On the Greek text. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient, public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. Versification follows the LXX.

The Book of the Prophet Micah (LXX) — Interlinear: Themes, Outlines & Translation Notes

A consolidated companion to the Micah data set: every chapter of LXX Micah (1-7) rendered as a six-tier Greek reverse-interlinear (Greek · gloss · parsing/case · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the translation / textual / exegetical notes (the text_note of each file, reproduced verbatim) — followed by a summary of the major translation and interpretive cruxes that were deliberately annotated rather than silently resolved. Micah alternates thunderous accusation with luminous hope: Samaria and Jerusalem are summoned to hear judgment, predatory rulers and false prophets are exposed, Zion is both plowed as a field and promised future exaltation, and the book closes in prayerful trust that God will again cast sins into the sea. The Septuagint preserves this compact cycle of lawsuit, lament, ruler-oracle, and restoration. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs–Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted apparatus is not reproduced, and versification follows the LXX.

Scope

Each annotated word carries Greek, a working gloss, color-coded grammatical case, parsing (Tense·Voice·Mood·Person·Number + lemma), a Wallace-style syntactic-function label, an aspectual semantic-force label (verbal forms), and a condensed lexical note. As translation Greek, the annotation additionally flags Hebraisms and the underlying Hebrew idiom where it illuminates the rendering.

The argument of the book

The macro-structure of the whole book — its major movements — under which the chapter-by-chapter detail below unfolds. Micah is carefully patterned around cycles of hearing, indictment, and hope, with Zion's ruin and Zion's future held together in unresolved tension until the close. The annotation tracks the book's courtroom settings, remnant theology, and messianic expectations. (Section divisions are interpretive; the more common analysis is generally followed.)

• I · 1–2 — Judgment descends on Samaria and Judah. The LORD comes as witness, cities collapse under transgression, and the prophet laments the spread of covenant ruin into Jerusalem.
• II · 3–5 — Leaders, prophets, and Zion weighed in the balance. Land-grabbers, corrupt rulers, and mercenary prophets bring the sentence that Zion will be plowed, even while a shepherd-king and gathered remnant are promised.
• III · 6–7 — Covenant lawsuit, remnant hope, and final prayer. What the LORD requires is named, Jerusalem's moral disorder is exposed, and the book ends with watchful trust in the God who pardons and keeps covenant mercy.

Chapter-by-chapter

Micah 1 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Α′

Theme. Judgment descends on Samaria and Judah in a chain of lament.

Outline.

• A · 1:1 — Superscription locating Micah's word in Judah's royal history. The superscription locates Micah's ministry in the reigns of Judah's kings and names Samaria and Jerusalem as the primary targets of the prophetic word.
• B · 1:2-4 — A cosmic summons and theophany. A cosmic summons follows as the Lord comes forth from his holy dwelling, and the very structure of creation convulses before his approach.
• C · 1:5-7 — Samaria and Jerusalem are exposed as centers of rebellion. The indictment names Samaria and Jerusalem as centers of transgression, and Samaria in particular is marked for dismantling, exposure, and cultic ruin.
• D · 1:8-9 — The prophet laments the wound reaching into Judah. Micah himself takes up lament, because the wound of judgment has traveled from the northern kingdom into Judah and even to Jerusalem's gate.
• E · 1:10-16 — Town-laments announce disgrace, dispossession, and exile. A chain of local laments turns named towns into signs of humiliation, dispossession, and approaching exile.

Translation & textual notes. A prophetic superscription anchors Micah's ministry in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah and then gives way immediately to a cosmic theophany. The Lord comes forth from his holy dwelling as witness against his people, and the language of melting mountains and dissolving valleys renders judgment as a world-shaking event rather than a merely local political crisis. The oracle names Samaria and Jerusalem as the centers of Jacob's transgression and Judah's sin and then turns from capital cities to a sequence of town-laments whose wordplay sharpens the rhetoric of loss. By the end, beauty, security, and inheritance have all yielded to shaving, baldness, and exile, making public mourning the fitting response to covenantal catastrophe.

Micah 2 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Β′

Theme. Predators seize inheritance until the Lord gathers and leads his remnant.

Outline.

• A · 2:1-2 — Night-time plotting and daylight oppression. The prophet denounces those who devise evil in their beds and then seize fields, houses, and inheritances as soon as morning gives them power to act.
• B · 2:3-5 — The Lord answers oppression with measured dispossession. Because the powerful have planned evil against others, the Lord plans calamity against their clan, and they in turn become the subjects of lament and loss within the assembly.
• C · 2:6-11 — Rejected warning and the exposure of false security. The people resist prophetic rebuke, but Micah answers that their own deeds have turned peace into hostility, expelled the vulnerable, and corrupted the land beyond restful dwelling.
• D · 2:12 — The remnant gathered like a flock. Against the judgment oracle stands a promise that Jacob and the remnant of Israel will be assembled together in dense, living abundance like sheep in their fold.
• E · 2:13 — The breaker, the king, and the Lord go before the people. The closing verse imagines liberation through a breached gate, with the people moving out under the leadership of their king and the Lord himself.

