In verse 5 Revised Standard Version closely reflects the Hebrew. This has a main clause, “Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets,” followed by a series of subordinate clauses describing the noun “prophets,” Such a structure is too complex in many languages, and most translators will prefer to follow the example of Good News Translation. Good News Translation puts the description of the prophets first in a separate sentence and mentions the Lord’s speaking at the end of the verse, immediately before the direct quotation.
The term for prophet here may be a problem in some languages. Sometimes this concept is translated by a expression that means something like “a person who speaks God’s words.” Therefore it may seem wrong to say that these people who speak lies are prophets. There are passages in the Old Testament where the false prophets are accused of simply claiming to be prophets, when in fact God had not spoken to them at all (see Ezek 13.1-16). Here, however, verse 6 seems to say that these people really have received visions in the past, and that part of their punishment will be that God will no longer speak to them. If this is right, then they really are prophets in the sense that God has given them visions or messages. But they have not spoken truthfully the message that God has given them. If it seems wrong to use the usual word for “prophet” here, it may be possible to find an expression like “a lying prophet” or “someone who claims to speak God’s word, but does not.”
There are three statements about the activities of these false prophets. The first is relatively simple—they “lead my people astray” (Revised Standard Version). Good News Translation, however, has changed the form of the verb from this active form to passive (My people are deceived by prophets). This will be impossible to follow in languages that do not have a passive. Even in languages with a passive, it may not have the strong effect of the Hebrew, because it may suggest that the prophets are not intentionally misleading the people. It should be possible to restructure the verse as Good News Translation has done, and still to keep the sentence active, by saying something like “the prophets deceive my people.” “Deceive” can be “lead astray,” “mislead,” or even “lie to.”
The second and third statements about the prophets are more involved and give contrasting ways in which the prophets deal with two different groups of people who come to them. One group consists of those who pay them. For these the prophets promise peace. The other group consists of those who don’t pay them. Against these the prophets threaten war.
Peace here refers to a life of happiness, filled with God’s blessings. Promise peace can be translated as “promise (or, say) that God will let them live peaceful, prosperous lives.” War has overtones of the “holy war” of the Bible times, such as the one that Joshua led against the Canaanites when the people of Israel occupied the land. In this passage, however, it is used figuratively, meaning that the false prophets declare that God is against this group of people and that terrible things will happen to them. Threaten war may be translated as “say that God will cause bad things to happen to them” or “say that God will destroy them.” The prophets were trying to use the people’s fear of God in order to increase their own income, and in this way the prophets were sinning even more against God.
The picture given by Micah is of prophets whose chief interest is making money out of their prophecies. People paying well received favorable oracles, whereas those who were too poor or too honest to pay received only threats. The prophets gave no attention to the moral uprightness of the clients’ lives. They thus overlooked the moral nature of the Lord, whose will they claimed to reveal, and so ended up being the tools of the corrupt rich.
The more literal translation of the Revised Standard Version, “when they have something to eat,” makes it clear that people often paid the prophets with food rather than with cash. In many cultures today, gifts of food are routinely given to those who make contact with the spirit world on behalf of others. In such cultures it will be more natural to retain the reference to eating than to change to the idea of cash payment, as implied by Good News Translation. Translators in other areas may also feel that there is no difficulty in being more literal at this point. Some translators may feel that it is necessary or helpful to state why the prophets are being paid, as “they promise peace to those who give them food for prophesying.”
At quite an early stage in Israel’s history, there grew up schools of prophets who lived and studied together, often under the leadership of an acknowledged master. There are many references to such groups in the Old Testament (for instance, 1 Sam 10.5; 1 Kgs 18.4, 11; 22.1-28; 2 Kgs 2.3, 5; 4.38-44; 6.1-2; Amos 7.14). Even at an early stage it was customary to make a gift to a prophet when consulting him (1 Sam 9.7-8). This was the beginning of a system that gradually became more and more abused, until the majority of prophets were entirely in the pay of the king or some other wealthy and influential man. This is clearly shown by the story of Ahab and Micaiah in 1 Kings 22.
In the early days the schools of prophets are not condemned, and in some cases they are said to be under the leadership of a true prophet like Elisha (2 Kgs 6.1). But the more these professionals came to depend on the rich for their livelihood, the more they came into conflict with the true prophets. Whereas the false prophets said only what their rich masters wanted to hear, the true prophet was always ready to speak against those in authority when they misused their positions and thus disobeyed God. Examples of this kind of bold condemnation are also frequent (see 1 Sam 2.27-36; 13.8-14; 15.13-23; and especially the story of Nathan and David in 2 Sam 12.1-15), and it became more and more necessary as time went on (see 1 Kgs 13.1-10; 16.1-4; 17.1; 20.35-43; 21.20-24; 2 Kgs 1.2-16; 20.12-19; Isa 7.10-20; Jer 21; 34.1-7). When true prophets condemned the rich, they necessarily included the false prophets in the condemnation, because it was the false prophets who encouraged the rich people in their evil ways (1 Kgs 22.19-25; Isa 28.7-13; Hos 4.5; Amos 7.14-17). This is the tradition in which Micah stands, and these verses form his contribution to it and give his evaluation of the false prophets of his own day.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on Micah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .