Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
so consider thy judgments while at a distance, that we may not provoke thy wrath by our perverseness, but rather dispose thee to pardon by striving to be reconciled to thee in the name of Christ thy Son, and by doing this not only with the mouth and tongue, or by any other outward means, but also with a real feeling of heart and a life corresponding thereto, so that we may present ourselves in uprightness and sincerity, as thy children, that thou mayest also show thyself as a Father to us in the same Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Lecture Sixty-sixth
In my last Lecture I was under the necessity of breaking off the subject: the sixth verse, with the two preceding ones, must be connected together. The Prophet says
Amos 8:6
6. That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
6. Ut emamus argento pauperes et inopem pro calceamentis, et quisquilias frumenti vendamus.
Here still he speaks of the avarice of the rich, who in time of scarcity held the poor subject to themselves and reduced them to slavery. He had spoken before of the Sabbaths, and he had spoken of deceitful balances; he now adds another kind of fraud, --- that by selling the refuse of wheat, they bought for themselves the poor.
We indeed know what is the influence of poverty and pressing want, when men are oppressed with famine; they would rather a hundred times sell their life, than not to rescue themselves even by an invaluable price: for what else is food but the support of life? Men therefore will ever value their life more than all other things. Hence the Prophet condemns this iniquity --- that the rich gaped for such an opportunity.
They saw that corn was high in price; ``Now is the time for the poor to come into our possession, for we hold them as though they were ensnared; so then we can buy them for a pair of shoes.'' But the other circumstance increases this iniquity, --- that they sold the refuse of the wheat; and when they reduced to bondage the poor, they did not feed them; they mingled filth and offscourings with the wheat, as it is wont to be done; for we know that such robbers usually do this, when want presses upon the common people; they sell barley for wheat, and for barley they sell chaff and refuse. This kind of wrong is not new or unusual, as we learn from this passage.
Now follows a denunciation of punishment ---
Amos 8:7
7. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
7. Juravit Jehova per excellentiam Jacob, Si obliviscar unquam omnia opera eorum.
God, having made known the vices of the rich, now shows that he would be their judge and avenger: for were they only reproved, they would not have cared much, like the usurer mentioned by Horace, who said, ``The people may hiss me, but I felicitate myself.'' So also these robbers were wont to do, when they were filled: though the whole people exclaimed against them, though God thundered from heaven, they laughed everything to scorn; for they were utterly destitute of every shame; and they