What Does Micah 5:8 Mean in the King James?
And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.
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 remnant of Jacob is pictured as a living force among the nations, whose passage leaves no one able to pull its prey away.
THE MEANING
The verse places Jacob’s remnant among many peoples and gives it the image of a young lion moving through a flock: it tramples and tears, and no one rescues what it seizes. The image holds the remnant’s power and violence without softening either one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what remains among many is necessarily powerless: this remnant is pictured as a lion whose prey no one can take away.
THE ROOT
מַצִּיל
matsil
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
Snatch away, rescue, deliver.
Here “deliver” is the concrete act of pulling prey out of the lion’s reach, and the verse says no one can do it. The root makes the final image a failed rescue, not just a declaration that the lion is strong.
ALSO GROWS
hitzil: Rescue, snatch away.
הִצִּיל
This verbal form shows the active rescue that the verse says no one can perform.
nitsal: Be rescued, escape.
נִצָּל
This form names the other side of the same action: getting free from what holds or seizes you.
שְׁאֵרִית
she’erit
GROWS FROM
שאר
sh-ʾ-r
Remain, be left over.
A remnant is what remains, not what has been remade. The verse places what remains directly among many peoples, as a presence within them.
ALSO GROWS
sha’ar: Remain, be left.
שָׁאַר
This verb makes the remnant’s name an expression of what continues to be present.
she’ar: Remainder, rest.
שְׁאָר
This noun shares the root’s sense of what is left after the rest is gone.
יַעֲקֹב
Ya’aqov
GROWS FROM
עקב
ʿ-q-b
Heel; follow at the heel, take by the heel, or supplant.
Jacob’s name carries the heel story: in the naming scene, he is grasping Esau’s heel. That name stands behind “the remnant of Jacob,” giving this surviving people a name with a bodily story inside it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaqev: Heel.
עָקֵב
This is the body word linked to Jacob’s naming scene.
ʿaqav: Follow at the heel, take by the heel, supplant.
עָקַב
This verb carries the action associated with Jacob’s name.
THE PATTERN
Lion imagery marks a power of Jacob’s line that rises, holds its ground, and prevails.
Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.THE THREAD
Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.Numbers 23:24 gives the same Israel-as-lion image, rising and refusing to lie down before its prey. Micah places that image among the nations and ends with the claim that no one can rescue what the lion seizes.
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