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Micah 6:9-16, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Micah 6:9-16
The City Keeps False Measures and Harvests Futility
The city can hear the rod and still keep a short ephah
The LORD's voice cries to the city. Hear the rod and who has appointed it. Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? Wicked balances and deceitful weights follow. The justice of 6:8 is now measurable in grain, scales, and hidden stores.
The rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants have spoken lies; their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Fraud is backed by coercion and false speech. Verse 9's wording is difficult; the commercial charge is not.
Labor fails, and Omri is a policy warning
Therefore the LORD makes the city sick in smiting her. Thou shalt eat and not be satisfied, sow and not reap, tread olives and not anoint, make sweet wine and not drink. The sequence echoes covenant-curse reversals. It does not prove that every illness, hunger, or crop failure is punishment for personal sin.
The statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels. Northern royal patterns are a warning about violent, idolatrous policy. They are not an ethnic stigma against Samaritans, Israelis, or Jews. Desolation and a hissing among the nations follow from those deeds, not from ancestry.
How this should shape us
Test prices, wages, package sizes, fundraising claims, and reporting as if they were the balances in this chapter. Reimburse when the measure was short. Do not weaponize Omri and Ahab as slurs, and do not tell every suffering person they must have cheated.
Teach it back
Explain Micah 6:9-16 in your own words. Include its place in Micah's judgment-restoration movement, one material uncertainty, and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Textual repair in 6:9 and 6:14, the identity of the city, and the exact Omride practices remain debated. Fraud, violence, lies, and frustrated gain are the safe interpretive center.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Micah 6:9-16, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, wordplays, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Mic.xml, 6:9-16
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and uncertainty notes.
NET Bible Micah PDF, printed pp. 1749, translation and notes on 6:9-16
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century and later horizons, literary boundaries, composition, and verse-level alternatives.
Williamson, 'Micah,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 598-599, discussion of 6:9-16
Supports: Micah 6:8 within covenant lawsuit, sacrifice escalation, social wrong, loyal mercy, humility, and contextual ethics.
Tushima, 'Advancing justice, love, kindness and humility,' pp. 1-8, especially pp. 4-6
Supports: Assyrian-period disruption, Moresheth and the Shephelah, land tenure, household fields, elite accumulation, dispossession, and contextual limits.
Jeje, The Book of Micah and the Land Question in Zimbabwe, pp. 34-73 for history and archaeology and pp. 203-215 for Micah's land texts; applied to 6:9-16
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Micah 6:9-16, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Micah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, wordplays, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Mic.xml, 6:9-16
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Micah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Micah PDF, printed pp. 1749, translation and notes on 6:9-16
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Micah
H. G. M. Williamson
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century and later horizons, literary boundaries, composition, and verse-level alternatives.
Exact location: Williamson, 'Micah,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 598-599, discussion of 6:9-16
Open source ↗peer reviewed journal article
Advancing justice, love, kindness and humility in Africa: A socio-rhetorical reading of Micah 6:8
Cephas T. A. Tushima
Verbum et Ecclesia 40.1, 2019
Supports: Micah 6:8 within covenant lawsuit, sacrifice escalation, social wrong, loyal mercy, humility, and contextual ethics.
Exact location: Tushima, 'Advancing justice, love, kindness and humility,' pp. 1-8, especially pp. 4-6
Open source ↗doctoral thesis
The Book of Micah and the Land Question in Zimbabwe: A Contextual Biblical Interpretation
S. Jeje
University of South Africa, 2026
Supports: Assyrian-period disruption, Moresheth and the Shephelah, land tenure, household fields, elite accumulation, dispossession, and contextual limits.
Exact location: Jeje, The Book of Micah and the Land Question in Zimbabwe, pp. 34-73 for history and archaeology and pp. 203-215 for Micah's land texts; applied to 6:9-16
Open source ↗