Amos 2:6 Kommentar

In this chapter, I. God, by the prophet, proceeds in a like controversy with Moab as before with other nations (Amo 2:1-3). II. He shows what quarrel he had with Judah (Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5). III. He at length begins his charge against Israel, to which all that goes before is but an introduction. Observe, 1. The sins they are charged with - injustice, oppression, whoredom (Amo 2:6-8). 2. The aggravations of those sins - the temporal and spiritual mercies God had bestowed upon them, for which they had made him such ungrateful returns (Amo 2:9-12). 3. God's complaint of them for their sins (Amo 2:13) and his threatenings of their ruin, and their utter inability to prevent it (Amo 2:14-16).

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 2 In this chapter the prophet foretells the calamities that should come upon the Moabites for their transgressions, Amo 2:1; and the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for their iniquities, Amo 2:4; also the judgments of God that should come upon Israel the ten tribes for their sins, which sins are enumerated; their oppression of the poor, their lewdness and idolatry, Amo 2:6; and which are aggravated by the blessings of goodness bestowed upon them, both temporal and spiritual, Amo 2:9; wherefore they are threatened with ruin, which would be inevitable, notwithstanding their swiftness, strength, and courage, and their skill in shooting arrows, and riding horses, Amo 2:13.

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 charged with it, and the times in which it was done, will not agree with that case; but the sense is, that the judges of Israel were so corrupt, that for a piece of money they would give a cause against a righteous man, and in favour of an unjust man that bribed them: and the poor for a pair of shoes; that is, for a mere trifle they would pervert justice; if two men came before them with a cause, and both poor; yet if one could but give a pair of shoes, or anything he could part with, though he could not give money; so mean and sordid were they, they would take it, and give the cause for him, however unjust it was. (q) Vid. Galatin. Cathol. Ver. Arcan. l. 4. c. 24.

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.”

