Mikha 7:17

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ¹ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ² 

they will be terrified ³  of you. ⁴ 

[7:17]  ¹ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ² tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

[7:17]  ³ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ⁴ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.