Amos 5:12

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins,.... Their sins were numerous, and of the first magnitude, attended with very heavy aggravations; and these with all their circumstances

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

For; wonder not at the threatened severity, as if it were too rigorous; it is but proportioned to your sins. I, the Lord, whom you provoke, who have threatened you, know, clearly, fully, and in all the circumstances of them, what moves you to do so, what pretences of law you make: all your evasions are vain and foolish. Your manifold transgressions; the increased number of your sins, and the greatness of them too, as the word importeth. Your mighty sins; which mightily wrong and break the poor and needy. They afflict, besiege, or with hostile minds watch against, and gladly take any occasion to wrong and grieve, the just; not absolutely and sinlessly just, but such as are comparatively just, or those whose cause is just, or those that live with regard to all the commands of God, and follow righteousness: it was the mighty sin of the corrupt rulers in Samaria and Israel at that day, that they were enemies to all righteousness. They take a bribe; in civil causes bribes carried it; see ; here bribes set criminals free, a ransom. as the word in the Hebrew, buys off the punishment appointed by the law against murderers, adulterers, &c. They turn aside the poor in the gate; the poor, who appear in their courts for justice, they turn them away, or delay to hear, or hear and judge unjustly, and so send them away wronged and crying. From their right: these words fully express the prophet’ s meaning, and are therefore well supplied in our version.

Amos 5:12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate [from their right].Ver. 12. For I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins] I know them, and can easily set them in an order before your eyes, Psalms 50:21, bring them out (as they did the vessels of the sanctuary) by number and by weight, Ezra 8:34 : make you answer for all with flames about your ears, lay open your many transgressions, and mighty sins, fortia peccata. The Hebrew hath it, your bony, or big boned sins; huge, heinous, and monstrous, capable of all manner of aggravations. All these I know, saith God, they are all in print in heaven, and I will one day read them aloud in the ears of all the world. Fac ergo confitendo propitium, quem tacendo non facis nescium, saith Austin. Make, therefore, God thy friend, by confessing thy sins to him, which thou canst not by any means conceal from him. They afflict the just] They pinch and distress him by their oppressions, which are often here laid in their dish, as an abomination to the Lord; for he is merciful, see Amos 2:6. They take a bribe] A ransom to blind their eyes (Copher), as 1 Samuel 12:3, or a pacification of their pretended displeasure against heinous crimes brought before them. Olim didiei quid sint munera, said a worthy man: Once I have learned long since, how dangerous a thing it is for men in place to meddle with gifts. A public person, as he should have nothing to lose, so nothing to get; he should be above all price or sale. They turn aside the poor in the gate] That is, in the place of judicature. This makes many that go to law, to be at length of Themistocles’ mind; who professed that if two ways were shown him, one to hell, and the other to the bar, he would choose that which went to hell, and forsake the other. Another said, that he wondered much at two sorts of men; viz. those that go to sea, and those that go to law: not so much that they did so at first, but that, after trial, they would ever go a second time.

(12) I know.—Most of the commentators imply that the “I” is Jehovah, but it is more likely to be the prophet himself. The adjectives “manifold,” “mighty,” should be rendered as predicates, That manifold are your transgressions, and mighty your sins, ye afflicters of the just and takers of a bribe, and ye who bow down the poor in the gate. The idea involved in the word rendered “bribe” is the ransom which the poor and defenceless were obliged to pay to a tyrannical judge, in order to escape a harsh sentence. The “gate” is the place where judgment is passed by the chief men.

Verse 12. I know your manifold transgressions] I have marked the multitude of your smaller crimes, as well as your mighty offenses. Among their greater offenses were, 1. Their afflicting the righteous. 2. Taking bribes to blind their eyes in judgment. And, 3. Refusing to hear the poor, who had no money to give them.

12–13. Israel’s desperate moral condition, a justification of the sentence just pronounced upon it.

For I know - Literally, “I have known.” They thought that God did not know, because He did not avenge; as the Psalmist says, “Thy judgments are far above out of his sight” Psalms 10:5.

11-13. Israel’s moral depravity demands speedy judgment. The sin which arouses the indignation of the prophet most is the oppression of the poor (Amos 2:6-7). In punishment the unjustly gained possessions will be withdrawn.