(Vers. 6 seqq.) Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke my word: Because they sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth, and they force the lowly off the path. Son and father go to the same prostitute, profaning my holy name. Upon garments taken in pledge, they recline beside every altar; and the wine of those who have been fined, they drink in the house of their God. LXX: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away from them: because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They trample on the dust of the earth and crush the heads of the poor. They turn aside the way of the humble, and a man and his father go in to the same maiden to profane my holy name. They tie themselves to altars with cords and drink wine obtained through fraud in the house of their God. Therefore, he places the last of Israel, that is, the ten tribes, because we have foretold in writing nearly everything that follows in order to include the prophetic discourse of the book under one text. Therefore, first of all, their wickedness or impiety is in three or four crimes, namely, that they sold a man for money, and a just man, who is more admirable in this, that he was not overcome by poverty so as to do anything unjust: and indeed, if they had sold a poor just man compelled by the necessity of hunger for a price, there would be some excuse for the crime; but now they have sold the precious soul of a man for a most worthless thing, for shoes with which they trample on dust and dung. These people, according to the Septuagint, strike the head of the poor; according to the Hebrew, they crush the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth, and they are so filled with pride that they refuse to walk with other men. And so, not satisfied with this wicked deed, both the son and the father have violated together a young girl, in order to desecrate the holy name of God. Therefore, whatever is done shamefully is attributed to an injury against God, who says: Through you my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles (2 Peter 2:2). This is what the Apostle writes to the Corinthians: Indeed, fornication is heard among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, so that someone may have his father's wife. And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you (II Cor. V, 1, 2). It often happens that a father defiles his son's wife, the father-in-law defiles his daughter-in-law, which is prohibited in the Law: You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, and you shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law (Leviticus XVIII, 7). Therefore, the letter also has the greatest usefulness if it is preserved. And because every vice, if it exceeds the boundary of shame, punishes crimes with other crimes, and it always proceeds to worse things, even over the pledged garments, ten tribes slept next to every altar, which the Hebrews interpret as follows: On the garments of those who did not want to go to idols, and they reclined on what they had forcibly taken while feasting in the idol. According to the Septuagint, there was such contempt for God that they would stretch out their garments in which they sleep or commit fornication, with ropes next to the altar, and they would make παραπετάσματα, that is, veils, so that no one could see the fornicators in the Temple. And they would also serve drunkenness and lust, even buying the wine they drank not with their own labor, but with deceit. And they would do this in their god's temple, so that they would defile those whom they thought were gods with filth and debauchery. They speak these things and thus explain, those who follow a simple history. But we, who taught in Hosea, under the name of the Israelites, and Samaria, and Ephraim, and the sons of Joseph (from which tribe Jeroboam was, who separated the people from the kingdom of David and Jerusalem, and the temple of God), are understood to signify heretics: even now, after Judah and Jerusalem, which is interpreted as the Church, let us understand that the prophetic discourse is directed towards heretics, who sell a holy and righteous man, but poor, for money. A poor and just man, he is an ecclesiastic, who does not have knowledge of the Scriptures, but is content with simplicity, and does the commandments that are given, of whom it is written: The poor man does not endure threats (Prov. XIII, 8). And to the Galatians: Only that we should be mindful of the poor (Gal. II, 10). All heretics do these things for wealth, and for the shoes with which they trample on the dust of the earth: for they cannot stand with bare feet on the holy ground (on which Moses and Joshua the son of Nun stood, Exod. III; Josh. V): therefore the apostles are commanded to walk with bare feet (Luke X), so that they have no possessions or skins, which pertain to the flesh), thus they strike the poor on the head. And the Savior commanded his disciples that, if perchance, because they were still in the world, some mortal thing had clung to their actions, they should shake the dust off their feet (Matt. X, Mark V). But the heretics strike the heads of the poor, although this is not written in Hebrew (Let it be read in Greek), because they have turned away from the path of the humble. That path of the humble is the one that says: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John XIV, 6), which urges us to walk in it, and it says: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. XI, 28). But all the leaders of the heretics swell with pride, concerning whom the Apostle also speaks: 'Lest being puffed up he fall into the judgment of the devil' (1 Timothy 3:6), who says: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north' (Isaiah 14). Therefore, God resists the proud heretics, but gives grace to the humble ecclesiastics (James 4). Moreover, the son and the father entered unto a maiden, to violate and defile the holy name of God. We often read that our father is the Jewish people, as Paul says: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (I Cor. X, 1, 2). And in another place: Ask your fathers, and they will tell you; your elders, and they will declare to you (Deut. XXXII, 7). And again: For your fathers, sons are born to you (Psal. XLIV, 17). And the Church of the Gentiles speaks: The sons of my mother fought against me (Song of Songs 1:5). Therefore we are sons, and the father is the Jewish people. We sin and commit a crime, when we enter into the observation of the Sabbath and circumcision, abolishing the ceremonies of the law with our parent, to whom the Apostle says: Behold, I Paul say to you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing (Galatians 5:2, 4). And again: Those who are justified by the law have fallen from grace. Whoever enters the Church in such a way that he keeps the law in the gospel, he enters with the father to the virgin and commits fornication, and violates the name of the Lord. Hence those who say that they do not harm the Jews after the advent of Christ, if they believe in the Lord in such a way that they also keep the precepts of the Law, they contaminate the father and the son with one fornication. And they also tie their garments with ropes and make veils next to the altar, pretending the faith of Christ. For as many as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ (Galatians 3), and they oppose their garments, which have bound them with the cords of sins, to the eyes of those who see, so that their wicked deeds may not be seen: so that whoever looks at the altar may not suspect immorality. All heretics under the name of Christ do this, fornicating and obscuring the testimonies of the Scriptures with their errors and lies. Therefore, the apostles spread their garments on the colt of an ass, so that the Lord may sit more comfortably (Matthew 21), and he may trample the path adorned with the Law and the Prophets. On the contrary, heretics do not lay down their garments in the footsteps of the Savior; but they bind them next to the altar, and they pretend their sins, in order to drink the wine of deceit, or of the condemned, who, because they have departed from the Church, have been condemned. This wine is the wine of Sodom, the fury of dragons and adders, which whoever drinks it cannot be healed. But they drink the wine not in the house of God, where the temple is and Jerusalem; but in their own house of God, which they have fabricated for themselves with crafty speech.

