2. who flay their skin from them / and their flesh from their bones. This pair of versets is a startling instance of intensification and specification of material from the first verset to the second and third. Initially, we get the general terms of hating good and loving evil, then this horrific image of flaying and cannibalism.

3. crack open. The verb patseaḥ is a devastating strategic choice: what it suggests is cracking open the bones in order to suck the marrow.

like flesh. the Masoretic Text has kaʾasher, “as,” but the Septuagint shows kesheʾeir, “like flesh” (a simple reversal of the two middle consonants), which seems far more likely.

5. who bite with their teeth. This image of voraciousness is in all likelihood motivated by the editorial placement of this prophecy here, immediately after the metaphorical use of cannibalism in the previous prophecy.

6. night for your vision. These false prophets pretended to see into the future or exercise clairvoyance; now they will be enveloped in the darkness of a prophetic eclipse.

7. cover their moustaches. This bizarre-sounding phrase refers to a mourning practice in which the face was covered down to the upper lip. Compare Ezekiel 24:17.

8. And yet, I have been filled with power. Having excoriated the false prophets, Micah now sets himself antithetically as a prophet actually imbued by the spirit of YHWH.

11. Her chieftains judge with bribes. Having previously represented the leaders of the people preying cannibalistically upon those they rule, Micah now translates the metaphor into literal acts: the judges pervert justice by taking bribes; the priests fulfill their role as teachers—perhaps, unreliable teachers—only for gain; and the prophets turn themselves into merchants of divination.

on the LORD they lean. While merely pursuing the accrual of wealth, these purported spiritual leaders claim to enjoy the full benevolent support of God in what they do.

12. a high forest. Some have questioned the meaning of bamot yaʿar, literally, “high places of a forest.” The first of these two nouns can designate a topographical height and is also used for the rural altars despised by the Deuteronomist. The New Jewish Publication Society version renders the phrase in the latter sense, imagining that the holy Temple will be turned into a simple pagan hilltop shrine, but that seems unlikely. There are some biblical instances in which the two nouns joined in a construct state show a reversal of the semantic relation between the two. In this perspective, bamot yaʿar would mean the same as yaʿar bamot, “a forest of high places,” which is to say, a high forest. Since the Temple was built on a mountain, after being razed, it would be replaced by the wild growth of a “high forest.”