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Amos

About this book
Chapter 8

1 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.⁠ 3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!” 4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy and do away with the destitute in the land. 5 You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins?⁠ We’re eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!⁠ 6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandals for the needy. We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” 7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob: “I swear I will never forget all you have done! 8 Because of this the earth will quake, and all who live in it will mourn. The whole earth will rise like the Nile River; it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt. 9 In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. 10 I will turn your festivals into funerals and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. 11 Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation. 12 People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a message from the Lord, but they will not find any.⁠ 13 In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst. 14 These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria. They vow, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!’ But they will fall down and not get up again.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Amos 8:5 and Proverbs 11:1

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Proverbs 11 condemns dishonest scales and praises accurate weights, reflecting an ethic of fair trade based on ancient Near Eastern traditions. Amos applies this principle to his own time, accusing merchants of manipulating their scales.

Passages

Amos 8:5

Hebrew Bible
3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!” 4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy and do away with the destitute in the land. 5 You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We’re eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales! 6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandals for the needy. We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” 7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob: “I swear I will never forget all you have done!
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

Proverbs 11:1

Hebrew Bible
1 The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but an accurate weight is his delight. 2 After pride came, disgrace followed; but wisdom came with humility. 3 The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Proverbs

References

"... Adulteration of products was a problem even in ancient times as can be seen from Isaiah’s criticism (1:22) of the Israelites: 'Your silver has become dross, your wine diluted with water.' According to most commentaries, this is not a metaphor but refers to actual deceptive practices in ancient Judah and Jerusalem that angered the Lord. Merchants were prohibited from falsifying weights and measures by the Torah or even owning a dishonest weight (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-15). The prophet Amos (8:5) reproached the Jews for 'making the ephah (a dry measure) smaller and the shekel larger and falsifying the scales of deceit.' After all, 'Deceitful scales are an abomination of the Lord' (Proverbs 11:1). In fact, any deception or dishonest business practice is 'an abomination unto the Lord, your God' (Deuteronomy 25:16). To ensure honest weights and measures, the Talmud (T. Bava Bathra 88a) required merchants to wipe their weights once a week and clean their scales after every weighing. Market commissioners were appointed to ensure that businesses used honest weights and measures (T. Bava Bathra 89a). Vendors were prohibited from rapidly pouring liquids from great heights (T. Bava Bathra 89b), which was done by retailers to generate foam thereby ensuring that the customer would end up with less product ..."
Hershey H. Friedman, “The Impact of Jewish Values on Marketing and Business Practices,” Journal of Macromarketing 21.1 (2001): 74–80.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Amos 8:5 and Proverbs 11:1

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