3:2a

You hate good and love evil: This verse part contrasts with 3:1b. The leaders ought to rule with justice. But instead they hate good and love evil. Some versions make this contrast explicit. For example:

yet you hate what is good and you love what is evil (GNT)

yet you hate what is right, and love what is wrong (NET)

but you are the very ones who hate good and love evil (NLT)

hate good…love evil: The first phrase means “to not want to do what is good or right.” The second phrase means “to enjoy doing what is evil.”

In some languages, it is not natural to speak about hating good or loving evil. Here are some other ways to translate these phrases:

but you prefer to do evil instead of what is right (CEV)

But you enjoy doing what is wicked, you do not like to do what is good.

This verse part continues Micah’s rebuke from 3:1b. In some languages, it may be natural to translate this rebuke as a rhetorical question. For example:

So why do you hate doing what is right and love doing what is evil?

3:2b–3e

In verses 2b–c and 3a–e, Micah used a horrifying extended metaphor to describe the extreme cruelty of the evil rulers toward the people. Most scholars think that Micah was comparing the evil rulers to people who ate human flesh or to butchers who chopped up meat. Parts of the metaphor may also refer to ritual human sacrifices or to the cruelty of the Assyrians, who sometimes flayed the skin off their captives.TOTC, Waltke 1993, and Waltke 2007 say that the metaphor refers to cannibalism, as do ABC and IVPB. UBS (pages 170–171) suggests either one comparison (cannibals) or two comparisons (a butcher and wild animals). NICOT, EBC, and NAC prefer the analogy of a butcher, as does KD (page 306), who summarizes the details as “treat them like cattle.” ZIBBC (page 133) speaks of the “horrors of human sacrifice.” A&F (page 353) mention the practice of sacrificing children in the fire and references 2 Kings 16:3 and 17:16–17, but they also say that the wording here does not support the idea of ritual sacrifice and that there is “no information as to whether human flesh was actually consumed.” They make the point that “cannibalism under duress” is a very different thing from eating “a human out of sheer malevolence” and say it is unlikely that “the entire leadership of Israel engaged in such practices together.”

The parts of this metaphor are in the form of a seven-line chiasm. The main point occurs in the third line (3a). Verses 2b and 3b form a pair, as do 2c and 3c. Verses 3d–e are connected to 3c as part of the overall cooking process.According to Waltke 1993 (page 658), the similes in the last lines of verse 3 add further details to the incomplete metaphors in the first part of the verse. Waltke 2007 (page 149) comments that the first three clauses of v.3 probably represent “three aspects of one situation” and that “the repetition of their skin and bones…emphasizes and confirms the cannibalism of the culprits.” Chronologically, 2b–c and 3b–e precede the main point in 3a.

^2bYou tear the skin from my people

^2cand strip the flesh from their bones.

^3aYou eat the flesh of my people

^3bafter stripping off their skin

^3cand breaking their bones.

^3dYou chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot,

^3elike meat in a caldron.

See the General Comment at the end of the note on 3:3d–e for ways to translate this metaphor and to make the lines chronological.

3:2b

You tear the skin from my people: To tear the skin from means “to pull or peel the skin off a person’s body.”

my people: This phrase does not occur here in Hebrew. It is supplied from 3:3a. It means “my fellow Jews” or “my countrymen.” (See the Note on this same phrase at 1:9c.)

Here are some other ways to translate this verse part:

You skin my people alive (NCV)

You flay my people’s skin (NET)

3:2c

and strip the flesh from their bones: After they tore off the skin of the people, they tore the flesh from their bones.

There is an ellipsis (a deliberately omitted word or phrase) in 3:2c in Hebrew. For example, here is 3:2b–c in the NRSV:

who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones

In some languages, it may be necessary to supply the missing phrase from 3:2b, as the BSB does. For example:

and rip the flesh from their bones (NET)

flesh: The word flesh refers to the soft part of a human or animal’s body. It is the part of an animal that people eat as meat.

Here are some other ways to translate this verse part:

and rip the flesh from their bones (NET)

pulling the flesh off their bones (NJB)