Tafsiran Amos 2:6: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Radak

“Thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Israel” [2:6]. Thus says the Lord about three transgressions of Israel and about the fourth, I will not respond.

“Because they sold the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” [2:6]. When a poor person comes to them for judgment, they completely follow the rich person and the poor person must lose the judgment. If the poor person has his field among those of the judges, he must sell his field because he has lost the judgment and must pay the rich person his money that judged against him immediately. The judge comes to the poor person. I will give you money for the field. He must sell the field to the judge for a small sum of money. The judge had long coveted the field. He wanted to merge this field with his adjoining field and could not legally join the poor man’s field to his own. Therefore, he ruled falsely against the poor man so that he would have to sell his field. This is also the meaning of “for sandals.” That is to say, the impoverished person must sell his field, because the judge wanted to join his field to that of the poor man properly. The proper meaning of “Sandals” is that he should properly purchase the field from the poor person. Now the poor person has to properly convey the property.¹Rashi, Amos, 2:6.

for selling an innocent man for money—The judges would sell the one who was innocent according to the law, with money; i.e, with the bribes they would receive from his opponent.

and a poor man in order to lock [the fields] Heb. נַעֲלָיִם. Jonathan renders in two places [here and below 8:6]: in order to inherit. And I say that this is its explanation. They pervert the judgment of the poor man so that he will be compelled to sell his field that he had between the fields of the judges, and this one seeks an opportunity and takes it for a cheap price in order to fence in and lock all his fields together, and it should not intervene between them.