Buying the Poor with Silver
Amos 8: 1-12
I have always loved cartoons. As I’ve gotten older, I call it animation because that sounds fancier, but they’re still cartoons. If you’ve ever watched older cartoons, like Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes, there was a common trope in it where a character was facing a moral decision. An angel would appear on one shoulder telling the character to do the right thing, and the other shoulder would be a devil telling the character to do the wrong thing. It was a visual representation of the character’s conscience. In many ways the prophets are the collective conscience of the people, with his words being whispered (or shouted) into their ears, begging them to do the right thing and warning them what will happen if they do not.
Today the prophet Amos is sitting on Israel’s shoulders begging them to turn away from sin or the consequences will be devastating. And just what is Israel’s sin? It’s not worshipping other gods. It’s not intermarrying non-Israelites. It’s not a lot of things we think of as sin…lying, sexual immorality, or physically harming another. It’s not even anything found in the Ten Commandments. Israel’s sin is economic sin.
In Amos 8:1–12, God exposes the economic sins of Israel. The people were outwardly religious, but their business practices revealed their inner lives. They couldn’t wait for the Sabbath to end so they could cheat the scales, inflate prices, and exploit the vulnerable for profit. The poor were treated not as people, but as commodities—“buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” (v. 6).
As a result, God was displeased with the people and sent Amos to warn them of the consequences of their mistreatment of the poor. God would send a famine, but not a famine of fruit or water. It would be a famine of God’s word. The people will wander, searching for God’s word but it would not be found.
This passage reminds us that God takes economic injustice seriously. Exploiting the poor, manipulating systems for selfish gain, and valuing profit over people are not just social issues—they are spiritual ones. Economic sin is a form of idolatry, where greed replaces God and power becomes a false altar. This isn’t the last time that we would hear these warnings. Throughout the Bible, we are reminded that God is displeased when we exploit and abuse the needy. Proverbs 14:31 tells us, “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him.”
Today, we’re called to live differently—to reflect God’s heart for the poor in how we earn, spend, give, and treat others. What are some ways that we displease God in our economic lives and what are some ways that we honor God through our treatment of the needy?
Prayer:
God of justice, open our eyes to the ways we may participate in economic injustice—knowingly or unknowingly. Give us courage to stand for fairness and compassion in a world that often chooses profit over people. Let Your Word shape our wallets as much as our worship. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Rev. Dana Ezell
