Her princes within her [are] roaring lions; her judges [are] evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.
Ver. 3. Her princes within her are roaring lions] Roaring over the meaner sort, and tearing them with their claws. See Trapp on " Mic 3:1 " See Trapp on " Mic 3:2 " See Trapp on " Mic 3:3 "
Her judges are evening wolves] See Habakkuk 1:8. This rapacity and bribery they had learned (likely) under Manassah and Amon; and exercised under good Josiah, who either knew it not, or could not redress it. Est ergo periculi plena reipublicae forma, quae ab uno dependet, saith Gualther here. And Tertullian telleth us, that one special thing the primitive Christians prayed for the emperor was, that God would send him Senatum fidelem, a faithful senate, pious councillors, good subordinates. Of Aurelian's council it was said, that by them the good emperor, who might know nothing but as they informed him, was even bought and sold. Alphonsus, King of Aragon, said that princes were for this in a worse condition than other people; because they could seldom hear the truth of things. Augustus bitterly bewailed the death of Varus; because now, said he, I have none about me that will deal truly with me. The Grand Signior goes often abroad that he may receive poor men's petitions, and right them upon the greatest beshaws, who, bewitched by bribery, have denied them justice. And hence it hath been ever observed, that few of his chief officers die in their beds. These evening wolves many times have not a morrow left them to gnaw the bones in.