Amos 8:6
in Amos 8Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
KJV
That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
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This verse in Amos 8
Commentary
6 notes on this verseThat we may buy the poor for silver - Buying their services for such a time, with just money enough to clear them from other creditors. And the needy for a pair of shoes - See Amo 2:6. And sell the refuse of the wheat! - Selling bad wheat and damaged flour to poor people as good, knowing that such cannot afford to prosecute them.
This site's exposition
swallow up the needy
on Amos 8:4-6
The charge names merchants who resent even the new moon and the sabbath because trading stops on those days, counting the hours until they may sell corn and set forth wheat again, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, a triple fraud of measure, price and instrument at once. The bench reads buying the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes as debt slavery entered over a debt too small to matter, echoing 2:6, and selling the refuse of the wheat as cheating even the beggar who takes what the market rejects.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
(V. 4, seqq.) Listen to this, you who crush the poor and make the needy of the earth fail, saying: When the month passes, we will sell our goods, and on the Sabbath, we will open the granary to decrease the measure and increase the weight; we will use deceitful scales to possess the poor in silver and sell the refuse of wheat.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
And when these poor owed but for a very little commodity, as suppose a pair of shoes, these merciless men would take the advantage against them, and make them sell themselves to pay the debt. The refuse - This was another kind of oppression, corrupted wares, sold to those that were necessitous.
That we may buy the poor for silver,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
That we may buy - Or, indignantly, “To buy the poor!” literally, “the afflicted,” those in “low” estate. First, by dishonesty and oppression they gained their lands and goods. Then the poor were obliged to sell themselves. The slight price, for which a man was sold, showed the more contempt for “the image of God.” Before, he said, “the needy” were “sold for a pair of sandals” Amo 2:6; here, that they were bought for them. It seems then the more likely that such was a real price for man. And sell the refuse - Literally, the “falling of wheat,” that is, what fell through the sieve, either the bran, or the thin, unfilled, grains which had no meal in them. This they mixed up largely with the meal, making a gain of that which they had once sifted out as worthless; or else, in a time of dearth, they sold to people what was the food of animals, and made a profit on it. Infancy and inexperience of cupidity, which adulterated its bread only with bran, or sold to the poor only what, although unnourishing, was wholesome! But then, with the multiplied hard-dealing, what manifoldness of the woe!
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| לִקְנ֤וֹת | liknot | to buy | H7069 → | |
| בַּכֶּ֙סֶף֙ | bakesef | for <the> silver | H3701 → | |
| דַּלִּ֔ים | dalim | poor [people] | H1800 → | 47 times |
| וְאֶבְי֖וֹן | veevyon | and [the] needy | H34 → | 61 times |
| בַּעֲב֣וּר | baavur | forsake of | H5668 → | |
| נַעֲלָ֑יִם | naalayim | a pair of sandals | H5275 → | |
| וּמַפַּ֥ל | umapal | and refuse of | H4651 → | |
| בַּ֖ר | bar | grain | H1250 → | 14 times |
| נַשְׁבִּֽיר׃ | nashbir | we will sell grain | H7666 → |
לִקְנ֤וֹתto buy
liknotH7069 →
בַּכֶּ֙סֶף֙for <the> silver
bakesefH3701 →
דַּלִּ֔יםpoor [people]
dalimH1800 →47 times
וְאֶבְי֖וֹןand [the] needy
veevyonH34 →61 times
בַּעֲב֣וּרforsake of
baavurH5668 →
נַעֲלָ֑יִםa pair of sandals
naalayimH5275 →
וּמַפַּ֥לand refuse of
umapalH4651 →
בַּ֖רgrain
barH1250 →14 times
נַשְׁבִּֽיר׃we will sell grain
nashbirH7666 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Amos 8:4Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,
it leads to
- Proverbs 30:14
there is a generation whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are knives, devouring the oppressed from the earth and the needy from among men.
- Psalms 14:4
Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon the LORD.
- Amos 5:11
Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the…
- Isaiah 32:6–7
For a fool speaks foolishness; his mind plots iniquity. He practices ungodliness and speaks falsely about the LORD; he leaves the hungry empty and deprives the thirsty of drink.
- Proverbs 30:14
Through
Amos 2:6This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
it leads to
- Joel 3:3
They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
- Joel 3:3
Through
Joel 3:3They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
it leads to
- Nahum 3:10
Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in…
- Amos 2:6
This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
- Obadiah 1:11
On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them.
- Nahum 3:10
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Amos
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, Commentary on Amos; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.