What Does Micah 7:3 Mean in the King James?
That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
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
Here, evil is not a lapse but a craft: power practices it, prices it, and binds it into a working arrangement.
THE MEANING
This verse names what happens when authority serves private appetite: hands practice harm, a judge attaches a price to judgment, and an influential man gives desire a public voice. The wrongdoing is coordinated, not scattered; its makers bind their interests together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that corruption is only a few isolated bad acts: the ruler, judge, and powerful man reinforce one another until wrongdoing becomes a shared arrangement.
THE ROOT
לְהֵיטִיב
ləheṭîv
GROWS FROM
טוב
ṭ-w-b
To be good or well; to make good or do well.
Beneath “earnestly” is the verb “to do well,” set beside the doing of evil. The phrasing adds a sharp edge: harm is carried out with practiced competence.
ALSO GROWS
ṭôv: Good; well.
טוֹב
This is the root’s basic quality, which makes its presence beside evil in the verse especially striking.
hēṭîv: To do well; to make good.
הֵיטִיב
This verb shares the root of the verse’s “earnestly,” revealing the skilled care with which wrongdoing is performed.
שִׁלּוּם
shillum
GROWS FROM
שלם
š-l-m
To be complete, make whole, or repay.
The judge’s “reward” is a payment or recompense from the same word-family as שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness). The shared root holds payment and wholeness together, while the verse shows payment serving a corrupt end.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This branch shows the wholeness associated with the same root as the judge’s payment, sharpening the contrast between justice restored and justice bought.
shillēm: To repay; to compensate.
שִׁלֵּם
This verb makes the payment sense explicit: the judge expects compensation as part of the ruling.
THE PATTERN
When authority prices justice around private appetite, harm becomes a practiced system that protects its own.
Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.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
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.Amos calls the bribe כֹּפֶר (kōpher, a bribe or ransom), from כפר (k-p-r), a root associated with covering. Micah shows influential desire being bound into public action; Amos names the payment that covers injustice as the poor are turned from their right.
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