In that day one shall take up a proverb against you, And lament with a bitter lamentation, saying: ‘We are utterly destroyed! He has changed the heritage of my people; How He has removed it from me! To a turncoat He has divided our fields.’ ”
Parallel translations
- WEB In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’”
- KJV In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields.
- BSB In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”
- NASB “On that day they will take up against you a song of mocking And utter a song of mourning and say, ‘We are completely destroyed! He exchanges the share of my people; How He removes it from me! To the apostate He apportions our fields.’
- NLT In that day your enemies will make fun of you by singing this song of despair about you: “We are finished, completely ruined! God has confiscated our land, taking it from us. He has given our fields to those who betrayed us.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
In that day of judgment the oppressors will mournfully lament that their own land has been seized and divided. It pictures their loss mirroring the loss they inflicted.
Overview
The very people who stole others' inheritances will sing a bitter dirge as their possessions are 'assigned to traitors,' likely foreign conquerors. The punishment fits the crime: they who divided fields by force have their fields divided from them. This poetic justice underscores the moral order God upholds.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 31
- Hab 2:6Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’
- Deut 28:29You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.
- Isa 6:11Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land becomes utterly waste,
- Mic 1:15I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah. He who is the glory of Israel will come to Adullam.
- Isa 24:3The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.
- Jer 9:10I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.
- Jer 9:17–21Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come.
- Num 23:7He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.
- Joel 1:13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.
- Amos 5:1Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
- Amos 5:17In all vineyards there will be wailing; for I will pass through the middle of you,” says Yahweh.
- Num 24:15He took up his parable, and said, “Balaam the son of Beor says, the man whose eyes are open says;
- Jer 25:9–11behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
- Joel 1:8Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!
- Job 27:1Job again took up his parable, and said,
- Isa 63:17–18O Yahweh, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.
- Mark 12:12They tried to seize him, but they feared the multitude; for they perceived that he spoke the parable against them. They left him, and went away.
- 2 Sam 1:17David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son
- Mic 2:10Arise, and depart! For this is not your resting place, because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction.
- Num 23:18He took up his parable, and said, “Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, you son of Zippor.
- 2 Chr 35:25Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are written in the lamentations.
- Ezek 16:44“‘“Behold, everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, ‘As is the mother, so is her daughter.’
- Zeph 1:2I will utterly sweep away everything off of the surface of the earth, says Yahweh.
- 2 Chr 36:20–21He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon, and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia,
- Ezek 2:10He spread it before me: and it was written within and without; and there were written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.
- Jer 14:18If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”
- Num 24:3He took up his parable, and said, “Balaam the son of Beor says, the man whose eyes are open says;
- Isa 14:4that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”
- Lam 1:1–5How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become tributary!
- Jer 4:13Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined.
- 2 Kgs 17:23–24until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
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Christ at the center
Micah names the town — 'But you, Bethlehem... from you shall come forth one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origins are from of old' — the birthplace of the eternal King.
How Micah 2:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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