In this verse Abraham and Jacob are ancestors of the nation, but their names are used to represent their descendants, and Good News Translation makes the relationship explicit. The opening part of the verse uses typical Hebrew parallelism (Revised Standard Version “faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham”). Good News Translation retains all the elements of this parallelism but expresses them in an order that is more natural for English: You will show your faithfulness and constant love to your people, the descendants of Abraham and of Jacob. Notice that the names here occur in the order opposite to that in the Hebrew. This is because English prefers to follow the chronological order and mention the earlier ancestor first. Many translators will wish to do the same.

The Lord’s faithfulness and constant love are the proof that he observes his side of the covenant that he promised our ancestors long ago. Thus the Book of Micah, despite its threats of punishment in the earlier chapters, ends on a note of joy and confidence that the nation will eventually enjoy a restored relationship with the Lord. The ancestors referred to here are primarily Abraham and Jacob but could include all the ancestors alive at the time the covenant was made at Sinai. Constant love is the same expression as that used in verse 18. Faithfulness is a word used here as a parallel term for constant love, bringing out the part of the meaning already expressed by constant in Good News Translation. As long as translators use an expression that includes this meaning, there is no need to try to find two separate expressions in this verse.

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 .