Amos 2:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Amos 2:6
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Joel 3:3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.
Amos 5:11-12 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye sha…
Micah 3:2-3 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
2 Kings 17:7-18 For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from u…
2 Kings 18:12 Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded…
Isaiah 5:22-23 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
Isaiah 29:21 That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.
Ezekiel 23:5-9 And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 2:1-8
Here is, I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three transgressions and for four, as those before. Now, 1. Moab's fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the bar, was cruelty. The instance given refers not to the people of God, but to a heathen like themselves: The king of Moab burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime. We find there was war between the Edomites and the Moabites, in which the king of Moab, in distress and rage, offered his own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity, Kg2 3:26, Kg2 3:27. And it should seem that afterwards he, or some of his successors, in revenge up…
Israel--the ten tribes, the main subject of Amos' prophecies.
sold the righteous--Israel's judges for a bribe are induced to condemn in judgment him who has a righteous cause; in violation of Deu 16:19.
the poor for a pair of shoes--literally, "sandals" of wood, secured on the foot by leather straps; less valuable than shoes. Compare the same phrase, for "the most paltry bribe," Amo 8:6; Eze 13:19; Joe 3:3. They were not driven by poverty to such a sin; beginning with suffering themselves to be tempted by a large bribe, they at last are so reckless of all shame as to prostitute justice for the merest trifle. Amos convicts them of injustice, incestuous unchastity, and oppression first, as…
For three transgressions of Israel, etc. - To be satisfied of the exceeding delinquency of this people, we have only to open the historical and prophetic books in any part; for the whole history of the Israelites is one tissue of transgression against God. Their crimes are enumerated under the following heads: -
1. Their judges were mercenary and corrupt. They took bribes to condemn the righteous; and even for articles of clothing, such as a pair of shoes, they condemned the poor man, and delivered him into the hands of his adversary.
2. They were unmerciful to the poor generally. They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; or, to put it on the head of the poor; or, they…
The Church Fathers
He does not leave him unpunished, but rather subjects to punishments Israel, that is, the tribes in Samaria. And that they themselves, sinning unguardedly, have all but consumed the tranquility owed by God to the weak, the turning away for three and four sins would show, which having suffered they must necessarily be subjected to terrible things, and be in every evil. Therefore, the divine David, fearing this thing, and knowing it to be a cause of destruction, implored, saying, "Do not turn Your face from me, and do not turn away in wrath from Your servant." For wrath always follows, and, as it were, accompanies the turnings away.
Many, truly, are the shoes of the sinful soul, by which it is bound and cramped. For each man is cramped by the cords of his own sins. Accordingly, Abraham swears to the king of Sodom, "I will not take of all that is thine, from a thread to a shoe-latchet." On account of these being defiled and polluted on the earth, every kind of wrong and selfishness engrosses life. As the Lord reproves Israel by Amos, saying, "For three iniquities of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn him back; because they have given away the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, which tread upon the dust of the ground."
He might also have been betrayed by any stranger, did I not find that even here too he fulfilled a psalm: "He who did eat bread with me has lifted up his heel against me." And without a price might he have been betrayed. For what need of a traitor was there in the case of one who offered himself to the people openly and might quite as easily have been captured by force as taken by treachery? This might, no doubt, have been well enough for another Christ but would not have been suitable in one who was accomplishing prophecies. For it was written, "The righteous one did they sell for silver." The very amount and the destination of the money, which on Judas's remorse was recalled "from its first purpose of a fee" and appropriated to the purchase of a potter's field, as narrated in the Gospel of Matthew, were clearly foretold by Jeremiah: "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him who was valued, and gave them for the potter's field."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Jeroboam — Increase of the people. (1.) The son of Nebat (1 Kings 11:26-39), “an Ephrathite,” the first king of the ten tribes, over whom he reigned twenty-two years (B.C. 976-945). He was the son of a widow of…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Bribery · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Israel, Prophecies Concerning · .Of — .Of
Poor, The · The wicked: Sell — The wicked: Sell
Presents · Were given: To judges to secure a favourable hearing — Were given: To judges to secure a favourable hearing
Shoe · Poor people — Poor people
Shoes · Often given as bribes — Often given as bribes
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel,.... The ten tribes rent from the house of David in the times of Rehoboam, and who departed from the true worship of God, and set up calves at Dan and Bethel:
and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; the following part of this prophecy is taken up in pointing at the sins and punishment of Israel; now the prophet is come to the main business he was sent to do:
because they sold the righteous for silver; meaning not any particular person, as Joseph sold by his brethren, for in that they were all concerned, Judah as well as the rest; nor Christ, as others (q), sold for thirty pieces of silver; since the persons here cha…
Amos 2:6
6. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
6. Sic dicit Jehova, Super tribus sceleribus Israel et super quatuor non convertam cum (vel, ad eum,) quia emerunt (vel, vendiderunt: quidam enim deducunt a krt, et putant m esse literam formalem nominis: alii autem deducunt a mkr quod est vendere vel mercari; sed sensus Prophetae eodem redit, quia intelligit quasi ad nundinationem expositos fuisse justos; ideoque proestabit vertere, pretium ipsorum; quasi diceret, commercium non secus ac de merce voenale fuisse habitum; quoniam ergo eme…
After this introduction, the prophet's address turns to Israel of the ten tribes, and in precisely the same form as in the case of the nations already mentioned, announces the judgment as irrevocable. At the same time, he gives a fuller description of the sins of Israel, condemning first of all the prevailing crimes of injustice and oppression, of shameless immorality and daring contempt of God (Amo 2:6-8); and secondly, its scornful contempt of the benefits conferred by the Lord (Amo 2:9-12), and threatening inevitable trouble in consequence (Amo 2:13-16). Amo 2:6. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they sell the righteous…
Israel: After leading the people through a litany of sins committed by Israel’s neighbors, Amos arrived at his real point: The Israelites would suffer a similar fate (cp. Nathan’s use of prophetic rhetoric to induce self-indictment, 2 Sam 12:1-13).
2:6 Honorable people are the “righteous,” those who enjoyed a right relationship with God and other people. The parallel with poor people creates the idea of the “righteous needy.” The law of Moses urged those who had much to help those in need by lending freely (Deut 15:7-11). As a last resort, those too poor to pay their debts could become bond servants to repay their debts through labor (Lev 25:39-43). These righteous needy were being sold int…
for selling an innocent man for money—The judges would sell the one who was innocent according to the law, with money; i.e, with the bribes they would receive from his opponent.
and a poor man in order to lock [the fields] Heb. נַעֲלָיִם. Jonathan renders in two places [here and below 8:6]: in order to inherit. And I say that this is its explanation. They pervert the judgment of the poor man so that he will be compelled to sell his field that he had between the fields of the judges, and this one seeks an opportunity and takes it for a cheap price in order to fence in and lock all his fields together, and it should not intervene between them.
