirit of the Lord; are not these his practices? Are not the Lord's words right with him? and have they not proceeded correctly? 8 Even formerly my people withstood him as an enemy against his peace; they have stripped off his skin to remove hope in the conflict of war. 9 Therefore the leaders of my people shall be cast forth from their luxurious houses; they are rejected because of their evil practices; draw near to the everlasting mountains. 10 Arise, and depart; for this is not your rest because of uncleanness: you have been utterly destroyed; 11 you have fled, no one pursuing you: your spirit has framed falsehood, it has dropped on you for wine and strong drink. But it will happen that out of the dropping of this people, 12 Jacob shall be completely gathered with all his people: I will surely receive the remnant of Israel; I will cause them to return together, as sheep in trouble, as a flock in the midst of their fold: they shall rush forth from among men. 13 Through the breach made before them they have broken through, and passed the gate, and gone out by it: and their king has gone out before them, and the Lord shall lead them.

Texts in conversation

Compare Micah 2:1 and LXX Micah 2:1

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Micah says the wicked carry out evil because they have the power to do so. The Greek Septuagint changes this to say they sinned because they did not raise their hands toward God, turning the cause of wrongdoing into a failure to pray.

Passages

Micah 2:1

Hebrew Bible
1 Beware wicked schemers, those who devise calamity as they lie in bed. As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, because they have the power to do so. 2 They confiscate the fields they desire and seize the houses they want. They defraud people of their homes and deprive people of the land they have inherited.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Micah

LXX Micah 2:1

Septuagint
1 They meditated troubles, and worked wickedness on their beds, and they put it in execution with the daylight; for they have not lifted up their hands to God. 2 And they desired fields, and plundered orphans, and oppressed families, and robbed a man and his house, even a man and his inheritance.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Micah

References

"… In the Masoretic Text, the phrase ‘it is in their power’ explains that whenever the Israelites had the ability to sin, they did. In the Septuagint, however, the phrase ‘they did not lift their hands to God’ seems to connote prayer and it reflects an intentional theological shift. He changed the sense of this verse in order to attribute the cause of their misdeeds to their failure to pray to God (i.e., not aligning themselves with God in order to do what is right in his eyes). Though it is possible that the Septuagint translator was reading a different Hebrew Vorlage, other translations (α′, σ′, θ′ and T) reflect the Masoretic Text. It is also possible that the translator did not understand the Hebrew idiom and was doing the best he could to render it adequately. Evidence against this explanation involves the other occurrences of this idiom in the Septuagint which are rendered in the same sense. …"
Steve Modugno, “Translation Shifts in LXX-Micah as Clues to its Theology and Ideology,” in Construction, Coherence and Connotations: Studies on the Septuagint, Apocryphal and Cognate Literature, ed. Johann Cook and Hermann-Josef Stipp (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 186–187.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Micah 2:1 and LXX Micah 2:1

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