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Mic_3:2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
Ver. 2. Who hate the good, and love the evil] q.d. That you know not judgment, but are men ignorant of the truth which is according to godliness, appeareth by your wicked practices. For you stand across to what God requireth, hating what you should love, and loving where you should hate, Homo est inversus decalogus. Goodness is in itself amiable and attractive but you are perfect strangers to it, and therefore hate it and those that profess it. Evil is of the devil, and must therefore needs be loathsome; and yet you love it, allow it, and wallow in it; whereas you should "abhor that which is evil," hate it as hell, áðïóôõãïõíôåò , "and cleave," or be fast glued, êïëëùìåíïé , "to that which is good," Rom_12:9. You are direct antipodes to the godly, Psa_15:4, and have nothing in you of the Divine nature, 2Pe_1:4, or of the spot of God’s children, but are a "perverse and crooked generation," Deu_32:3.
Who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones] Like so many carnivorous cannibals or truculent wild beasts. As the ossifrage, or breakbone, pursueth the prey, tears off the flesh, breaks the bones, and sucks out the marrow: such were these griping tyrants, their furious rapacity surmounted all bounds of humanity. Such a one was Verres among the Romans, as Cicero describeth him; that tiger, Tiberius, those Romish usurers in King John’s time here, called Caursini, quasi capientes ursi (quoth Paris), devouring bears, who left not so much money in the whole kingdom as they either carried with them or sent to Rome before them. Money and lands are here called men’s skin, flesh, and bones; and a poor man’s substance is his life. See Mar_12:44 Luk_8:48. Hence oppression is called a bony sin, Amo_5:12; Amo_5:18, and oppressors, men eaters, Psa_14:4, and murderers, Hab_2:12. Cyprian cries out, Ferae parcunt Danieli, Ayes pascunt Eliam, homines saeviunt; Lions spare Daniel, ravens feed Elias, but men rage and are worse than both. Melancthon makes mention of a certain prince, some few years before his time, who, to get money out of his subjects, would send for them, and by knocking out first one tooth, and then another (threatening to leave them toothless else), would extort from them what sums soever he pleased. Our King John’s exactors received from his subjects no less sums of curses than of coin, saith the chronicler; and so did Cardinal Woisey, under Henry VIII, by his importable subsidies, which caused Suffolk to rise up in arms, making poverty their captain.