The second chapter of Amos continues the series of prophecies concerning the nations, and now arrives at Israel themselves: first a prophecy concerning Moab, then Judah, and finally Israel - the Ten Tribes centered in Samaria. In this lesson we will examine the prophecy regarding Judah and the prophecy regarding Israel, seeing how the sin of Judah differs from the sin of Israel, the profound severity of selling an innocent person for silver and a destitute person for a pair of shoes, and how our Sages and commentators respond to those who sought to usurp and distort this verse.
כֹּה אָמַר יְהֹוָה, עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה פִּשְׁעֵי יְהוּדָה וְעַל אַרְבָּעָה לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ, עַל מׇאֳסָם אֶת תּוֹרַת יְהֹוָה וְחֻקָּיו לֹא שָׁמָרוּ, וַיַּתְעוּם כִּזְבֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר הָלְכוּ אֲבוֹתָם אַחֲרֵיהֶם. - Thus said the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four I will not revoke it: because they spurned the Torah of the Lord and did not keep His statutes, and their falsehoods, which their fathers followed, led them astray.
The verse emphasizes: their failure to observe His statutes did not stem merely from the evil inclination or from desires that overpowered them, but from an active spurning of the Torah. This is something terrible, for spurning points to heresy - to an intellectual stance asserting that there is no substance to the Torah. When a person transgresses out of impulse, we say that he acted from his heart and not from his mind; in his intellect he believes in the Torah, but his inclination overpowered him. However, when someone despises the Torah, the transgression resides within the intellect itself, which is far more severe, for heresy is far worse than a transgression driven by desire.
And what led them to this heresy? To this the verse responds: "And their falsehoods led them astray" - the corrupt notions they held regarding faith misled and deceived them; they were the root cause that brought them to error and heresy. Furthermore: "Which their fathers followed" - they continued down this path simply because their ancestors had done so. This is an additional factor in their error: a father and grandfather went astray, and the son follows blindly in their footsteps. In the same way, today one cannot take a child raised in a completely secular home and brand him as acting maliciously; he knows no better, doing only what his father accustomed and taught him to do, knowing nothing else. So too, they clung to their path because they followed the practices of their fathers, and it became entrenched among them from generation to generation.
Therefore Hashem declares that they will receive their punishment:
וְשִׁלַּחְתִּי אֵשׁ בִּיהוּדָה, וְאָכְלָה אַרְמְנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם. - And I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall consume the palaces of Jerusalem.
כֹּה אָמַר יְהֹוָה, עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה פִּשְׁעֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְעַל אַרְבָּעָה לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ, עַל מִכְרָם בַּכֶּסֶף צַדִּיק וְאֶבְיוֹן בַּעֲבוּר נַעֲלָיִם. - Thus said the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four I will not revoke it: because they sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes.
This is the haftarah for Parashat Vayeishev. Previously, the prophet spoke of the transgressions of Judah, and now he addresses the transgressions of Israel - Israel referring to Samaria, the Ten Tribes, whereas Judah refers to Judah and Benjamin. Now, although we are all familiar with the homiletic teachings connecting these verses to the sale of Joseph, as has often been pointed out, people frequently remember the derash and forget the peshat. Here, the plain meaning of the verses does not refer to Joseph at all, and none of the classical commentators here mention this. The idea appears in the Midrash, and it is true, and this too is true - there is no intention to diminish from the truth of those teachings; yet when studying Tanach, one must first understand the peshat of the verse, and only then add the derashot.
In truth, it is unlikely that the prophet is speaking here of an event that occurred centuries earlier in history; and in particular, why attribute it specifically to Israel - when Judah was ostensibly part of that sale as well? Therefore, while the derash certainly has its place and will be mentioned shortly, our primary duty is to understand the plain meaning of the text, and the plain meaning must always align with the context of the chapter and the subject matter. The prophet has come here to rebuke Israel for their own contemporary deeds.
