Micheas 7:3
The evil of their hands they call good: the prince requireth, and the judge is for giving: and the great man hath uttered the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it.
Open Micheas 7:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Malum manuum suarum dicunt bonum : princeps postulat, et judex in reddendo est ; et magnus locutus est desiderium animæ suæ, et conturbaverunt eam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐπὶ τὸ κακὸν τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν ἑτοιμάζουσιν· ὁ ἄρχων αἰτεῖ, καὶ ὁ κριτὴς εἰρηνικοὺς λόγους ἐλάλησεν, καταθύμιον ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ ἐστιν. καὶ ἐξελοῦμαι τὰ ἀγαθὰ αὐτῶν
- Hebrew (WLC)
- עַל הָרַ֤ע כַּפַּ֨יִם֙ לְהֵיטִ֔יב הַשַּׂ֣ר שֹׁאֵ֔ל וְהַשֹּׁפֵ֖ט בַּשִׁלּ֑וּם וְהַגָּד֗וֹל דֹּבֵ֨ר הַוַּ֥ת נַפְשׁ֛וֹ ה֖וּא וַֽיְעַבְּתֽוּהָ
Haydock's commentary
Giving. Septuagint, "speaks words of peace." He flatters the prince, (Haydock) and dares not oppose the unjust. Syriac, "he says, bring presents."
Troubled it; or, "have thy?" &c. Hebrew, "they confirm it."
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyprian Treatise IV
Also in Micah: “Alas for me, O my soul, because truth has perished from the earth, and among all there is none that correcteth; all judge in blood. Every one treadeth down his neighbour with tribulation; they prepare their hands for evil.”
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
58. Hence again the divine Micah, unable to brook the building of Zion with blood, however you interpret the phrase, and of Jerusalem with iniquity, while the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests teach for hire, and the prophets divine for money, what does he say will be the result of this? Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem be as a lodge in a garden, and the mountain of the house be reckoned as a glade in a thicket. He bewails also the scarcity of the upright, there being scarcely a stalk or a gleaning grape left, since both the prince asketh, and the judge curries favour, so that his language is almost the same as the mighty David’s: Save me, O Lord, for the godly man ceaseth: and says that therefore their blessings shall fail them, as if wasted by the moth.