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From: Amos 8:4-6, 9-12

Exploiters denounced

[4] Hear this, you who trample upon the needy,
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
[5] saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
[6] that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the refuse of the wheat?”

A day of judgment

[9]”And on that day.” says the Lord God
“I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
[10] I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth upon all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.

[11] “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
[12] They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.

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Commentary:

8:1-14. The fourth vision, that of the ripe fruit (vv. 13), introduces a denunciation
of injustices (vv. 4-8) and a further description of the “day of the Lord” (vv. 9-14).
The three things are interconnected. In the vision, the prophet plays with the
words (v. 2) “summer fruit”, qayits, and “end”, qets (see notes q and r). In this
way he is saying that Israel’s rottenness has run its course (vv. 4-8); nothing
can be done about it now — nothing but wait for the day of the Lord’s judgment
(vv. 9-14).

In his denunciation of injustices, Amos mentions, specifically, fraud (v. 5) and
exploitation of others when they are suffering need (v. 6). Church catechesis
uses this and other passages (cf. Deut 24:14-15; 25:13-16; Jas 5:4) to spell
out what the virtue of justice involves: “We should not dedicate our lives to the
accumulation of money and wealth when there are so many others who strug-
gle to survive in abject poverty; thus shall we heed the warning contained in the
words of the prophet Amos: Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and
bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
that we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale” (St
Gregory Nazianzen, De pauperum amore [Oratio, 14], 24).

The end of the passage (vv. 9-14) contains the second description of the “day
of the Lord” (cf. 5:18-20). The darkness motif in the earlier oracle is developed
here by reference to an eclipse (v. 9), but the prophet also brings in other themes
— lamentation and pain (v. 10), weakness in those who should be strong (v. 13),
and, particularly, the fruitless search for the word of God (vv. 11-12). It will be a
terrible day, when no one can draw benefit from the word of God. Maybe for this
reason, the fourth petition of the Our Father (”Give us this day our daily bread”)
includes a reference to the bread of the Word of God: “There is a famine on
earth, ‘not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of
the Lord’ (Amos 8:11). For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this
fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life — the Word of God accepted in faith,
the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist (cf. Jn 6:26-58)” (Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 2835).

Following the example of Jesus and the apostles, the Fathers often try to find
in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament things that are later borne out
in the life of Christ. Verses 9-10, it has been suggested, prophesy the death of
Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem that he foretold (cf. Mt 24:2 and par.):
“Some prophesied that there would come to Jerusalem a man, scorned and
without glory and acquainted with suffering (cf. Is 53:3), seated on the colt of
an ass (cf. Zech 9:9); he would offer his back to the lash and his cheeks to
their blows, and be led like a lamb to the slaughter (cf. Is 53:7). They would
give him gall and vinegar to drink (cf. Ps 68:21); all his friends and allies would
forsake him; and he would spread out his hands all the day (cf. Is 65:2), and be
jeered and mocked by the crowd, who divide out his clothes among themselves
and for his vestments cast lots; he would be crushed into the dust of death (cf.
Ps 21:6-7). Thus was it foretold: how He was made flesh, and journeyed to Je-
rusalem, and suffered his passion, crucified and subjected to the cruelest tor-
tures that men could devise (...). But Amos’ words, ‘And on that day,’ says the
Lord God, ‘I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad
daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamenta-
tion’ (Amos 8:9-10), is a clear prophecy of two things: the setting of the sun in
the sixth hour, when the Lord was hanging from the cross; and that the feast
days the people celebrate according to the Law and the songs they sang would
become days of lamentation and mourning dirges when they are handed over to
the Gentiles” (St Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, 4, 33, 12).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.