Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Amos 8:5 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 5. 5Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse exposes impatience with new moon and sabbath so grain trade can resume with smaller measure, higher price, and false scales.
Read It With
- Amos 8:4-8
Read Amos 8:5 with 8:4-8. This verse exposes impatience with new moon and sabbath so grain trade can resume with smaller measure, higher price, and false scales. The complete unit establishes this movement: Merchants treat worship rest as an obstacle to deceptive trade, manipulating quantity, price, scales, debt, and food quality until poor people become purchasable; the LORD swears not to forget.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The indictment explains the economic conduct behind the vision's non-reprieve. Within that movement, this verse exposes impatience with new moon and sabbath so grain trade can resume with smaller measure, higher price, and false scales.
Follow the Context
- Those who swallow needy and poor people are called to hear.
- They wait impatiently for sacred rest to end so trade can resume.
- They shrink the measure, raise the price, and falsify scales.
- Debt turns poor people into purchases, and refuse grain is sold.
- The LORD swears to remember, and land and inhabitants tremble.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“making the ephah small, and the shekel great”
In plain language: Sellers reduce the product measure while increasing the amount charged.
exposes impatience with new moon and sabbath so grain trade can resume with smaller measure, higher price, and false scales. Sacred rest is contradicted when commerce restarts through coordinated deception.
Why it matters: The wording carries interpretive or ethical risk that requires the complete unit and stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The verse does not condemn Jewish sabbaths, new moons, commerce, prices, or profit as such.
What Remains True
Sacred rest is contradicted when commerce restarts through coordinated deception.
How It Can Shape Life
- Audit quantity, price, timing, and measurement together.
Teach It Back
Explain Amos 8:5's contribution to Amos 8:4-8: exposes impatience with new moon and sabbath so grain trade can resume with smaller measure, higher price, and false scales. Include what the surrounding verses add, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Amos 8:4-8 — Merchants Trample the Needy and Manipulate the MarketSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The exact festival schedule and mechanics of price manipulation remain contextually reconstructed.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Amos 8:4-8, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Amos
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, wordplays, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Amos.xml, 8:4-8
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Amos with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Amos PDF, printed pp. 1719-1720, translation and notes on 8:4-8
Open source ↗