Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 6:4

"that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;" — Amos 6:4 (ASV)

That lie upon beds (that is, sofas) of ivory - that is, probably inlaid with ivory. The word might, in itself, express either the bed, in which they slept by night, or the divan, on which people of the East lay at their meals; and stretch themselves, literally, “are poured” out, stretching their listless length, dissolved, unnerved, in luxury and sloth, upon their couches, perhaps under an awning: and eat the lambs, probably “fatted lambs” (Psalms 37:20; 1 Samuel 15:9; Jeremiah 51:40), out of the flock, chosen, selected out of it as the best, and calves out of the midst of the stall; that is, the place where they were tied up (as the word means) to be fatted. They were stall-fed, as we say, and these people had the best chosen for them.

“He shows how they draw near the seat of violence. They lay on beds or couches of ivory and expended on them the money with which their poor brethren were to be fed.

“Go now, I do not say into the houses of nobles, but into any house of any rich man, and see the gilded and worked couches, curtains woven of silk and gold, and walls covered with gold, while the poor of Christ are naked, shivering, shriveled with hunger. Yet it is stranger that while this is everywhere, scarcely anywhere is there anyone who now blames it. I say this now, for there were those who did so in former times.

“‘You array,’ Ambrose says, ‘walls with gold; you leave men bare. The naked cries out before your door and you neglect him; and you are careful with what marbles you clothe your pavement. The poor seeks money, and has it not; man asks for bread, and your horse champs gold. You delight in costly ornaments, while others do not have meal. What judgment you heap on yourself, you man of wealth! Miserable one, who have power to keep so many souls from death, and do not have the will! The jewel of your ring could maintain in life a whole population.’

“If such things are not to be blamed now, then neither were they formerly.”