Micah 3:2

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 

Micah 7:19

7:19 You will once again ⁶  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ⁷  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ⁸  sins into the depths of the sea. ⁹ 

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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.

⁶ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

⁷ tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

⁸ tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

⁹ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).