weights and measures

Good morning friends,
Undeterred by the priest's discouragement or his report to the king about Amos's preaching, Amos keeps sharing God's message. This is an odd vision because it's not at all obvious what a basket of summer fruit has to do with anything. As it turns out this vision is a play on words because the word for "summer fruit" and the word for "end" are similar in Hebrew (that's an insight from the study Bible, not my memory of Hebrew vocabulary). We can expect that Amos's vision of the end is going to be disturbing, and indeed it is.

We also hear more threats against those who take advantage of the poor. In this case the focus is on dishonest business practices. An ephah is a volume measure for grain or other things and a shekel is a weigh measure for money, so when you read this passage imagine a merchant in the market selling grain using falsely small baskets for their product and weighing their customers' money against a falsely balanced scale. Fair business practices are a matter of religious law as well as business ethics, and the Torah speaks specifically against dishonest weights and measures. Of course Israel's law as a nation was given by God, so there's not really a distinction between religious and secular law. On a broader level, the way we approach our daily lives, from work to shopping is part of how we live and express our faith.

Blessings,
Sam


Amos 8:1-14
This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit. 2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. 3The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” says the Lord God; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!”

4Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, 5saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, 6buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” 7The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt? 9On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on 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.

11The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. 12They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. 13In that day the beautiful young women and the young men shall faint for thirst. 14Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria, and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,” and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”— they shall fall, and never rise again.