HOLY BIBLE: Micah 7 (original) (raw)

11 ἡμέρας ἀλοιφῆς πλίνθου ἐξάλειψίς σου ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνη καὶ ἀποτρίψεται νόμιμά σου 12 ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνη καὶ αἱ πόλεις σου ἥξουσιν εἰς ὁμαλισμὸν καὶ εἰς διαμερισμὸν Ἀσσυρίων καὶ αἱ πόλεις σου αἱ ὀχυραὶ εἰς διαμερισμὸν ἀπὸ Τύρου ἕως τοῦ ποταμοῦ Συρίας ἡμέρα ὕδατος καὶ θορύβου 13 καὶ ἔσται ἡ γῆ εἰς ἀφανισμὸν σὺν τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν αὐτὴν ἐκ καρπῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων αὐτῶν 14 ποίμαινε λαόν σου ἐν ῥάβδῳ σου πρόβατα κληρονομίας σου κατασκηνοῦντας κα{Q'} ἑαυτοὺς δρυμὸν ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ Καρμήλου νεμήσονται τὴν Βασανῖτιν καὶ τὴν Γαλααδῖτιν καθὼς αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ αἰῶνος 15 καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐξοδίας σου ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ὄψεσθε θαυμαστά 16 ὄψονται ἔθνη καὶ καταισχυνθήσονται ἐκ πάσης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτῶν ἐπιθήσουσιν χεῖρας ἐπὶ τὸ στόμα αὐτῶν τὰ ὦτα αὐτῶν ἀποκωφωθήσονται 17 λείξουσιν χοῦν ὡς ὄφεις σύροντες γῆν συγχυθήσονται ἐν συγκλεισμῷ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῷ κυρίῳ θεῷ ἡμῶν ἐκστήσονται καὶ φοβηθήσονται ἀπὸ σοῦ

11 Day of pell-mell disorder it shall be, the day of thy walls’ rebuilding; 12 a day when folk shall resort to thee from all the lands that lie between Assyria and the towns of Egypt, between Egypt and … Euphrates, between sea and sea, mountain-range and mountain-range.[3] 13 By then, the whole country-side will be lying desolate, such reward the inhabitants of it have earned by their ill-doing. 14 With that staff of thine gather thy people in, the flock that is thy very own, scattered now in the forest glades, with rich plenty all around them; Basan and Galaad for their pasture-grounds, as in the days of old. 15 Now for such wondrous evidences of power as marked thy rescuing of them from Egypt! 16 Here is a sight to make the Gentiles hold their valour cheap, stand there dumb; ay, and why not deaf too? 17 Let them lick the dust, serpent-fashion, crawl out from their homes, like scared reptiles, in terror of the Lord our God; much cause they shall have to fear him.

11
Dies, ut ædificentur maceriæ tuæ;
in die illa longe fiet lex. 12
In die illa et usque ad te veniet de Assur,
et usque ad civitates munitas,
et a civitatibus munitis usque ad flumen,
et ad mare de mari,
et ad montem de monte. 13
Et terra erit in desolationem propter habitatores suos,
et propter fructum cogitationum eorum. 14

Pasce populum tuum in virga tua,
gregem hæreditatis tuæ, habitantes solos, in saltu, in medio Carmeli.
Pascentur Basan et Galaad juxta dies antiquos.

15
Secundum dies egressionis tuæ de terra Ægypti,
ostendam ei mirabilia. 16
Videbunt gentes,
et confundentur super omni fortitudine sua.
Ponent manum super os,
aures eorum surdæ erunt. 17
Lingent pulverem sicut serpentes;
velut reptilia terræ perturbabuntur in ædibus suis.
Dominum Deum nostrum formidabunt,
et timebunt te.

[1] The interpretation of this verse is difficult; the meaning given above seems to fit the Latin best.

[2] We have no means of determining whether the last thirteen words are part of what the rival city used to say about Sion, or part of what Sion will say about the rival city.

[3] The passage is obscure, and there is some reason to doubt whether the text has been preserved accurately. It runs literally, ‘Day for the building of thy walls, that (is a) day the limit is removed far off; that (is a) day and he (or, people) shall come all the way to thee, all the way from Assur and the cities of Mazor, all the way from Mazor and to the River, and the sea from the sea and the mountain the mountain’. ‘Limit’ can hardly mean ‘frontier’, a notion which is always expressed elsewhere by a different word (over two hundred times in the Old Testament). The phrase ‘limit is removed’ is a jingle of words, probably meant to suggest confusion, like our ‘higgledy-piggledy’. Mazor is translated as a proper noun (‘fortress’) in the Latin version. It is hard to see why the space between Assyria and Egypt should be regarded as different from the space between Egypt and the Euphrates; possibly something has dropped out.

Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd