The Cannibalism of Unjust Rulers Text: Micah 3:1-4
Introduction: Justice is Not Optional
We live in an age that is utterly confused about justice. On the one hand, you have a secular left that screams for "social justice," which is usually a thin veil for envy, resentment, and state-sponsored theft. On the other hand, you have a pietistic and anemic evangelicalism that thinks justice is a "social gospel" issue, a distraction from the "real" work of saving souls. Both are profoundly and dangerously wrong. Both have abandoned the Word of God as the foundation for all of life, and the result is a society that is rotting from the head down.
The prophet Micah wades into this same kind of corruption, but he does not do so with a milquetoast suggestion. He does not ask the rulers to please consider being a bit nicer. He brings the hammer of God's law down upon the heads of Jacob and the rulers of Israel. He accuses them of a grotesque, stomach-turning evil. He accuses them of cannibalism. Now, this is not to say they were literally hosting banquets of human flesh, but rather that their injustice was so predatory, so rapacious, that it amounted to the same thing. They were consuming the people they were charged to protect.
This is what injustice does. It devours. It consumes. It treats people made in the image of God as mere resources to be exploited, as meat for the pot. And when a nation's leadership adopts this posture, when those who are supposed to know and enforce justice become the chief purveyors of injustice, that nation is on a collision course with the judgment of God. Micah's message is a terrifying one, but it is a necessary one. It is a warning that God is not a detached observer of human affairs. He is the Judge of all the earth, and He will do right. And when men in authority despise His standards, He will eventually despise their prayers.
The covenant God made with Israel was not a one-way street. It came with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. What Micah describes here is a society of covenant-breakers, led by covenant-breaking rulers, who were about to discover that the curses of the covenant are not idle threats. They were about to find out what happens when God hides His face.
The Text
And I said, "Hear now, heads of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice? You who hate good and love evil, Who tear off their skin from them And their flesh from their bones, And who eat the flesh of my people, Strip off their skin from them, Break their bones, And spread them out as for the pot And as meat in a caldron." Then they will cry out to Yahweh, But He will not answer them. Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time Because they have practiced evil deeds.
(Micah 3:1-4 LSB)
The Non-Negotiable Duty of Rulers (v. 1)
Micah begins with a direct, public summons to the men in charge.
"And I said, 'Hear now, heads of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice?'" (Micah 3:1)
The prophet is not whispering in a corner. He stands in the public square and calls out the leadership: the "heads of Jacob" and the "rulers of the house of Israel." This encompasses all civil authorities, from the king down to the local magistrates. He commands them to "Hear." This is the great word of the covenant, Shema. It means to listen with the intent to obey.
And what is the first thing he says to them? He asks a rhetorical question that is dripping with holy sarcasm: "Is it not for you to know justice?" The expected answer is a thunderous "Yes!" This is their job description. This is the primary reason God establishes civil government in the first place, to be a minister of justice, to punish the wicked and protect the righteous (Romans 13:4). For a ruler to be ignorant of justice is like a doctor being ignorant of medicine or a pilot being ignorant of flight. It is a fundamental dereliction of duty.
Notice the standard. It is not for them to "invent" justice, or to "feel out" justice, or to conduct polls to determine what justice is this week. It is for them to "know" justice. This implies an objective, knowable standard that exists outside of themselves. For Israel, that standard was the law of God, given through Moses. Justice was not a mystery; it was revealed. Their job was to learn it and apply it impartially. Any government that rejects God's revealed law as the basis for justice will inevitably descend into tyranny, because it will have no standard other than the arbitrary will of the powerful.
The Inversion of All Morality (v. 2-3)
But these rulers had gone far beyond mere ignorance or incompetence. They had become morally inverted. They were champions of the very thing they were supposed to fight.
"You who hate good and love evil, Who tear off their skin from them And their flesh from their bones, And who eat the flesh of my people, Strip off their skin from them, Break their bones, And spread them out as for the pot And as meat in a caldron." (Micah 3:2-3 LSB)
Micah accuses them of hating the good and loving the evil. This is the essence of total depravity. It is not just that they do evil things; they love the evil they do. They despise the good they are supposed to uphold. This is a complete reversal of their God-given mandate. They have become a terror to good conduct, not to bad (cf. Romans 13:3).
