Amos 8:4

4 Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak, you who treat poor people as less than nothing,

Amos 8:4 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 8:4

Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy
Like a man that pants after a draught of water when thirsty; and, when he has got it, greedily swallows it down at one gulp; so these rich men swallowed up the poor, their labours, gains, and profits, and persons too; got all into their own hands, and made them bondsmen and slaves to them; see ( Amos 2:7 ) ; these are called upon to hear this dreadful calamity threatened, and to consider what then would become of them and their ill gotten riches; and suggesting, that their oppression of the needy was one cause of this destruction of the land: even to make the poor of the land to fail;
or "cease" ^F1; to die for want of the necessaries of life, being obliged to such hard labour; so unmercifully used, their faces ground, and pinched with necessity; and so sadly paid for their work, that they could not live by it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 (twbvl) "ad cessare faciendum", Mercerus; "et facitis cessare", Munster, Drusius.

Amos 8:4 In-Context

2 He said, "What do you see, Amos?" I said, "A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit." God said, "Right. So, I'm calling it quits with my people Israel. I'm no longer acting as if everything is just fine."

3 "The royal singers will wail when it happens." My Master God said so. "Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere. Hush!"

4 Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak, you who treat poor people as less than nothing,

5 Who say, "When's my next paycheck coming so I can go out and live it up? How long till the weekend when I can go out and have a good time?" Who give little and take much, and never do an honest day's work.

6 You exploit the poor, using them - and then, when they're used up, you discard them.