The Radak explains: Even though they had violated the three cardinal sins - idolatry, illicit relations, and bloodshed - their final decree before Hashem to destroy their land and exile them at the hands of the king of Assyria was sealed only because of injustice (chamas): "Because they sold the righteous for silver, and the destitute for a pair of shoes." This is the fourth offense, and for it they are punished. This was also the case with the Generation of the Flood; although they had committed numerous sins, their punishment was decreed only for injustice, as it is said, "For the earth is filled with robbery through them." All the more so when this injustice is not merely among the common folk, but stems from the elites, the leadership, and the judges - those entrusted with the justice system, who instead take bribes and pervert judgment. The indictment against them is compounded many times over.
"Because they sold the righteous for silver" - "righteous" (tzaddik) refers to someone who is innocent in his legal case, a person whose claim is just according to the law. They would accept money and sell him out: tilting the verdict in favor of the litigant who paid them. Selling the righteous for silver means that they took bribes and sold out the innocent litigant in exchange for the money they received; they are called "righteous" because their claims were truthful and just.
"And the destitute for a pair of shoes" - is the destitute person necessarily in the right? It could well be that he happens to be in the wrong in this particular lawsuit. Rather, the Radak explains: the poor, for the most part, claim nothing but the truth. The wealthy are often more scheming, having acquired their wealth through all sorts of machinations, whereas the poor are generally people of truth, the more honest ones. And this destitute man they would sell out for shoes - a judge would accept even a mere pair of shoes and be satisfied with them to pervert the poor man's verdict.
Rashi cites Targum Yonatan: "In order to inherit the land." On the surface, this seems difficult to understand: where does the verse "they sold the righteous for silver" hint at inheriting land? The Radak explains: they would pervert the judgment of the destitute man so that he would be forced to sell the field he owned that lay between the judge's fields. The judge would then purchase the field for a pittance, thereby acquiring a contiguous plot of land.
To illustrate the scenario: the judge owns a field to the right and a field to the left, acting as an adjoining neighbor (bar metzra), while right in the middle sits the poor man's field. The judge thinks: it is a nuisance that this poor man is right in my way; if I could only clear him out, I would have one large field, rather than separate fields to the right and left with the poor man cutting through the middle so that I cannot fence them together. What would he do? They would summon the poor man to court and pervert the judgment against him. Bound by this corrupt ruling, the poor man is now liable to pay and has no money. Forced to liquidate his real estate for cash, he sells his land at a cheap price to pay off the debt, and the judge swoops in to acquire the field for next to nothing. This is the meaning of "in order that they may inherit" - seizing the land of the destitute.
And all of this he would do "for a pair of shoes" (ba'avur na'alayim). How is inheriting land connected to shoes? "Shoes" here is not meant in the sense of footwear, but in the sense of locking or enclosing (ne'ilah). Since the judge wished to enclose all his fields within a single perimeter, and the poor man was obstructing him in the middle, he was willing to sell out the poor man for the sake of enclosing - so that he could lock and enclose his fields.
Another explanation: they would hold the innocent party liable so that the poor man would be forced to sell his field, and commercial transactions at that time were largely executed through symbolic exchange (chalipin). How was chalipin performed? As recorded in Megillat Ruth, "a man drew off his shoe" to effect an acquisition. Thus, "for a pair of shoes" means for the sake of having him sell his field through the symbolic acquisition of a shoe: drawing off the shoe and lifting it to finalize the acquisition. According to this explanation as well, the expression relates to the field, and "shoes" refers either to enclosing the entire estate or to a field acquired by means of a shoe.
The Malbim explains consistent with his approach throughout these prophecies: the three transgressions are idolatry, illicit relations, and bloodshed. "And for four, I will not revoke it" - the fourth sin is not a separate, distinct offense, but rather an amplification of all three transgressions. The fourth sin is a kind of "premium" added to idolatry, illicit relations, and bloodshed: in each of these sins they added an extra dimension, magnifying the offense in quality, in quantity, and by intertwining it with other corruptions.
Let us begin with the gravest of them all, bloodshed: "Because they sold the righteous for silver" - through the money they received, they condemned an innocent man to death. According to the Malbim, this does not refer merely to monetary matters and theft as the Radak explained, but rather that they were willing to sentence an innocent person to capital punishment because someone paid the judge. Here is a case where people were willing to have an innocent person killed for money - whether through bribing the judge or through perjury, where false witnesses were paid off. In either case, they delivered a human being to execution for money.
