Digital Logos Edition
What if you were responsible for translating God's Word into a language that never had a Bible before? Can you imagine the burden you would feel to do a good job?
God takes His Word pretty seriously, and you would certainly do everything in your power to make sure that you were not putting words into God's mouth, but that you were providing a text that clearly communicated God's Word as closely to the original as possible.
This challenge to understand the heart of the original Scriptures, in order to put the original text into a new language, was the impetus for the United Bible Societies to create handbooks for Bible translators working on this very thing. The United Bible Societies' Handbook Series is a comprehensive verse-by-verse guide to understanding exactly what is being communicated by the author in the original Scriptures.
“Third, much of Micah, like other prophetic books, is written as poetry in Hebrew.” (Page 121)
“The word good covers a broad area of meaning, and the term chosen to translate it should be a general term which refers to good moral qualities. The whole sentence the LORD has told us what is good refers in a comprehensive way to all the moral teaching the people of Israel have had. This includes both the written Law and the teachings of previous prophets.” (Page 233)
“Second, the books of the prophets often do not state explicitly who is speaking the words” (Page 120)
“Micah, who was from the town of Moresheth: Moresheth was a small and obscure place in the foothills of southwestern Judah, and this probably means that Micah himself was a peasant farmer typical of the area. He would thus be one of the poor and oppressed groups who were ill-treated by the rich.” (Page 125)
“This verse is the reply to the questions of the previous two verses, and the prophet himself says these words as spokesman for the Lord.” (Page 233)