John Calvin Commentary Amos 8:6

"that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?" — Amos 8:6 (ASV)

Here he still speaks of the avarice of the rich, who in times of scarcity kept the poor in subjection to themselves and reduced them to slavery. He had spoken before of the Sabbaths and of deceitful balances; he now adds another kind of fraud: that by selling the refuse of wheat, they bought the poor for themselves.

Indeed, we know the influence of poverty and pressing need when men are oppressed by famine. They would a hundred times rather sell their lives than fail to rescue themselves, even by means of an invaluable price. For what else is food but the support of life? Therefore, men will always value their lives more than all other things.

Hence, the Prophet condemns this iniquity: that the rich eagerly awaited such an opportunity. They saw that grain was high in price; "Now is the time," they reasoned, "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: they sold the refuse of the wheat. And when they reduced the poor to bondage, they did not feed them; they mixed filth and waste with the wheat, as is customarily done.

For we know that such robbers usually do this when need presses upon the common people: they sell barley for wheat, and for barley, they sell chaff and refuse. This kind of wrongdoing is not new or unusual, as we learn from this passage. Now follows a denunciation of punishment: