That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; [yea], and sell the refuse of the wheat?
Ver. 6. That we may buy the poor for silver, &c.] Thus the poor always pay for it; the modest and mild poor especially, as Amos 8:4. Hence poor and afflicted are put for one and the same, Zephaniah 3:12, and to want and to be abased, Philippians 4:12; they that want shall be sure to be abased and abused by the wretched rich, who will ever go over the hedge where it is lowest, and catch the poor by drawing him into the nets, Psalms 10:9, that is, into their debts, bonds, and mortgages, and at length making such their bondmen by abuse of that permission, Leviticus 25:39. See Amos 2:3 .
Yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?] Quisqnilias, the husks, more fit for pigs or poultry; hardly man's meat, and yet held good enough for the poor (deciduum, purgamenta, the offal); although their flesh was as the flesh of their brethren, and their children as their children, Nehemiah 5:5, however they used them. How far were these rich wretches from considering the poor, as David's blessed man, Psalms 41:1, and as Dr Taylor the martyr did, whose custom was once in a fortnight at least to go to poor men's houses, look into their cupboards, see how they fared, and what they lacked, that he might either make or procure them a supply from such as were better able.