Thus saith Jehovah For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes;
Amos has just announced God's judgment on the nations around Israel, and then on Judah. Now the same words turn on Israel itself. The crime named is everyday injustice: a righteous man sold for silver, a poor man for the price of sandals.
One writer explains the numbers as evidence piled past the point of doubt:
In the first two chapters there are eight short announcements of judgment. They are introduced by the words "for three transgressions and for four." Three witnesses were enough testimony. Four is the cup running over, and the four quarters of the earth can testify to it.
The phrase means the case is closed. God will weigh nothing more, and nothing will hold the sentence back:
Then in each judgment prediction we find the phrase, "For three transgressions … and for four, I will not revoke the punishment." It means that the measure is full and that nothing can turn the judgment aside.
God's dealing does not stop with the nations. Judah and Israel fall under the same rule:
After this we come in Amos 2:4 to the solemn announcement that God must deal with Judah as with their Gentile neighbours. With God sin admits of no respect of persons any more than righteousness.
And privilege does not soften the verdict:
Israel had failed as a nation before God. The righteousness that punished the other nations would certainly not spare a more privileged people who bore His name.
Kelly sorts the sins of verses 6 to 8 into four kinds:
Last of all we come (verses 6-8) to Israel's transgressions. Here it seems there are four classes of wickedness. There is hard selfishness — the strictest legal right turned into the greatest wrong. There is greedy grinding down of the poor. There is unclean and profane living. And there is wild feasting in idol worship.
Darby traces the root to a heart that has stopped fearing God, not to a broken law. The victims are people God has His eye on:
In Israel the sin named has a character more independent of the law. It is connected with that turning away from the fear of God, which lets a man give way to the selfishness of his own heart and oppress those whom God cares for. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They care not for the sufferings of the poor.
Amos returns to this charge again and again. It runs far wider than one prophet:
All through the Word of God, God calls us to remember the poor in kindness, and He gives some most blessed promises to those who obey these gracious words. See Proverbs 14:21; 19:17; 22:9; 28:8, 27; Psalm 41:1. Oppression of the poor is a sin, which God specially marks. See Isaiah 3:14, 15; 10:2; Ezekiel 18:11-13; Amos 2:6, 4:1; 5:11; James 2:6. When the Lord comes He will remember the poor and deliver them.
Gaebelein sees the same pattern still at work:
Oppression of the poor, yes, the poor of their own people, is another characteristic of the Jewish people. The prophet Amos rebuked it in his day, when the poor were downtrodden and robbed by the rich. It is so today and will be so in the future. And the rich used the money they took from the poor to live in luxury and reckless pleasure. The spirit they showed in piling up treasure, oppressing the poor and needy, robbing them, and living in pleasure, is the same spirit that condemned and killed the Just One, the Lord Jesus Christ, who did not resist.
- Full measure. "Three… and for four" means the evidence is beyond dispute and the cup has run over. God announces that He will not turn back the sentence.
- Full impartiality. The same words that sentenced the surrounding nations fall on Israel, because with God sin meets no respect of persons.
- Full privilege, heavier account. The righteousness that punished the nations would not spare a people who bore God's name.
- Full record. Selling a righteous man for silver and a poor man for sandals comes from a heart that has lost the fear of God and oppresses the very people God watches over.
- Full reversal coming. Scripture says God marks the oppression of the poor. When the Lord comes, He will remember the poor and deliver them.
panting after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turning aside the way of the meek; and a man and his father will go in unto the [same] maid, to profane my holy name.
Amos has just passed sentence on Israel's neighbours. Now the same measure falls on Israel itself. The question is whether being God's people makes any difference to how God treats sin.
Kelly reads verses 6 to 8 as a list, not a blur. He sorts Israel's sins into four kinds, then sets them against God's past care for the nation.
Lastly we come (verses 6-8) to Israel's transgressions. Here there seem to be four kinds of wickedness: hard selfishness; greedy grinding of the poor; shameless immorality; and idol-worship with wild feasting. To shame them, the prophet sets before them the kind and faithful care of God, both in the land and, before that, in Egypt.
Trampling the poor is not just a social failure here. Darby traces it back to something lost inside, and shows that Amos returns to this charge again and again.
In Israel the sin named is less a matter of the law... It is tied to a departure from the fear of God. That departure lets a man give way to the selfishness of his own heart, and oppress the very people God cares about. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They do not care about the sufferings of the poor... This prophecy repeats the charge of despising the poor again and again (Amos 2:7; 4:1; 5:11; 8:6), and it is aimed especially at Israel.
The greed reached even the courts. Money taken as fines came back as wine for the men who imposed them.
The poor suffered because of their greed. They lived in unspeakable filth. They worshipped idols. The people whom the judges condemned paid their fines, and that money bought the judges wine for their pagan orgies.
Pushing a poor man's head into the dirt looks like nothing to the man doing it. Scripture says the sound of it reaches heaven.
