Micah 3:3

3 You eat my people up. You strip off their skin, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the 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 Listen, you rulers of Israel! You are supposed to be concerned about justice,

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

3 You eat my people up. You strip off their skin, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the pot.

4 The time is coming when you will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer you. He will not listen to your prayers, for you have done evil.

5 My people are deceived by prophets who promise peace to those who pay them, but threaten war for those who don't. To these prophets the Lord says,