Translation & textual notes. A compact indictment of predatory social power is followed by a surprising turn toward gathering and release. It begins by exposing those who scheme oppression at night and seize fields, houses, and inheritances by daylight; it then answers them with a matching oracle of dispossession, mourning, and expulsion from the land. Yet the closing lines pivot toward hope: the scattered remnant of Jacob and Israel will be gathered like a flock, and the Lord himself will go before them as king and leader through the breached gate.

Micah 3 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Γ′

Theme. Corrupt rulers and prophets consume the people and doom Zion.

Outline.

• A · 3:1-4 — Rulers are condemned for devouring the people. Micah addresses Jacob's leaders directly, accusing them of hating good, consuming the people like butchers, and warning that the Lord will not answer when they cry out.
• B · 3:5-8 — False prophets are shamed while Micah is empowered. The prophets who preach peace for gain are sentenced to darkness and disgrace, but Micah declares that he himself is filled with the Spirit, justice, and strength to expose sin.
• C · 3:9-12 — Jerusalem's leaders corrupt justice and doom Zion. Princes, priests, and prophets are all charged with bribery and distortion of justice, so the chapter ends with Zion plowed like a field and the temple mount reduced to woodland heights.

Translation & textual notes. A sustained prophetic indictment falls on Judah's rulers, prophets, priests, and civic elites. It exposes predatory leadership, denounces mercenary revelation and corrupt judgment, and climaxes in the announcement that Zion's sacred status will not shield Jerusalem from devastation when justice has been turned inside out.

Micah 4 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Δ′

Theme. Exalted Zion gathers exiles and threshes nations that misread her.

Outline.

• A · 4:1-5 — Zion is exalted and becomes the center of instruction and peace. The mountain of the Lord is raised above all heights, nations stream to it for Torah, and war is replaced with settled peace under the Lord's name.
• B · 4:6-8 — The broken remnant is gathered and royal rule returns. The Lord gathers the lame and cast-off, makes them a strong nation, and restores the former dominion to daughter Zion.
• C · 4:9-10 — Zion must pass through travail and exile before deliverance. The daughter of Zion is pictured in labor pain, leaving the city for Babylon, yet there the Lord will redeem her from her enemies.
• D · 4:11-12 — The nations misread Zion while the Lord gathers them for judgment. Hostile nations delight over Zion, but they do not grasp that the Lord has assembled them like sheaves for threshing.
• E · 4:13-14 — Zion rises to thresh while Israel endures humiliation. Zion is armed to crush many peoples and devote their wealth to the Lord, even as the tribes of Israel suffer insulting assault.

Translation & textual notes. Micah turns from Zion's announced ruin to Zion's future exaltation. It opens with the mountain of the Lord made manifest above every rival height so that nations stream upward for instruction and international arbitration. The Greek preserves the classic peace vision of swords turned to agricultural tools, but then pivots into an address to a broken, exiled daughter Zion: the lame and cast-off are gathered, a remnant is made strong, and Babylon becomes both the place of humiliation and the place from which redemption comes. The closing verses expose the nations' misreading of Zion's weakness, for the Lord has actually assembled them like sheaves for threshing. Universal pilgrimage, restored kingship, exile, and decisive victory are bound together in one movement of reversal under the Lord's reign from Zion.

Micah 5 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Ε′

Theme. Bethlehem's ruler, remnant strength, and purging judgment renew covenant life.

Outline.

• A · 5:1-3 — Bethlehem’s ruler and Israel’s restored shepherd. A ruler for Israel is announced from Bethlehem, after a period of travail, and he will shepherd the flock in the Lord's strength to the ends of the earth.
• B · 5:4-5 — Peace and defense against Assyria. That ruler becomes the people’s peace, and raised shepherd-leaders answer Assyrian invasion with counter-rule and deliverance.
• C · 5:6-8 — The remnant among the nations. Jacob’s remnant is pictured both as life-giving dew and as a lion among the peoples, blessing and overpowering according to God’s purpose.
• D · 5:9-13 — The Lord removes false securities from Israel. God promises to cut off war-horses, chariots, fortresses, sorceries, carved images, and sacred groves so that the people no longer trust their own works.
• E · 5:14 — Vengeance on the disobedient nations. The closing line widens the horizon to divine vengeance against the nations that refused to listen.

