Amos 8:6

Yea - Yes; certainly.

That we may buy the poor for silver - Buying their services for such a time, with just money enough to clear them from other creditors.

And the needy for a pair of shoes - See Amos 2:6.

And sell the refuse of the wheat! - Selling bad wheat and damaged flour to poor people as good, knowing that such cannot afford to prosecute them.

That we may buy - Or, indignantly, "To buy the poor!" literally, "the afflicted," those in "low" estate. First, by dishonesty and oppression they gained their lands and goods. Then the poor were obliged to sell themselves. The slight price, for which a man was sold, showed the more contempt for "the image of God." Before, he said, "the needy" were "sold for a pair of sandals" Amos 2:6; here, that they were bought for them. It seems then the more likely that such was a real price for man.

And sell the refuse - Literally, the "falling of wheat," that is, what fell through the sieve, either the bran, or the thin, unfilled, grains which had no meal in them. This they mixed up largely with the meal, making a gain of that which they had once sifted out as worthless; or else, in a time of dearth, they sold to people what was the food of animals, and made a profit on it. Infancy and inexperience of cupidity, which adulterated its bread only with bran, or sold to the poor only what, although unnourishing, was wholesome! But then, with the multiplied hard-dealing, what manifoldness of the woe!

8:6 That we may buy - They would have new moons and sabbaths over, that they might go to market to buy the poor. And when these poor owed but for a very little commodity, as suppose a pair of shoes, these merciless men would take the advantage against them, and make them sell themselves to pay the debt. The refuse - This was another kind of oppression, corrupted wares, sold to those that were necessitous.