3:2 yet you 1 hate what is good, 2
and love what is evil. 3
You flay my people’s skin 4
and rip the flesh from their bones. 5
3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family 6 of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation 7 of Israel!
You 8 hate justice
and pervert all that is right.
6:10 “I will not overlook, 9 O sinful house, the dishonest gain you have hoarded away, 10
or the smaller-than-standard measure I hate so much. 11
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
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.
6 tn Heb “house.”
7 tn Heb “house.”
8 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).
9 tn The meaning of the first Hebrew word in the line is unclear. Possibly it is a combination of the interrogative particle and אִשׁ (’ish), an alternate form of יֵשׁ (yesh, “there is/are”). One could then translate literally, “Are there treasures of sin [in] the house of the sinful?” The translation assumes an emendation to הַאֶשֶּׁה (ha’esheh, from נָשָׁא, nasha’, “to forget”), “Will I forget?” The rhetorical question expects an answer, “No, I will not forget.”
10 tn Heb “the treasures of sin”; NASB “treasures of wickedness”; NIV “ill-gotten treasures.”
11 tn Heb “the accursed scant measure.”
sn Merchants would use a smaller than standard measure so they could give the customer less than he thought he was paying for.