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.

"They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals": They did not endure to speak rightly and justly, and to render for each of those being judged the justice that accords with the law. But if it happened that a man was righteous, sober and gentle, modest and unboastful; for such a one would be understood as both righteous and needy, or poor in spirit; being brought to judgment by one of the more powerful, this man is sold to his enemies, although the law clearly proclaimed, "You shall not take person in judgment;" and again, "You shall not slay the innocent and the just." For the one entrusted with judging is certainly established in the order of God, to whom alone judging is proper. "For there is one lawgiver and judge," according to the voice of the saint. Therefore, the one who falsifies the account of justice and shows partiality will certainly insult the divine dignity, and offends God who says, "Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every one to his brother." He accuses them, therefore, of selling the just and the needy to their enemies, and of being accustomed to doing this for the sake of a few and most worthless gains, which would scarcely suffice for those who received them for the purchase of sandals.

The prophet goes on to declare the judgments of God against Moab, Amo 2:1-3; against Judah, Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5; and then against Israel, the particular object of his mission. He enumerates some of their sins, Amo 2:6-8, aggravated by God's distinguishing regard to Israel, Amo 2:9-12; and they are in consequence threatened with dreadful punishments, Amo 2:13-16. See Kg2 15:19; Kg2 17:6.

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 bruise the head of the poor against the dust of the earth. Howsoever the clause is understood, it shows them to have been general oppressors of the poor, showing them neither justice nor mercy. 3. They turn aside the way of the meek. They are peculiarly oppressive to the weak and afflicted. 4. They were licentious to the uttermost abomination; for in their idol feasts, where young women prostituted themselves publicly in honor of Astarte, the father and son entered into impure connections with the same female. 5. They were cruel in their oppressions of the poor; for the garments or beds which the poor had pledged they retained contrary to the law, Exodus 22:7-26, which required that such things should be restored before the setting of the sun. 6. They punished the people by unjust and oppressive fines, and served their tables with wine bought by such fines. Or it may be understood of their appropriating to themselves that wine which was allowed to criminals to mitigate their sufferings in the article of death; which was the excess of inhumanity and cruelty.

CHARGES AGAINST MOAB, JUDAH, AND LASTLY ISRAEL, THE CHIEF SUBJECT OF AMOS' PROPHECIES. (Amos 2:1-16) burned . . . bones of . . . king of Edom into lime--When Jehoram of Israel, Jehoshaphat of Judah, and the king of Edom, combined against Mesha king of Moab, the latter failing in battle to break through to the king of Edom, took the oldest son of the latter and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall (Kg2 3:27) [MICHAELIS]. Thus, "king of Edom" is taken as the heir to the throne of Edom. But "his son" is rather the king of Moab's own son, whom the father offered to Molech [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 9.3]. Thus the reference here in Amos is not to that fact, but to the revenge which probably the king of Moab took on the king of Edom, when the forces of Israel and Judah had retired after their successful campaign against Moab, leaving Edom without allies. The Hebrew tradition is that Moab in revenge tore from their grave and burned the bones of the king of Edom, the ally of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, who was already buried. Probably the "burning of the bones" means, "he burned the king of Edom alive, reducing his very bones to lime" [MAURER].

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 these were so notorious that they could not deny them, before he proceeds to reprove their contempt of God, which they would have denied on the ground that they worshipped God in the form of the calves.