Translation & textual notes. Royal hope, remnant theology, and purgative judgment are joined in one of the book's most influential chapters. The Septuagint opens with Bethlehem Ephrathah as the unlikely source of Israel's coming ruler, whose origins reach back into the deep past, then moves through the travail that precedes restoration and the shepherd-rule that secures the flock in the Lord's strength. From there the oracle turns outward: the remnant becomes both life-giving and leonine among the nations, while the Lord strips Israel of the military, magical, and idolatrous supports that compete with trust in him. It ends not only with deliverance from Assyria but with the purification of God's people and vengeance on the nations that would not obey. Versification follows the LXX.

Micah 6 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Ϛ′

Theme. Covenant lawsuit rejects ritual bargaining and demands justice, mercy, and humility.

Outline.

• A · 6:1-2 — The Lord summons creation as witnesses to his lawsuit. Mountains and earth's foundations are summoned to hear the Lord's case against Israel.
• B · 6:3-5 — The Lord recalls his saving acts to expose ingratitude. The Lord then rehearses his saving acts from Egypt through Balak, Balaam, and Gilgal so that Israel's forgetfulness and ingratitude stand publicly exposed.
• C · 6:6-8 — True piety is justice, mercy, and humble walking with God. A hypothetical worshiper's escalating offerings are answered by the prophet's concise demand for justice, mercy, and humble obedience rather than sacrificial bargaining.
• D · 6:9-12 — Fraudulent commerce, violent wealth, and deceit are denounced. The lawsuit narrows from covenant memory to city life, denouncing fraudulent scales, violent wealth, and deceptive speech as the texture of communal guilt.
• E · 6:13-16 — Judgment falls because Omri and Ahab's ways are still kept. The closing sentence of judgment promises hunger, futility, and public shame because the people continue to walk in the corrupt patterns associated with Omri and Ahab.

Translation & textual notes. A covenant lawsuit frames Micah 6 as the Lord summons creation to hear his case against Israel, rehearses the exodus and wilderness mercies, rejects extravagant sacrificial bargaining, and distills true piety into justice, mercy, and humble walking with God. The Septuagint keeps the judicial cadence while also sharpening the moral logic: cultic abundance cannot offset social fraud, so the movement runs from lawsuit to ethical summary and then to sentence against dishonest wealth and dynastic imitation.

Micah 7 — ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ Ζ′

Theme. Social collapse yields to watchful hope and covenant mercy.

Outline.

• A · 7:1-6 — The prophet laments a society emptied of the godly. Harvest imagery becomes lament for a society where the godly have vanished and corruption has entered even household bonds.
• B · 7:7-10 — Zion turns from collapse to patient hope. From that civic collapse the voice turns toward hope, waiting for divine vindication and anticipating the eventual humiliation of the mocking enemy.
• C · 7:11-17 — Restoration comes through rebuilding, shepherding, and the nations' astonishment. The restoration vision gathers rebuilding, regathering, pastoral care, and the stunned response of the nations into one broad promise of reversal.
• D · 7:18-20 — The book closes with a hymn to the incomparable God of mercy. Micah ends in praise of the incomparable God whose mercy overcomes sin, casts iniquity away, and proves faithful to the ancestral covenant.

Translation & textual notes. The book's closing movement turns from social collapse and civic treachery to patient hope and a final confession of divine mercy. It opens with harvest and vintage imagery to describe the disappearance of the righteous and the exhaustion of every trustworthy human relation; even household bonds have become unstable. From verse 7 onward the voice pivots toward watchful expectation: Zion accepts the Lord's discipline, waits for vindication, and anticipates the shaming of her enemy. It ends in prayer and doxology, asking the shepherd God to restore his flock and praising him as the one who passes over transgression, casts sins into the depths, and remembers the sworn covenant with Jacob and Abraham.

How the data set is organized

• lxx-interlinear/data/micah{1..7}.json — the durable scholarly content: one JSON object per chapter (reference, titles, text-note, outline, and verses with per-word annotation and per-verse discourse notes). The data set shares the nt-interlinear toolkit and schema with the New Testament volumes.
• lxx-interlinear/ — the LXX data home and index builder; rendering reuses the chapter-agnostic nt-interlinear toolkit (stdlib-only HTML; headless-Chromium PDF). Adding a chapter (or a book) requires no code changes.
• Rendered artifacts — Micah{1..7}.html and .pdf under lxxsite/Micah/, linked from its index.html in the Septuagint site root.

The interpretive tiers (syntactic function, semantic force, discourse structure, and the proposed argument outlines) are interpretive by nature; where readings legitimately differ, the more common analysis was generally chosen, and the lexical notes are condensed orientation rather than a substitute for a lexicon (e.g. LEH / Muraoka) or a full commentary.