Micah 3:1–4

This passage is the beginning of a triad of judgment oracles, focusing on the corruption of the judicial system in Judah. It uses macabre imagery in its indictment (3:2–3) to indicate the horrific nature of injustice. Human victims crying out for justice should receive help from the courts, their last resort in society. But instead they are cannibalized. In a punishment fit for the crime, sentence is passed on the unjust: when they cry out for help to the ultimate Judge in their time of need, he will in no way answer them (v. 4).

1. II. Second Movement: Judgment and Salvation II: The Judgment of Jerusalem, Its Leaders, and the Temple: The Resurrection of the Temple; the Judgment and Salvation of the Remnant and the Nations (3:1–5:15)
   1. A. Judgment on the Present Jerusalem (3:1–12)
      1. 1. Cannibalism in the Courts (3:1–4)
         1. a. Indictment: No Help! (3:1–3)
         2. b. Sentence: No Help! (3:4)

This text is one of the most macabre in the entire Bible, as it puts on graphic display the incredible corruption of the judicial system in ancient Judah. The use of the cannibalism metaphor is an attempt to shock into sensibility the seared conscience of the judges and make it healthy again. People had become commodities, to devour and digest. Thinking they could get help from the courts because of the injustice in society, the people do not merely get ripped off—they get ripped apart. Contemporary culture could learn from Micah.

A consumer society often consumes its own. Ancient Rome, depicted as Babylon, trafficked in human flesh:

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. (Rev. 18:11–13)

The multibillion-dollar pornography and human trafficking industries, the proliferation of abortion in the West and gendercide in Asia, and abuse of workers in unsafe working conditions shows how consumption of humans runs rampant today.

Unfortunately, this happens not only in the wider culture but in churches as well, when helpless people become the victims of priests and ministers and spiritual leaders. Such people are abused not only physically but also mentally and spiritually. In a notorious example, a young woman abused by her spiritual leader complained that she felt “like a piece of hamburger somebody threw out in the street.”¹

This text is a vivid reminder to the nations (Mic. 1:2)—as well as to the believing community: God will not stand idly by amid the violation of his moral order. The maxim “What goes around comes around” is not the result of an impersonal force of history; it is grounded in the truth that “They will cry out and I will not answer them, because of their evil deeds” (cf. 3:4).

People of faith need to be reminded that human beings are not objects; they are subjects made in the image of God. They are never resources to be used but beings to be loved. Instead of using people and loving things, the church must love people and use things. People in positions of power must never use that power to hurt or destroy but instead to serve and empower. The ultimate example is a Savior and Lord who never used people but rather served them (Mark 10:45), washing their feet (John 13:1–17) and healing their bodies and souls (Matt. 4:23–25). He himself offered his body on a tree and was wounded for human sins and iniquities (1 Pet. 2:24). Thus one of the sacraments of the Christian Church is the consumption of the bread and the wine, the symbols of the body and blood of Christ, given in love for his people, a vivid reminder of the vast difference between the leaders in Micah 3:1–4 and the ultimate Leader, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 11:23–26). If we are his followers, we will love and serve others as he did.