Micah 3:3

3 Yes, you eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and break their bones. You chop them up like meat for the cooking pot.

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 I said, “Listen, you leaders of Israel! You are supposed to know right from wrong,

2 but you are the very ones who hate good and love evil. You skin my people alive and tear the flesh from their bones.

3 Yes, you eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and break their bones. You chop them up like meat for the cooking pot.

4 Then you beg the LORD for help in times of trouble! Do you really expect him to answer? After all the evil you have done, he won’t even look at you!”

5 This is what the LORD says: “You false prophets are leading my people astray! You promise peace for those who give you food, but you declare war on those who refuse to feed you.