What Does Micah 3:4 Mean in the King James?
Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse ties God’s silence to the caller’s own evil deeds: the cry cannot be separated from the life behind it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now: your appeal for help remains bound to the harm you are doing; calling out does not make those deeds disappear. The hidden face and unanswered cry arrive together, showing that the response meets the life behind the plea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that calling out to God automatically makes my harmful actions irrelevant dissolves here.
THE ROOT
יַעֲנֶה
ya'aneh
GROWS FROM
ענה
to answer or respond
English “hear” carries the sense of listening; the Hebrew verb also names an answer or response. The cry meets no answering response, and Proverbs 21:13 uses this same root when the person who ignores the poor cries out and is not answered.
ALSO GROWS
ma'aneh: answer, reply
מַעֲנֶה
It makes the root’s sense of response explicit: the verse describes an appeal that receives no reply.
ya'aneh: he answers, he responds
יַעֲנֶה
This is the verb in the verse, showing that the withheld response is part of the scene.
יִזְעֲקוּ
yiz'aqu
GROWS FROM
זעק
to cry out, especially for help
This is an urgent outcry, not a quiet request. The same root appears in Proverbs 21:13 for the poor person’s cry, linking the plea here with cries that arise under pressure.
ALSO GROWS
ze'aqah: outcry, cry for help
זְעָקָה
The noun gives the cry a public, urgent shape: it is a plea that can be heard and answered.
za'aq: to cry out, call for help
זָעַק
This verb names the act in the verse and highlights the appeal that receives no response.
THE PATTERN
When harm is left unaddressed, the caller’s own appeal can return without an answer.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew roots for the cry and for being answered as Micah does. It shows the pattern in one sharp turn: the person who blocks another’s cry later cries and receives no answer.
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