What Does Micah 4:9 Mean in the King James?
Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.
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
Micah names the anguish as labor twice over: “pangs” carries the root of writhing, and the woman in “travail” is literally giving birth.
THE MEANING
Your cry carries two questions: whether rule remains within you and whether counsel has vanished. The pain grips like labor, held as bodily travail, while the verse leaves the crisis unresolved.
THE ROOT
חִיל
ḥîl
GROWS FROM
חוּל
ḥûl
To writhe, twist, or whirl; to writhe in labor.
“Pangs” belongs to a root for twisting and writhing, and the next verse repeats it in “Be in pain.” The root keeps the body’s contortion visible beneath the English word.
ALSO GROWS
ḥûlî: Writhe; be in labor.
חוּלִי
Micah 4:10 uses this form in “Be in pain,” echoing the pangs in this verse with the same root.
meḥōlāh: Dance.
מְחוֹלָה
The root also names a turning movement; this shows its physical range without equating anguish with joy.
יוֹלֵדָה
yōledāh
GROWS FROM
יָלַד
yālad
To give birth or beget.
“woman in travail” in this verse is yōledāh. The Hebrew calls her a “one-giving-birth,” while English “travail” foregrounds the pain. The same root names the child and generations, holding what is being brought forth alongside the labor itself.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The root connects the woman’s labor directly to the child being born.
tōledōt: Generations; descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The same root links birth to what comes forth across generations, without making the present pain disappear.
יוֹעֵץ
yōʿēṣ
GROWS FROM
יָעַץ
yāʿats
To advise or take counsel.
“counsellor” in this verse is yōʿēṣ. The question is not only whether a ruler is absent; it asks whether counsel itself has disappeared. The Hebrew root names the act of advising as well as the person who advises.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēṣāh: Counsel; advice.
עֵצָה
The verse’s question about the counselor also reaches the counsel or direction that person provides.
yāʿats: To advise; take counsel.
יָעַץ
The verb exposes the action behind the title: counsel is something offered and sought.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives anguish the body of labor: a real grip that can belong to a person, a people, or all creation.
And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.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.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
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 “pangs” in verse 9 and “Be in pain” in verse 10 come from the same root, חוּל (ḥûl), to writhe or labor. The repeated root carries the pain forward as the next verse names the hard movement that follows: leaving the city and going to Babylon before deliverance comes there.
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