But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.
⛓ Read Micah 5 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Quotation2
A formal citation — high verbal volume, often introduced by a saying-formula.
'The Christ comes... from Bethlehem, the village where David was' (v.42) reflects the scribal reading of Micah, 'But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah... from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.' John presents the crowd citing Scripture ('Hasn't the Scripture said'), the nearest thing to a formal quotation in the chapter. Maximal volume and availability.
High confidenceExplicit formula quotation ('this is written through the prophet') cited by the chief priests. Matthew's wording — 'You Bethlehem, land of Judah, are in no way least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come a governor (ruler) who shall shepherd my people Israel' — conflates Micah 5:2 with 2 Samuel 5:2. High Volume (verbatim place-name, ruler-from-Bethlehem motif, distinctive), strong Thematic Coherence (Davidic-messiah birthplace answers Herod's question), and Recurrence (Matthew is the formula-quotation evangelist par excellence).
High confidenceAllusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Luke locates the birth in 'Bethlehem... the city of David,' the very town Micah names as the origin of the ruler 'whose goings forth are from of old.' Volume is high (the place-name itself), recurrence strong in the early-Jewish messianic reading of Micah, and thematic coherence exact: a Davidic ruler from Bethlehem. Luke leaves the citation implicit rather than quoting, but the topographic anchor is unmistakable.
High confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
A faint, contested echo: ‘our Lord has sprung out of Judah’ overlaps with Micah's ‘ruler in Israel’ coming ‘out of’ Bethlehem-in-Judah. Very low volume and no verbal contact beyond the Judah-origin theme; included for maximal coverage where scholars list Judah-Messiah testimonia.
Low confidenceThe popular belief about the Messiah's unknown origin (v.27) stands in tension with, and presupposes, the Bethlehem expectation made explicit at v.42. Micah's 'whose origins are from of old, from ancient days' could itself feed the 'no one will know where he comes from' tradition. Low volume here; the fuller Micah contact belongs to 7.6.
Low confidence