Amos 5:12 - Exposition

Your punishment is richly deserved, for "I know how many are your transgressions and how mighty are your sins," especially, as it follows, your sins of oppression and injustice. They afflict the just. The construction is continuous: "afflicters of the just." Hostes justi (Vulgate); καταπατοῦντες δίκαιον , "trampling down the just"; comp. Wis. 2:12-15. They take a bribe. The translation of kopher as "bribe" is justified, perhaps, by 1 Samuel 12:3 ; but the word is elsewhere used for "ransom," redemption money paid to escape the consequences of crime ( Proverbs 6:35 ), in direct opposition to the Law in Numbers 35:31 , which forbade any ransom to be taken for the life of a murderer. The Septuagint has, λαμβάνοντες ἀλλάγματα "taking wares;" the Vulgate (with which the Syriac agrees), accipientes munus . Turn aside the poor in the gate from their right; or, bow down the needy in the gate, i.e. in the place of judgment (see note on Numbers 35:10 ). Vulgate , pauperes deprimentes in porta ; Septuagint, πένητας ἐν πύλαις ἐκκλίνοντες , "turning aside the poor in the gates." The crime specified is that of wresting judgment in the case of the poor, or not giving the poor man justice unless he could pay for it (comp. Exodus 23:6 ; Deuteronomy 16:19 ).