Who’s the Audience?

The voice of the Lord will call to the city—And it is sound wisdom to fear Your name: “Hear, O tribe. Who has appointed its time?” Micah 6:9 NASB

Hear – There is a lot of translator liberty in this verse. You have read the NASB. Here’s the NIV:

Listen! The Lord is calling to the city—and to fear your name is wisdom—“Heed the rod and the One who appointed it.”

Now compare these with the rendition of Hebrew World:

The Lord’s voice cries to the city, and the man of wisdom shall see your name; hear the rod, and who has appointed it.

Do you see significant differences? Notice the verbs of the second phrase. In English we “fear” the name and “heed” the rod, but in Hebrew we “see” the name and “hear” the rod. The actual verbs are ra’a and shama’, so the Hebrew World translation is much closer to the original text, but it doesn’t communicate what English readers expect, so the translators have substituted verbs that make sense to the contemporary audience, not the original audience. In our culture, we don’t see names and hear rods. So the text is glossed. But what happens when we read it according to the real Hebrew?

First, the metaphor is unsettling. Because it is unusual for us, it jolts us. But it wouldn’t jolt the original audience. That audience would recognize that “seeing” God’s name involves regarding, perceiving, feeling, learning and understanding. This is not simply visual apprehension. This is the metaphorical extension of “seeing” as the action of deliverance, the perception of the heart, the prophetic revelation of truth. This is recognizing YHVH as the ro’eh, the ultimate “seer.” The verse in Hebrew does not read, “it is sound wisdom to fear.” It reads, “it is sound wisdom (judgment that leads to practical success) to see Your name.” Everything that profits a man comes from understanding who God is, from “seeing” His name. The Hebraic use of ra’a (to see) forces us to shift our naïve visual perspective from the surface to the depths, to see behind what is visible, namely, the invisible hand of YHVH.

Secondly, Micah proclaims that we are to hear the rod. The verb is the familiar shama’. Of course, it means to listen and to obey. When the NASB translators choose “tribe,” they personify the literal “rod” to symbolically portray the tribal leader’s staff and therefore, the tribe itself. The translation is usual, but it obscures the root idea, that of a rod or staff. No Hebrew reader would have missed both meanings. But the words, “and the One who” or “Who . . . its time” are strictly additions to the text. The Hebrew simply reads, “and the rod appointed” (yeadah). This makes the translation of “tribe” difficult. The tribe is not appointed. It is the rod, the symbol of punishment, that is appointed. And this makes the imagery even more startling. How can we hear an appointed rod? Ah, but we can, can’t we? “Now listen to me,” says that father with the rod in his hand. We hear him because he represents the punishment of correction. We hear the rod because we fear its use.

So Micah offers us greater depth than the translators. He provides us with metaphors that do not easily fit our worldview and in those metaphors we find something more profound about the character of God. We don’t need a text watered down to our expectations. We need a text that jolts us into asking, “What can this possibly mean?” That’s when we begin to learn reading the Bible requires changing paradigms.

Topical Index: see, hear, ra’a, shama’, gloss, rod, name, Micah 6:9, paradigm

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