Moab. - Amo 2:1. "Thus saith Jehovah: for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it has burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime, Amo 2:2. I send fire into Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab will perish in the tumult, in the war-cry, in the trumpet-blast. Amo 2:3. And I cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and all its princes do I strangle with it, saith Jehovah." The burning of the bones of the king of Edom is not burning while he was still alive, but the burning of the corpse into lime, i.e., so completely that the bones turned into powder like lime (D. Kimchi), to cool his wrath still further upon the dead man (cf. Kg2 23:16). This is the only thing blamed, not his having put him to death. No record has been preserved of this event in the historical books of the Old Testament; but it was no doubt connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom; so that the Jewish tradition found in Jerome, viz., that after this war the Moabites dug up the bones of the king of Edom from the grace, and heaped insults upon them by burning them to ashes, is apparently not without foundation. As Amos in the case of all the other nations has mentioned only crimes that were committed against the covenant nation, the one with which the Moabites are charged must have been in some way associated with either Israel or Judah, that is to say, it must have been committed upon a king of Edom, who was a vassal of Judah, and therefore not very long after this war, since the Edomites shook off their dependence upon Judah in less than ten years from that time (Kg2 8:20). As a punishment for this, Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and Keriyoth with its palaces to be burned down. הקּריּות is not an appellative noun (τῶν πόλεων αὐτῆς, lxx), but a proper name of one of the chief cities of Moab (cf. Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41), the ruins of which have been discovered by Burckhardt (Syr. p. 630) and Seetzen (ii. p. 342, cf. iv. p. 384) in the decayed town of Kereyat or Krrit. The application of the term מת to Moab is to be explained on the supposition that the nation is personified. שׁאון signifies war tumult, and בּתרוּעה is explained as in Amo 1:14 by בּקול שׁופר, blast of the trumpets, the signal for the assault or for the commencement of the battle. The judge with all the princes shall be cut off miqqirbâh, i.e., out of the land of Moab. The feminine suffix refers to Moab as a land or kingdom, and not to Keriyoth. From the fact that the shōphēt is mentioned instead of the king, it has been concluded by some that Moab had no king at that time, but had only a shōphēt as its ruler; and they have sought to account for this on the ground that Moab was at that time subject to the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hitzig and Ewald). But there is no notice in the history of anything of the kind, and it cannot possibly be inferred from the fact that Jeroboam restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom as far as the Dead Sea (Kg2 14:25). Shōphēt is analogous to tōmēkh shēbhet in Amo 1:5, and is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the מלך, who is so called in the threat against Ammon, and simply used for the sake of variety. The threatening prophecies concerning all the nations and kingdoms mentioned from Amo 1:6 onwards were fulfilled by the Chaldeans, who conquered all these kingdoms, and carried the people themselves into captivity. For fuller remarks upon this point, see at Jeremiah 48 and Eze 25:8.

