What mean ye - What is your object? Or, What advantage is it to you? Or, By what right or pretence do you do this?
Beat my people to pieces - That is, that you trample on them; or cruelly oppress them; Psalms 94:5.
And grind the faces of the poor - This is an expression also denoting great oppression. It is taken from the act of grinding a substance on a stone until it is worn away and nothing is left. So, by their cruel exactions, by their injustice to the poor, they exhausted their little property until nothing was left. The word “faces” here is synonymous with “persons” - or with the poor themselves. The word “face” is often used in the sense of “person;” Exodus 33:14; 2 Samuel 18:11. A similar description, though in still stronger language, is found in Micah 3:2-3 :
Who pluck off their skin from off them,
And their flesh from off their bones;
Who also eat the flesh of my people,
And flay their skin from off them;
And they break their bones, and chop them in pieces,
As for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.