Bible Strands
Micah 7:20
You will show faithfulness to Jacob and loving devotion to Abraham, as You swore to our fathers from the days of old.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet Micah addresses Israel, contrasting the nation's moral collapse with God's promised intervention. This declaration immediately follows Micah 7:19, where God vows to vanquish iniquities and cast sins into the sea.
The words — The text emphasizes חֶסֶד (Che.sed), meaning covenant loyalty or loving devotion, and אֱמֶת ('e.Met), meaning faithfulness. These terms specify the nature of God's enduring commitment to Jacob and Abraham.
The thread — This covenant framework runs back to Genesis 12:2 and Genesis 28:13, where God establishes and reaffirms promises to the patriarchs, and forward to Luke 1:72, which records the remembrance of that same holy covenant.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment that God's past oaths, not human performance, guarantee the removal of sin. A reader must align their expectation of restoration with the reliability of divine promise.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
Cross-references
- Genesis 28:13 And there at the top the LORD was standing and saying, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you now lie.
- Luke 1:72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,
- Genesis 12:2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
- Genesis 17:7 I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
- Genesis 22:16 saying, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son,
- Genesis 26:3 Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.
- Deuteronomy 7:8 But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
- Psalms 105:8 He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—
- Jeremiah 33:25 This is what the LORD says: If I have not established My covenant with the day and the night and the fixed order of heaven and earth,
- Luke 1:54 He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful,