Amos 8:4-6

Amos 8:4-6. Hear, O ye that swallow up the needy That greedily and cruelly devour such as would have been objects of your compassion, had you been just and merciful as well as rich and great. He alludes to the greater fish swallowing up the lesser. To make the poor of the land to fail Either to root them out or to enslave them. Saying, When will the new- moon be gone This was one of their solemn feasts, the use of which they retained with their idolatrous worship; that we may sell corn It seems they were prohibited during this feast, and probably in their other solemn feasts, from every kind of traffic, even the selling of corn; and these covetous wretches thought the time during which they were so restrained long and tedious, wishing to be again at liberty to trade and get gain. Making the ephah small, and the shekel great The ephah was the measure whereby they sold corn, &c., containing about one of our bushels. This they made smaller than the just standard, and so cheated in the quantity of what they sold. The shekel was the money they received for the price of their goods, and by weighing this by too heavy a weight, they diminished its real value, and so cheated also in the sum they received. So that both ways they over-reached those that dealt with them, who received less of what they bought than it was their right to receive, and paid more than they ought to pay for it. That we may buy the poor for silver That we may, by these unjust dealings, soon get the poor so much into our debt, that they may not be able to discharge it, but be obliged to surrender themselves to us as slaves, and that for a very trifling consideration in reality. So that these avaricious and merciless men wished the new-moon and sabbaths to be over, that they might go to market, as it were, and buy the poor; and when these poor owed but for a very trifling article, as suppose a pair of shoes, they would take advantage against them, and make them sell themselves to pay the debt. Or, to buy any thing for a pair of shoes, was a proverbial expression to signify getting it at a very vile, or low price. It was the custom of those times when a man could not discharge his debts, for him to surrender up himself and family to his creditor as bond-servants. By this the rich increased their power, as well as their wealth; and such was their inhumanity, that they practised every art of fraud and extortion to reduce the needy to this miserable condition. Yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat Not content with defrauding in the measure and price, ye mix the chaff, or refuse, such as is not fit to make bread, and sell it together with the wheat. This was another kind of oppression; corrupted wares were sold to those that were necessitous.