Micah 3:3

3 You eat my people's flesh and skin them and break their bones; you chop them up like meat for the pot, like meat in a cooking pan.

Micah 3:3 Meaning and Commentary

Micah 3:3

Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skins from
off them
Like cannibals, flay them alive, and then eat their flesh: this signifies, as before, devouring their substance, only expressed in terms which still more set forth their savageness, inhumanity, barbarity, and cruelty. So the Targum,

``who spoil the substance of my people, and their precious mammon they take from them;''

and what aggravated their guilt was, that they were the Lord's people by profession and religion they so used; whom he had committed to their care to rule over, protect, and defend: and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces as for the pot, and
as flesh within the caldron:
did with them as cooks do, who not only cut flesh off the bones, and into slices, but break the bones themselves, to get out the marrow, and chop them small, that they may have all the virtue that is in them, to make their soup and broth the richer; by which is signified, that these wicked and avaricious rulers took every method to squeeze the people, and get all their wealth and riches into their hands, that they might have in a more riotous and luxurious manner.

Micah 3:3 In-Context

1 Then I said, "Listen, leaders of the people of Jacob; listen, you rulers of the nation of Israel. You should know how to decide cases fairly,

2 but you hate good and love evil. You skin my people alive and tear the flesh off their bones.

3 You eat my people's flesh and skin them and break their bones; you chop them up like meat for the pot, like meat in a cooking pan.

4 They will cry to the Lord, but he won't answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them, because what they have done is evil."

5 The Lord says this about the prophets who teach his people the wrong way of living: "If these prophets are given food to eat, they shout, 'Peace!' But if someone doesn't give them what they ask for, they call for a holy war against that person.