Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 8:4

"Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail," — Amos 8:4 (ASV)

Hear this, you who swallow— Or, better in the same sense, that pant for the needy; as Job says, the hireling pants for the evening (Job 7:2). They “panted for the poor,” as the wild beast for its prey; and that to make the poor, or (better, as the Hebrew text) the meek (those not only poor, but who, through poverty and affliction, are also “poor in spirit”), to fail. The land being divided among all the inhabitants, they, in order to lay field to field (Isaiah 5:8), had to rid themselves of the poor. They did rid themselves of them by oppression of all sorts.