Amos 8:6

6 To purchase with money the poor, And the needy for a pair of sandals, Yea, the refuse of the pure corn we 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Amos 8:6 In-Context

4 Hear this, ye who are swallowing up the needy, To cause to cease the poor of the land,

5 Saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath, and we open out pure corn? To make little the ephah, And to make great the shekel, And to use perversely balances of deceit.

6 To purchase with money the poor, And the needy for a pair of sandals, Yea, the refuse of the pure corn we sell.

7 Sworn hath Jehovah by the excellency of Jacob: `I forget not for ever any of their works.

8 For this doth not the land tremble, And mourned hath every dweller in it? And come up as a flood hath all of it. And it hath been cast out, and hath sunk, Like the flood of Egypt.