Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. By Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman. AB 24E. New York: Doubleday, 2000, xxv + 637 pp., $42.50.

As twice previously (Hosea in 1980 and Amos in 1989), F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman have co-authored an Anchor Bible commentary on a Minor Prophet, this time Micah. As we have come to expect, the work is meticulous and extremely detailed, making it indispensable for scholarly work, but possibly a daunting text for students and pastors.

There are a number of attractive and useful features that distinguish this volume. Though the overall enumeration of texts and translations (pp. 3-5) is not as helpful as that in Waltke's Micah commentary (on pp. 595-97 in B. Waltke, "Micah," in T. E. McComiskey, ed., The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary [Baker, 1993]), Andersen and Freedman's focus on the LXX makes a wealth of information and analysis available to the reader. Beyond discussing textual differences between the MT and LXX, the authors consider the use of the LXX as an interpretive commentary and even provide a translation of the Greek for each passage to compare with that based on the Hebrew. The places where the LXX differs significantly from the MT are indicated so that they will stand out. Where else will a non-specialist readily be able to access this data? The translations of each passage from the Hebrew tend to be quite literal. Distinctions in the Hebrew, such as the use of the second person singular ("thou") instead of the plural ("you"), or gender (with [m.] or ff]), are made plain in the English translation.

The authors discuss the differing canonical orders found in the Latter Prophets and in the Book of the Twelve (pp. 6-7; cf. p. 105). In treating the literary units of the book (pp. 7-14), Andersen and Freedman adopt the oft-cited outline for the book of chaps. 1-3/4-5/67. Chapters 4-5 are explained as the Book of Visions, which appears between doom and positive hope, on the analogy of Amos. There are difficulties in understanding the structural coherence of the book in this way, however. Such a division of the sections does not deal with the placement of 2:12-13 in the final form of the text (which is acknowledged, p. 10), ignores the clear answer 4:1-8 offers for the concerns of chap. 3 and the logical connection between sections that results, as well as the fourfold placement of promises to the remnant. There is also consideration of the parashiyyoth divisions in the text and their implications for interpretation of the structure (pp. 14-16, though these seem to occur mostly at obvious breaks in the text; in other instances they leave one wondering why this break occurred where it does rather than with any new insight).

Under "The Organization of the Book of Micah," the authors commendably want to confine their remarks to "a few descriptive observations about the text we now have. ... Where it came from and how it got to be that way are problems for which no solution is in sight" (p. 17). At this juncture Andersen and Freedman survey the history of prior research. They agree with Wolff's second stage in the formation of the book, in which comments were added to the original sayings of Micah in the neo-Babylonian era, and suggest that the book's final revision is linked with the assembling of the Book of the Twelve, no later than during the fifth century BC, possibly under Ezra (p. 20).

In the view of the authors, the more recent synthetic approaches to a whole book are better, since they examine the final form of the text as we have it, the one thing that "can be a given object of study, common to us all." The contributions of redaction criticism and especially the search for concentric structures are considered. Such research is commended for paying "more attention to the indications that somehow it all hangs together," but attempts to fit everything into rigid patterns can reach a point where the arguments are "stretched and strained, and the results lose credibility" (pp. 21-23).

The analysis of the structure and integration of the book is insightful (pp. 7, 27-29). Andersen and Freedman point out the inclusions that begin and end each section, as well as the whole book. They discuss the signs of an overall integration of the whole book-seen in the themes and structures that arise out of the programmatic opening statement in chap. 1, or that are resolved in the climactic closing statements in 7:18-20.

The bibliography is extensive (pp. 33-99), and ranges beyond Micah studies to include much that is broadly relevant to the scope of topics discussed. The commentary on the text extends over pp. 103-601. Significantly more space is devoted to chap. 1 than the other 6 chapters (150 pp. by itself) and to the first section of the book (chaps. 13 receive 289 pages, while chaps 4-5 have only 108 and chaps. 6-7 just 101).

This commentary has tremendous strengths. The analysis and availability of data from the LXX is unique. The study of the text of the book is carried out in painstaking detail. Few stones are left unturned. Sometimes it may feel to the reader that this is too much! (See pp. 136-45 to get a sense for the depth with which topics, in this case the structure of 1:2-7, are examined.) It is refreshing to see a treatment of the text that is open to and interacts with holistic, synthetic approaches to the book.