And from this moral inversion flows the most graphic and brutal imagery. Micah paints them as savage butchers and cannibals. They "tear off their skin," "strip off their flesh," "break their bones," and cook them in a pot. This is what their policies were doing to the common people. Through bribery, corrupt courts, confiscatory taxation, and seizing land, they were systematically devouring the populace. They were treating human beings, created in God's image, as nothing more than a meal.
This is the logical end of all godless politics. When you remove the fear of God, there is no ultimate restraint on human avarice. If there is no Judge in heaven to whom rulers must give an account, then the people become nothing more than livestock to be fleeced, butchered, and consumed. The prophet Isaiah says something similar about the wicked who "grind the face of the poor" (Isaiah 3:15). This is not polite disagreement over tax policy. This is violent, predatory, cannibalistic governance.
The Deaf Heavens (v. 4)
The inevitable result of this kind of high-handed, unrepentant sin is divine silence. There comes a point when God stops listening.
"Then they will cry out to Yahweh, But He will not answer them. Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time Because they have practiced evil deeds." (Micah 3:4 LSB)
The word "Then" points to a future day of reckoning. A day is coming, likely the day of Assyrian or Babylonian invasion, when these comfortable, well-fed rulers will find themselves in a desperate crisis. Their power will be broken, their wealth will be gone, and their enemies will be at the gates. And in that moment of terror, they will suddenly become very religious. They will "cry out to Yahweh."
But it will be too late. The line will be dead. "He will not answer them." This is one of the most terrifying principles in all of Scripture. God's patience has a limit. You cannot ignore Him, defy His law, devour His people, and then expect Him to bail you out when your chickens come home to roost. Proverbs tells us the same thing: "Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded... Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me" (Proverbs 1:24, 28).
Not only will He not answer, but He will actively "hide His face from them." For God to show His face is to show favor, blessing, and deliverance. For Him to hide His face is the ultimate covenant curse (Deuteronomy 31:17-18). It is to be abandoned to the consequences of your own choices. It is for God to say, "You wanted to run your world without me? Very well. See how you get on." When God hides His face, the darkness is total.
And the reason is stated plainly: "Because they have practiced evil deeds." Their actions had consequences. This is the law of the harvest. You cannot sow injustice and expect to reap deliverance. You cannot plant wickedness and expect to harvest blessing. Their evil was not a momentary lapse; it was a practice, a settled way of life. And so God's silence would not be a momentary whim; it would be a settled judgment.
The Gospel for Cannibal Rulers
Now, the natural man reads a passage like this and either dismisses it as Old Testament hyperbole or applies it to all the people he doesn't like out there in Washington D.C. But we must bring this home. The root of the sin of these rulers was pride and a love for self that manifested itself in the exploitation of others. And every single one of us is guilty of the same.
We may not have run a corrupt judicial system, but have we not devoured others with our gossip? Have we not consumed them with our envy? Have we not treated people as means to our own ends, which is a form of practical cannibalism? Our hearts are filled with the same self-serving rot that animated these rulers in Judah. And because of that, we all deserve to have God hide His face from us, forever.
And on the cross, He did. When Jesus Christ hung there, bearing our sin, He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). On that cross, the Father hid His face from the Son. Jesus endured the ultimate covenant curse. He was met with divine silence. He cried out, and He was not answered. Why? So that we, who deserve that silence, might cry out to God and be heard. He was abandoned so that we might be accepted.
The good news is not that God simply overlooks our cannibalistic hearts. The good news is that His own Son was devoured by the wrath of God in our place. He was broken for us. His flesh was torn for us. And because of His sacrifice, the way to the Father is open. The warning of Micah 3:4 does not have to be our final destiny.
But this grace is not cheap. It demands repentance. For a ruler, this means turning from injustice and learning to "know justice" according to God's Word. For us, it means turning from our own self-serving pride and submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives. It means we stop devouring others and start serving them, because we serve a King who did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).