Amos 2:6

Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel,.... The ten tribes rent from the house of David in the times of Rehoboam, and who departed from the true worship of God, and set up calves at

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; For

For three transgressions: see . Israel; the kingdom of the ten tribes, under the government of Jeroboam the Second at this time, against which the prophet was chiefly sent, though he began with Syria and others, by the threats against which nations he prepared both Judah and Israel to hearken and consider. I will not turn away the punishment: see . They; those who by the appointment of the law had power to hear and decide causes between man and man; judges and witnesses, like the corrupt judges, sold, for bribes were their aim, and they would at any time sell justice to the highest bidder. The righteous; the innocent, or those who had a just and righteous cause, for the prophet here speaks of the justness of the cause, not of the exact justice or absolute righteousness of the person. For silver: money was the most current and prevailing commodity with these judges, but money’ s worth would do the feat too, if money were out of the way. The poor: when poor men went to law with poor men before these judges, and the thing they contended for was of small value, the contenders too had light purses, and could not give a considerable bribe; a pair of shoes, a very poor bribe, expressed here proverbially, would sway with these judges, who gaped still after somewhat of gain from all.

Amos 2:6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;Ver. 6. For three transgressions of Israel, &c.] The ten tribes come in last, lest they (with whom his main business lay, and to whom he will henceforth apply himself) should conceit themselves privileged, because for the present prospered; lest they should read or hear the menaces of God’ s mouth, as men do the old stories of foreign wars, that nothing concern them. Because they sold the righteous for silver] Even God’ s own pasture sheep, that had golden fleeces, precious souls; these they made sale of for a little money, which ever was and still is a common medler, and drives the bargain and business to an upshot. Money, saith one, is the world’ s great monarch, and bears most mastery: whence it is that the Hebrew word, Adarcon, used for money, 1 Chronicles 29:7 Ezra 8:27, comes of Adar, strong, or mighty, and Con, to prepare; to show that a moneyed man is a mighty man, as this world goes. Unless we may say of money, as one doth wittily of Sardanapalus, the last of the Assyrian monarchs: Sardanapalus, saith he, had a terrible name. Sar noteth a prince, Dan a judge, Niphal an overthrower, or conqueror; not otherwise applicable to him, but that his luxury was the overthrow of both sovereignty and judgment. So is money mighty and well prepared, but it is to blind the eyes of the wise, and to pervert the matters of the righteous, Deuteronomy 16:10, who because not so well underlaid as his adversary, lies long languishing many times at Hope’ s hospital; as that lame man did at the pool of Bethesda, but might not be sped, because (for want, belike, of stirring angels) he could get none to put him into the pool immediately after the angel had stirred it. That was a sad complaint made by the prophet Habakkuk, Amos 1:4, "Behold, the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth circumvent the righteous," viz. by his bribery and baseness, "therefore wrong judgment proceedeth." A judge is to retain the decency and gravity of the law; yea, of the law maker, with whom there is no iniquity, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts, 2 Chronicles 19:7. Nec prece, nec pretio, should be the magistrate’ s motto; he should be above all price or sale. And the poor for a pair of shoes] For a cup of wine, Joe 3:3; for handfulls of barley, or pieces of bread, Ezekiel 3:19; for a thing of nothing, so base they were grown at length; a very small deal of gain would win them over. See Amos 8:6.

CURSE ON ISRAEL. (6) Transgressions of Israel.—The storm of Divine threatening which had swept over the whole political horizon gathers, at last, over Israel. The sins and ingratitude of the people are aggravated by a recital of the Divine Mercy. By comparing this verse with Amos 8:6, it is clear that the Jewish interpreters (followed by Keil) were incorrect in charging this sin upon corrupt judges, who, by bribery, would deliver unjust judgments against the righteous. The sin consists in the perverse straining of the law, which allowed an insolvent debtor to sell himself into bondage to redeem a debt (comp. 2 Kings 4:1; also Leviticus 25:39). In this case the debtor was a righteous man in sore straits for no fault of his own. Render, on account of a pair of sandals. A paltry debt, equivalent, in worth, to a pair of sandals, would not save him from bondage at the hands of an oppressive ruler (see Introduction).

Verse 6. - 8. For three transgressions of Israel, c.] To be satisfied of the exceeding delinquency of this people, we have only to open the historical and prophetic books in any part for the whole history of the Israelites is one tissue of transgression against God. Their crimes are enumerated under the following heads: - 1. Their judges were mercenary and corrupt. They took bribes to condemn the righteous; and even for articles of clothing, such as a pair of shoes, they condemned the poor man, and delivered him into the hands of his adversary. 2. They were unmerciful to the poor generally. They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; or, to put it on the head of the poor; or, they bruise the head of the poor against the dust of the earth. Howsoever the clause is understood, it shows them to have been general oppressors of the poor, showing them neither justice nor mercy. 3. They turn aside the way of the meek. They are peculiarly oppressive to the weak and afflicted. 4. They were licentious to the uttermost abomination; for in their idol feasts, where young women prostituted themselves publicly in honour of Astarte, the father and son entered into impure connections with the same female. 5. They were cruel in their oppressions of the poor; for the garments or beds which the poor had pledged they retained contrary to the law, Exodus 22:7-26, which required that such things should be restored before the setting of the sun. 6. They punished the people by unjust and oppressive fines, and served their tables with wine bought by such fines. Or it may be understood of their appropriating to themselves that wine which was allowed to criminals to mitigate their sufferings in the article of death; which was the excess of inhumanity and cruelty.

Amos 2:6-16. The sin of Israel, and its punishment 6–16. At last Amos comes to Israel. The Israelites might listen with equanimity, or even with satisfaction, whilst their neighbours’ faults were being exposed: but they now find that precisely the same standard is to be applied to themselves. The stereotyped form is not preserved after the first verse; both the indictment and the punishment being developed at much greater length than in the case of any of the previous nations. The indictment (Amos 2:6-8) consists of four counts: 1. maladministration of justice; 2. oppression of the poor; 3. immorality; 4. inordinate self-indulgence, practised in the name of religion—all, in view of the signal favours conferred by Jehovah upon Israel in the past, aggravated by ingratitude (Amos 2:9-12). The judgement, viz. defeat and flight before the foe, follows in Amos 2:13-16.

For three transgressions of Israel, and for four - In Israel, on whom the divine sentence henceforth rests, the prophet numbers four classes of sins, running into one another, as all sins do, since

6, 7a. Oppression of the poor. Sold the righteous for silver — This accusation is commonly interpreted as a separate count in the indictment, maladministration of justice.