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 for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes. Amo 2:7. They who pant after dust of the earth upon the head of the poor, and bend the way of the meek: and a man and his father go to the same girl, to desecrate my holy name. Amo 2:8. And they stretch themselves upon pawned clothes by every altar, and they drink the wine of the punished in the house of their God." The prophet condemns four kinds of crimes. The first is unjust treatment, or condemnation of the innocent in their administration of justice. Selling the righteous for silver, i.e., for money, refers to the judges, who were bribed to punish a man as guilty of the crime of which he was accused, when he was really tsaddı̄q, i.e., righteous in a judicial, not in a moral sense, or innocent of any punishable crime. Bakkeseph, for money, i.e., either to obtain money, or for the money which they had already received, viz., from the accuser, for condemning the innocent. בּעבוּר, on account of, is not synonymous with ב pretii; for they did not sell the poor man merely to get a pair of sandals for him, as the worst possible slave was certainly worth much more than this (cf. Exo 21:32); but the poor debtor who could not pay for a pair of shoes, i.e., for the merest trifle, the judge would give up to the creditor for a salve, on the strength of the law in Lev 25:39 (cf. Kg2 4:1). As a second crime, Amos reproves in v. 7a their thirst for the oppression of the quiet in the land. דּלּים, ταπεινοί, and ענוים, πραεῖς. The address is carried on in participles, in the form of lively appeal, instead of quiet description, as is frequently the case in Amos (cf. Amo 5:7; Amo 6:3., 13, Amo 8:14), and also in other books (cf. Isa 40:22, Isa 40:26; Psa 19:11). In the present instance, the article before the participle points back to the suffix in מכרם, and the finite verb is not introduced till the second clause. שׁאף, to gasp, to pant, to long eagerly for earth-dust upon the head of the poor, i.e., to long to see the head of the poor covered with earth or dust, or to bring them into such a state of misery, that they scatter dust upon their head (cf. Job 2:12; Sa2 1:2). The explanation given by Hitzig is too far-fetched and unnatural, viz., that they grudge the man in distress even the handful of dust that he has strewn upon his head, and avariciously long for it themselves. To bend the way of the meek, i.e., to bring them into a trap, or cast them headlong into destruction by impediments and stumblingblocks laid in their path. The way is the way of life, their outward course. The idea that the way refers to the judgment or legal process is too contracted. The third crime is their profanation of the name of God by shameless immorality (Amo 2:7); and the fourth, desecration of the sanctuary by drinking carousals (Amo 2:8). A man and his father, i.e., both son and father, go to the girl, i.e., to the prostitute. The meaning is, to one and the same girl; but 'achath is omitted, to preclude all possible misunderstanding, as though going to different prostitutes was allowed. This sin was tantamount to incest, which, according to the law, was to be punished with death (cf. Lev 18:7, Lev 18:15, and Lev 20:11). Temple girls (qedēshōth) are not to be thought of here. The profanation of the name of God by such conduct as this does not indicate prostitution in the temple itself, such as was required by the licentious worship of Baal and Asherah (Ewald, Maurer, etc.), but consisted in a daring contempt of the commandments of God, as the original passage (Lev 22:32) from which Amos took the words clearly shows (cf. Jer 34:16). By lema‛an, in order that (not "so that"), the profanation of the holy name of God is represented as intentional, to bring out the daring character of the sin, and to show that it did not arise from weakness or ignorance, but was practised with studious contempt of the holy God. Begâdı̄m chăbhulı̄m, pawned clothes, i.e., upper garments, consisting of a large square piece of cloth, which was wrapt all around, and served the poor for a counterpane as well. If a poor man was obliged to pawn his upper garment, it was to be returned to him before night came on (Exo 22:25), and a garment so pawned was not to be slept upon (Deu 24:12-13). But godless usurers kept such pledges, and used them as cloths upon which they stretched their limbs at feasts (yattū, hiphil, to stretch out, sc. the body or its limbs); and this they did by every altar, at sacrificial meals, without standing in awe of God. It is very evident that Amos is speaking of sacrificial feasting, from the reference in the second clause of the verse to the drinking of wine in the house of God. עמוּשׁים, punished in money, i.e., fined. Wine of the punished is wine purchased by the produce of the fines. Here again the emphasis rests upon the fact, that such drinking carousals were held in the house of God. 'Elōhēhem, not their gods (idols), but their God; for Amos had in his mind the sacred places at Bethel and Dan, in which the Israelites worshipped Jehovah as their God under the symbol of an ox (calf). The expression col-mizbēăch (every altar) is not at variance with this; for even if col pointed to a plurality of altars, these altars were still bāmōth, dedicated to Jehovah. If the prophet had also meant to condemn actual idolatry, i.e., the worship of heathen deities, he would have expressed this more clearly; to say nothing of the fact, that in the time of Jeroboam II there was no heathenish idolatry in the kingdom of the ten tribes, or, at any rate, it was not publicly maintained.