And lest one suggest: perhaps it was an irresistible temptation involving vast wealth? To this the verse replies: "And the destitute for a pair of shoes" - they sold a destitute person to death for a mere pair of shoes! This reveals the depth of their depravity: these people were willing, for a trivial sum, to say, "A pair of shoes is worth more to me than your life." They were willing to bear false witness for a pair of shoes, and the judges were willing to issue a corrupt ruling - just for shoes. This demonstrates how corrupt and abominable they had become in their evil deeds, that they were willing to take a human life for the most trifling gain. Here we see the appalling severity of bloodshed in that generation.
As mentioned, there is also a homiletic interpretation (*derash*) here. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (chapter 38) describes the sale of Yosef: Ishmaelites passed by them, and they said, "Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites." They would lead him to the far end of the wilderness so that Yaakov would never hear of him again - so that Yaakov would know nothing of him at all. And they sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and each and every brother took two pieces of silver to buy shoes for their feet, as it is stated, "for their selling the righteous for silver, and the indigent for a pair of shoes." And they said: "Let us place an excommunication vow (*cherem*) among ourselves that none of us shall reveal the matter to Yaakov our father, and there is no permission to disclose the matter until it is done with the consent of all of us and we annul the vow."
Yosef represents the spiritual attribute of *tzaddik* - for whoever is vigilant regarding the sanctity of the covenant (*Yesod*) is called a *tzaddik*, and Yosef is called *Yosef HaTzaddik*, the righteous foundation of the world. Yosef's name (יוסף) even shares the numerical value (*gematria*) of *kin'am* (קנאם, "their envy"): they envied him and sold him for shoes.
And so we find that in the days of the Roman emperor, there was no remedy for the Ten Martyrs (*Asarah Harugei Malchut*), as we lament on Tisha B'Av, and there we recite that the tyrant filled his palace with shoes. Why did he fill his palace with shoes? In order to evoke this very matter, to say: "See what your forefathers sold." He asked them, "What is the law regarding a man who kidnaps and sells a person?" They replied, "A person who sells a soul shall be put to death." He said to them, "Behold, your forefathers sold the life of Yosef HaTzaddik!" - and therefore he decreed that ten of the greatest sages of Israel be put to death. We see, then, that it was the matter of the shoes that was awakened there, and for this reason this verse is also expounded homiletically regarding that event.
There is another discussion of this verse in the commentary of the Abarbanel. He writes that Christian scholars sought to bring proof from this prophecy for their religion. This is a recurring absurdity: Christians are completely ignorant of Tanach, and it is astonishing time and again that they cite proofs from Tanach, when every "proof" they bring only underscores their utter ignorance. Here is a classic example of how they seize a fragment of a verse and imagine they can prove something from it. We have already elaborated in the past on the verse, "Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son" (Yeshayahu 7:14), and demonstrated how thoroughly distorted it is to interpret it as referring to that man; anyone who attempts to interpret it that way demonstrates that he has not even begun to understand Tanach, the plain meaning of Tanach. Here, too, it is the exact same thing: they seize verses and attempt to explain them according to their dogma, forgetting that there are people who actually know how to read and comprehend the text, and that not everyone reads superficially and builds an entire theology on half a verse.
What did they do here? They said: "For three transgressions of Israel" refers to idolatry, illicit relations, and bloodshed that existed among them - so far, so good. But regarding the fourth transgression, "for their selling the righteous for silver" - who is this "righteous one"? That man; he was sold for silver, "and the indigent for a pair of shoes," and for this, Hashem does not forgive them. Incidentally, on the basis of this claim, Christians throughout the generations went and tortured and persecuted Jews - Inquisitions, autos-da-fé, pogroms, and endless atrocities in every single generation. For according to them, they were fulfilling the Divine will: Hashem decreed that the Jews must be exiles, and if they do not wander in exile and suffer properly, how will the Divine will be fulfilled? Thus, in their eyes, they were great saints fulfilling the Creator's will, so that all would see that the Jewish people deviated from the path, that they are suffering and tormented, and that this serves as proof that Hashem abandoned the Jews and took them [the Christians] as His chosen people instead. We will not delve here into the sheer evil in this ideology, but let us examine the sheer distortion and ignorance involved in dragging this verse into realms with which it has no connection whatsoever.
