What Does Micah 4:10 Mean in the King James?
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.
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 place you are driven to is named twice as the place where your release begins.
THE MEANING
You are not promised an easy passage: you writhe like one in labor, leave the city, dwell in the field, and go to Babylon. Yet the verse repeats “there”: in the place of displacement, you are delivered, and the LORD redeems you from the enemy’s grasp.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being driven away and surrounded by enemies means you are beyond the reach of deliverance.
THE ROOT
תִּנָּצֵלִי
tinnāṣēlî
GROWS FROM
נצל
To snatch away, rescue, or remove from danger.
“delivered” in this verse is tinnāṣēlî. The form here presents you as the one being pulled from danger. The repeated “there” makes the rescue concrete: it happens in Babylon, as release from the enemies’ hand.
ALSO GROWS
nāṣal: To rescue, deliver, or take away.
נָצַל
This root holds rescue as a concrete removal from danger, matching the verse’s image of being brought out of the enemy’s grasp.
hiṣṣîl: He rescued or caused someone to escape.
הִצִּיל
This form makes the rescuing action explicit: deliverance changes where a person can remain.
יִגְאָלֵךְ
yigʾālēk
GROWS FROM
גאל
To reclaim as a kinsman or restore what belongs within a kinship bond.
“redeem” in this verse is yigʾālēk. This root carries the sense of a near relative reclaiming someone or something. Here, the LORD’s redemption names restoration from the enemy’s hand, not merely a change of location.
ALSO GROWS
gōʾēl: A kinsman-redeemer, one who reclaims a relative or their property.
גֹּאֵל
It reveals the relational force behind redemption: the act of reclaiming someone as one’s own.
geʾullāh: Redemption or the recovery of family property.
גְּאֻלָּה
This branch connects redemption with restoration of what has been lost or taken.
THE PATTERN
A painful passage can be the route through which deliverance arrives, even where displacement seems to have carried you beyond help.
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.THE THREAD
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:Both verses use גאל (gāʾal, “redeem as a kinsman”) alongside the movement out of bondage. Micah sharpens the connection by locating that reclaiming at the very place where displacement has brought you.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us