Text -- Micah 3:1-3 (NET)

God Will Judge Judah’s Sinful Leaders

3:1 I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the nation of Israel! You ought to know what is just, 3:2 yet you hate what is good, and love what is evil. You flay my people’s skin and rip the flesh from their bones. 3:3 You devour my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot– like meat in a kettle.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Mic 3:1

¹ tn Heb “heads.”

² tn Heb “house.”

³ tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”

NET Notes: Mic 3:2

¹ tn Heb “the ones who.”

² tn Or “good.”

³ tn Or “evil.”

⁴ tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the Lord as the speaker) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”

sn Micah compares the social injustice perpetrated by the house of Jacob/Israel to cannibalism, because it threatens the very lives of the oppressed.

NET Notes: Mic 3:3

¹ tn Heb “who.”

² tc The MT reads “and they chop up as in a pot.” The translation assumes an emendation of כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher, “as”) to כִּשְׁאֵר (kish’er, “like flesh”).