The Abarbanel explains: First of all, there are two distinct passages here. In verse 4 it states, "Thus said Hashem: For three transgressions of Yehudah," and in verse 6, "Thus said Hashem: For three transgressions of Israel." Any intelligent person knows that there is Yehudah and there is Yisrael, for the kingdom had split! Moreover, according to its plain meaning, which era is this prophecy addressing? The First Temple era. Even according to your own narrative, that man did not live during the First Temple period, but during the Second Temple period. Amos is castigating the people of his own generation for the sins of that generation - how could you apply this to the Second Temple?
The Christian might insist and argue: "There are prophecies that speak of the future, and here too the prophecy refers to the future." Very well. But we all know that the entire nation of Israel was exiled, and we all know that only the people of Yehudah returned here from exile. The Ten Tribes were exiled first - to Chalach, Chavor, the river of Gozan, beyond the Mountains of Darkness, Avva and Sepharvaim - and disappeared, and we do not have them to this day. No one claims that those present here during the Second Temple were from the Ten Tribes; who was here, then? Only the tribe of Yehudah. The Abarbanel asks: Can you explain to me, then, why this iniquity is attributed to Israel? It should have appeared in verse 4: "Thus said Hashem: For three transgressions of Yehudah, and for four I will not revoke it - for their selling the righteous for silver." But here the verse speaks of the sin of Israel, and the Kingdom of Israel was not present at all during the Second Temple; they were in exile! If someone during the Second Temple killed that man of yours, it was not Israel, it was Yehudah. Yet the prophet here rebukes for "three transgressions of Israel," not the transgressions of Yehudah! Look at the sheer lack of comprehension: people simply did not understand what they were reading. This is not even a matter of deep interpretation or philosophy - this is basic reading comprehension of the verse.
Furthermore: it is written here, "for their selling the righteous for silver, and the indigent for a pair of shoes." Where in your history does it state that that man was sold for a pair of shoes? Do you have any such account? Incidentally, Christianity never had any qualms about revising history retroactively - what Arab rulers do to this day, the Christians were already doing back then. When they were asked where that man descended from, they said from Joseph. People asked: "But you claim he is the messiah, and the messiah must descend from Yehudah!" So they fabricated a new genealogy for him, and later devised yet another genealogy from Yehudah, and behold, "everything was settled." Whenever something does not fit, they alter history, invent a narrative, insert it into their books, and consider the matter resolved. In any case, says the Abarbanel, nowhere in your teachings is it recorded that that man was sold for a pair of shoes. If so, what are you even talking about?
Furthermore, Amos himself repeats this very theme later on: "Hear this, you who swallow the needy... to buy the poor for silver, and the indigent for a pair of shoes" (Amos 8:4-6). From this you see that this was not said about one specific individual, but about many people whom they would sell for shoes. If so, it does not refer to that man at all, but to the widespread practice of that era, when the corrupt leadership would sell the destitute for silver and for a pair of shoes. Therefore, the Abarbanel concludes: "And let us set this matter aside, for it is refuted on its own" - their claims fall away by themselves, and there is no need even to engage with them.
In the prophecy concerning Judah, the prophet rebukes them not for a sin of passion, but for despising the Torah - an intellectual sin of heresy, rooted in false beliefs and in routinely following ancestral customs. In the prophecy concerning Israel, the fourth sin that sealed their verdict was injustice (*chamas*) and the perversion of the judicial system: according to Radak, they condemned the righteous in court for a bribe and the destitute for a pair of shoes, and according to Targum Yonatan, even in order to seize his land; while according to the Malbim, the fourth sin is not a new transgression, but the escalation of the three sins themselves, chief among them bloodshed - that they were willing to deliver an innocent man to death for money, and even for merely a pair of shoes. Chazal interpreted this verse homiletically as referring to the sale of Yosef and the Ten Martyrs, and the Abarbanel demonstrated that any attempt to hijack this verse and divert it toward foreign doctrines is completely baseless. And the enduring message for all generations: first one learns *peshat*, and only then adds *derash*; and above all, one must safeguard justice and law, for the ultimate decree is sealed over injustice.