Wrongdoers, Wrongdoing and Righting Wrongs in Micah 21

Abstract

AbstractMicah 2 explains the "loss of the land" in terms of the wrongdoing of powerful groups in the monarchic period, but also conveys sure hope for a new beginning. Defamiliarization, polysemy and other literary techniques are at the service of these communicative goals in this text. Micah 2 is fashioned in such a way that it both allows the intended (re)readers to identify the wrongdoers with multiple referents and facilitates rereading. Neither Micah 2 nor its literary subunits is constructed with a mimetic, literary pattern in mind, nor does the text attempt to imitate the "natural" language of an actual, oral interchange. Micah 2 is not a reliable source for the reconstruction of the social conditions in the eighth century BCE. However, it does shed light on the world of a group of (post-monarchic) literati who considered their text to be .