Amos 8:4

Hear this Amos 3:1; Amos 4:1; Amos 5:1.

that pant after the needy i.e. who are eager to destroy them: the word has the same figurative sense in Psalms 56:1-2; Psalms 57:3; cf. also above Amos 2:7 (Jerome renders, as there, perhaps rightly, that crush).

and are for making [190] the poor of the land to cease] viz. by their eagerness to take every advantage, and to secure everything for themselves, as they might do, for instance, by exacting the labour of the poor without proper pay (Jeremiah 22:13; Micah 3:10), or by building large palaces, or amassing large estates (Isaiah 5:8; Micah 2:2), and so depriving their less fortunate neighbours of the means of livelihood, or compelling them to seek a home elsewhere, or even to sell themselves into slavery. In the present instance, however, their inconsiderate treatment of the poor took the form of commercial dishonesty, Amos 8:6.

[190] For the Heb. idiom employed, see the writer's Heb. Tenses, § 206; Davidson, Heb. Syntax, § 96 R. 4; or Ges.-Kautzsch (Exodus 25 or 26), § 114. 2 R. 5.