Nothing can be more painful to a tender heart than the lack of kindly consideration for the poor, so often shown by the rich. They can sit down to a fine meal after turning away from their door some poor hard-working man who came for the just reward of his honest work. They do not think of the aching heart that man carries home to his family, when he tells them how he was let down, and they with him. Oh! it is terrible. It is most offensive to God, and to all who have drunk, in any measure, into His grace. Do we want to know what God thinks of such behaviour? Then listen to these words of holy indignation: "the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts" (James 5:4). "The Lord of hosts" hears the cry of the wronged and disappointed labourer.
The verse ends by tying the immorality of father and son directly to God's holy name. Outsiders judge God by the lives of the people who claim Him.
It all comes to a head in one solemn statement. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through the religious man. The Apostle is speaking of the Jew; but what he says is equally true of the professing Christian. The corruption and the degraded practice of people who claim the Christian name have been the main cause of the blasphemies of unbelievers. People would not have become Christians simply because Christians were consistent. But if Christians lived out what they claim, no one would have any reason to blaspheme God.
Some expect closeness to God to soften the sentence. Kelly says it does the opposite.
No corruption is as serious as the corruption of God's people. So His chastening matches it: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).
- Root. Cruelty to the poor is not first an economic problem. It grows out of a departure from the fear of God that leaves selfishness free to run.
- Fruit. The text lists what grows from that root: hard selfishness, grinding the poor, immorality, and idol-worship paid for with money taken from the ruined.
- Cry. The trampled man's grief does not go unheard. The Lord of hosts hears the cheated worker's cry, and answers such conduct with holy indignation.
- Name. Sin among God's people does not stay private. It reaches His name, and outsiders form their view of God from the lives of those who claim Him.
- Reckoning. Being known by God raises the standard instead of lowering it. No corruption is more serious than that of God's people, and His chastening matches it.
And they lay [themselves] down by every altar upon clothes taken in pledge, and they drink [in] the house of their God the wine of the condemned.
Amos has just named the crimes of the surrounding nations, and now he turns on Israel and points at their worship. The offence is not that they had stopped worshipping — it is what they carried in with them.
In this verse the garments were taken in pledge. A pledge was security a lender held against a loan.
People took articles as security for loans and similar debts from very early times. The law set restrictions on this, so that no one could take unfair advantage through it. Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:10-17; Job 22:6; Job 24:3, 9; Amos 2:8.
One writer paraphrases God's own reasoning behind one of those restrictions.
If a borrower gave his garment as security, the lender must not keep it even overnight. My righteous demands must in no way take precedence over proper compassion.
One writer traces the behaviour to its root, then points at where it happened.
The sin here comes from turning away from the fear of God. That lets a man give way to the selfishness of his own heart, and oppress those whom God cares about. They care nothing for the sufferings of the poor. Even at the altar itself — the altar that was at least supposed to be Jehovah's — they lie down on garments pledged through poverty. They make merry with the fines imposed for wrongdoing. … The charge of despising the poor comes up again and again in this prophecy (Amos 2:7; 4:1; 5:11; 8:6), and especially in connection with Israel.
The wine had a source. One writer traces it back to the courtroom.
Verses 6-8 describe their sins. The poor suffered through their greed. They lived in unspeakable vileness. They were idolatrous. The judges condemned people and took their fines, and that money bought the judges wine for their heathen revelry.
One writer sorts these charges into four kinds. He then shows what God set against them.
Lastly we come (verses 6-8) to Israel's transgressions. There seem to be four classes of wickedness here: hard selfishness, greedy grinding of the poor, shameless immorality and contempt for holy things, and idolatrous revelry. To shame them, the prophet sets before them the gracious and faithful care of God, in the land and before that in Egypt (9, 10). He sets before them God's choice of their sons to be prophets and Nazirites too. And what had they done? … Israel had failed as a nation before God. The righteousness that punished the other nations would surely not spare a more privileged people who bore His name.
(A Nazirite was an Israelite set apart to God by a vow.)
Israel was not alone in this. One writer finds the same conduct condemned outside Israel.
The first "Woe" is pronounced over the man who collects other people's possessions, goods that do not belong to him. He loads himself with a burden of goods that he pledges against interest. The same things had happened in Israel (Amos 2:6-8). … Such behaviour is something detestable in God's eyes. How much punishment could rulers spare themselves and their nations, if they saw how low such deeds are!
- Pledge. The garment was security for a loan. The law limited how long a lender could hold it, so no one could profit from a poor man's need.
- Compassion. A legal claim never outranks kindness. The cloak had to go back before nightfall.
- Altar. The sin was not neglected religion but corrupted religion. They stretched out at the altar itself, on garments they should have given back.
- Revelry. The judges condemned people, collected their fines, and drank wine bought with that money in the house of their God.
- Judgment. This is the last count of four. God answered it by naming all He had given them, and the righteousness that punished other nations would not spare a people who carried His name.