What Does Micah 4:6 Mean?
In that day, declares the LORD, I will gather in the one who limps, and I will gather in the one who was driven out, and the one I have hurt.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted;THE KEY
The LORD’s gathering reaches the one who limps, the one driven out, and even the one he says he himself afflicted.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s gathering reaches you in states of limping and exclusion, and the verse also holds the unsettling claim that the speaker himself has afflicted. It does not erase the harm; it places the afflicted within the scope of being gathered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that being impaired, driven away, or afflicted by God puts you beyond the reach of his gathering.
THE ROOT
הֲרֵעֹתִי
harēʿōtî
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
raʿaʿ
To do harm, act badly, or bring trouble.
“hurt” in this verse is harēʿōtî. The verb carries the sharp sense of doing harm, so “afflicted” does not conceal the speaker’s agency. The LORD gathers those whom he says he has harmed, holding responsibility and restoration together.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This word shares the root’s field of harm, preserving the force of the affliction named here.
hēraʿ: Did harm; treated badly.
הֵרַע
This related verb names an agent who causes harm; Micah’s first-person form identifies the LORD as that agent.
אָסְפָה
ʾosfah
GROWS FROM
אָסַף
ʾasaf
Gather in, collect, bring together.
“gather in” in this verse is ʾosfah. The root also names the ingathering of a harvest, giving the gathering the sense of bringing in. Here its reach includes the one who limps, the one driven out, and the one the LORD says he afflicted.
ALSO GROWS
ʾasif: Ingathering; harvest.
אָסִיף
This harvest word shows the root’s sense of collecting what is brought in.
ʾasaf: To gather or collect.
אָסַף
This verb form carries the same act of bringing scattered things together that Micah applies to the vulnerable.
הַנִּדָּחָה
hanniddāḥāh
GROWS FROM
נָדַח
nādaḥ
Push or drive away; banish.
“driven out” in this verse is hanniddāḥāh. This word describes displacement by an outside force: she is not merely wandering. Isaiah 56:8 uses the same root for Israel’s outcasts and follows it with a promise to gather.
ALSO GROWS
niddāḥ: One driven away; an outcast.
נִדָּח
The word names the displaced person as the object of the gathering.
hiddiaḥ: Drove away; banished.
הִדִּיחַ
This verb makes the force behind the displacement visible, sharpening what it means for the LORD to gather the driven out.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s gathering reaches the scattered and vulnerable across the boundaries of impairment and exile.
Look, I will bring them from the north land, and I will gather them from the flanks of the earth. With them, the blind and the limping, the pregnant and the one in labor, together. A great assembly will turn back here.The LORD builds Jerusalem; he gathers the driven-out of Israel.And not for that nation only, but that he would also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.THE THREAD
The Lord GOD, who gathers the driven ones of Israel, says, Yet I will gather others to him, beside those already gathered to him.Micah calls her נִדָּחָה (niddāḥāh, driven out); Isaiah uses the same root, נדח (nadach), for “outcasts.” Isaiah’s מְקַבֵּץ (məqabbēṣ, one who gathers) shares the root קבץ (qavats, gather) with Micah’s “gather,” joining expulsion and gathering in one repeated movement.
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