Amos 8:6

6 buying the needy for money and the poor for a pair of shoes, and sweeping up the refuse of the wheat to sell!"

Amos 8:6 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 8:6

That we may buy the poor for silver
Thus making them pay dear for their provisions, and using them in this fraudulent manner, by which they would not be able to support themselves and their families; they might purchase them and theirs for slaves, at so small a price as a piece of silver, or a single shekel, worth about half a crown; and this was their end and design in using them after this manner; see ( Leviticus 25:39 Leviticus 25:40 ) ; and the needy for a pair of shoes; (See Gill on Amos 2:6); [yea], and sell the refuse of the wheat;
not only did they sell the poor grain and wheat at a dear rate, and in scanty measure, but the worst of it, and such as was not fit to make bread of, only to be given to the cattle; and, by reducing the poor to extreme poverty, they obliged them to take that of them at their own price. It may be rendered, "the fall of wheat" ^F3; that which fell under the sieve, when the wheat was sifted, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, observe.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F3 (rb lpm) "labile frumenti", Montanus; "decidum frumenti", Cocceius; "deciduum triciti", Drusius, Mercerus, Stockius, p. 690.

Amos 8:6 In-Context

4 Listen, you who swallow the needy and destroy the poor of the land!

5 You say, "When will Rosh-Hodesh be over, so we can market our grain? and Shabbat, so we can sell wheat?" You measure the grain in a small eifah, but the silver in heavy shekels, fixing the scales, so that you can cheat,

6 buying the needy for money and the poor for a pair of shoes, and sweeping up the refuse of the wheat to sell!"

7 ADONAI swears by Ya'akov's pride, "I will forget none of their deeds, ever.

8 Won't the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn, who lives in the land? It will all rise, just like the Nile, be in turmoil and subside, like the Nile in Egypt.