Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 2:7

"they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father go unto the [same] maiden, to profane my holy name:" — Amos 2:7 (ASV)

That pant after the dust of the earth - Literally, “the panters!” with indignation. Not content with having torn from him the little hereditary property which belonged to each Israelite, these creditors grudged him even the “dust,” which, as a mourner, he sprinkled on his head (Job 2:12), since it too was “earth.” Covetousness, when it has nothing to feed it, craves for what is absurd or impossible. What was Naboth’s vineyard to a king of Israel with his “ivory palace?” What was Mordecai’s refusal to bow to one in honor like Haman? What a trivial gain to a millionaire? The sarcasm of the prophet was the more piercing, because it was so true. People covet things in proportion, not to their worth, but to their worthlessness. No one covets what he much needs.

Covetousness is the sin, mostly not of those who do not have, but of those who do. It grows with its gains, is less satisfied the more it has to satisfy it, and attests to its own unreasonableness by the uselessness of the things it craves.

And turn aside the way of the meek - So Solomon said, A wicked man takes a bribe out of the bosom, to pervert the ways of judgment (Proverbs 17:23). God had laid down the equality of man, made in His own image, and had forbidden favoring either the poor (Exodus 23:3) or the rich (Exodus 23:6).

Amos calls these by different names, which entitled them to human sympathy: “poor,” “depressed,” and “lowly.” They are “poor” in their absolute condition; “depressed,” as having been brought low; and “lowly,” as having the special grace of their state—the wonderful meekness and lowliness of the godly poor. But all these qualities are so many incentives for the ungodly to inflict injury. They hate the godly, as a reproach to them, because he is clean contrary to their doings, his life is not like other people’s; his ways are of another fashion (Wisdom; Amos 2:12; Amos 2:12, Amos 2:15). Wolves do not destroy wolves but sheep. Bad people do not circumvent the bad but the good.

Besides the ease of the gain, there is a devilish, fascinating pleasure for the wicked in overreaching the simple and meek, precisely because they are so.

They also love to “turn aside the way of the meek” by turning them from what is truly right and good, or from the truth, or again to thwart them in all their ways and endeavors by open injustice or by perverting justice. Every act of wrong prepares the way for the crowning act. So “the turning aside the way of the meek” foreshadowed and prepared for the unjust judgment of Him who was the Meek and Lowly One (Matthew 11:29); the selling of the righteous for a trifling sum prepared for the selling of the Holy One and the Just (Acts 3:14) for the thirty pieces of silver.

Conversely, whoever is truly wise cordially venerates the humble and abject, the poor and simple, and prefers them in his own heart to himself, knowing that God has chosen the poor, and the weak things of the world, and things despised, and things which are not (1 Corinthians 1:27–28), and that Christ has likened Himself to such, saying in the Psalm, I am poor and sorrowful (Psalms 69:29).

The same young woman - This is not expressly forbidden by the law, except in the case of marriage, the father being forbidden to marry his son’s widow, and the son to take his father’s widow as his wife (Leviticus 18:8; Leviticus 18:15). Abominations, unless they had become known to Israel in Egypt, were not expressly forbidden but were included in the one large prohibition, which, as our Lord explains, forbade every offense related to it. Israel must have understood the law this way, since Amos could rebuke them for this—which is not forbidden by the letter of the law—as a willful insult to the Majesty of God.

Reverence was due from the son to the father, and example from the father to the son. But now the father was an example of evil to the son, and the son sinned in a way that had no temptation except its irreverence. People, satiated with ordinary sin, seek incitement to sin in its very horrors. Probably this sin was committed in connection with their idol worship (see the note at Hosea 4:14). The sin of marrying the father’s widow was fornication not so much as named among the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 5:1); it was unknown, as seemingly legalizing what was so unnatural. Oppression of the poor, wronging the righteous, perverting the way of the meek, laid the soul open for any abomination.

To profane My Holy Name - that is, as it was called upon them, as the people of God. God had said, you shall keep My commandments and do them (Leviticus 22:31–32; Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 21:6). I am the Lord, and you shall not defile My Holy Name. For I will be sanctified among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

The sins of God’s people are a reproach to Himself. They bring Him, so to speak, into contact with sin. They defeat the object of His creation and revelation. He created man in His Image, to bear His likeness, to have one will with Himself. In effect, through sin, He has created rebels, deformed, unlike Him. So long as He bears with them, it seems as if He were indifferent to them.

Those to whom He has not revealed Himself must inevitably think that He takes no account of what He permits unnoticed. Israel, whom God had separated from the pagans, did, by mingling with the pagan and learning their works (Psalms 106:35), everything in their power to “profane” His “Holy Name.” They acted as if they had no other purpose than to defile it (see the note at Hosea 8:4).

Had such been their object, they could not have done it more effectively; they could not have done otherwise. In deliberate sin, people act, at last, in defiance of God, with the set purpose to dishonor Him. The Name of God has ever since been blasphemed on account of the sins of the Jews, as though it were impossible that God should have chosen for His own a people so laden with iniquities (Isaiah 1:4). Nathan’s words to David, You have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme (2 Samuel 12:14), have been fulfilled to this day.

How much more, Christians, who not only are called “the people of God” but bear the name of Christ incorporated in their own. Yet have we not known Muslims flee from our Christian capital in horror at its sins? “He lives like a Christian” is a proverb of the Polish Jews, drawn from the debased state of morals in Socinian Poland. The religion of Christ has no such enemies as Christians.

Dionysius: “As the devout by honoring God show that He is Holy, Great, Most High, who is obeyed in holiness, fear, and reverence, so the ungodly, by dishonoring God, exhibit God, as far as it is in their power, as if He were not holy. For they act as if evil were well-pleasing to Him and induce others to dishonor Him. Therefore the Apostle says, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you (Romans 2:24); and by Ezekiel the Lord often says, You have profaned My Holy Name. And I will sanctify My great Name which was profaned among the pagans, which you have profaned in the midst of them (Ezekiel 36:23). The devout then are said to ‘magnify,’ sanctify, ‘exalt God;’ the unrighteous to ‘profane (Ezekiel 13:19), despise, God.’”