2:6-8
The judgment against Israel is much longer and more detailed than the others. It goes all the way to the end of chapter 6. It is the climax to the other judgments, showing Israel is the most guilty of the nations. Because of its idolatry and rebellion, it has effectively become a non-covenant country, a foreign nation.
God’s first complaint is their treatment of the poor. (6-7) They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a sandal. This seems to mean the rich sell their fellow Jews for money when they are enslaved for inability to pay their debts. Sometimes they bought and sold these slaves for a ridiculously small price, symbolized by the “sandal”. That would also mean the debt that enslaved them was also small.
The rich were assisted in this by the courts. A judge favoring a rich person could impose a heavy fine on the poor person. When the poor person was unable to pay, they were sold into slavery. This was a perversion of justice and it violated the covenant.
Exodus 23:6 says “You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit”. Proverbs 17:6 says “To impose a fine on a righteous man is not good, nor to strike the noble for their uprightness.”
God said, if a person could not pay his debt and wanted to work it off, he must be treated as a hired servant, an employee, and not a slave. (Leviticus 25:39-40) He could not be sold as a slave. (Leviticus 25:42)
The Old Covenant law forbid the selling of any slaves, not just Jewish slaves. Exodus 21:16 (ESV says): "Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death." This verse explicitly makes the kidnapping and selling of humans a capital offense.
Deuteronomy 24:7 (ESV): says further that "If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die."
Second, the wealthy Israelites trampled the poor and refused to help the afflicted. (7) Justice in the Old Testament most often refers to how the poor are treated.
God said this about the poor: “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner and he shall live with you.” (Leviticus 25:35)
Next, God accused them of sexual immorality. Specifically, a father and son having sex with the same girl. (7) This is similar to Paul’s disgust at find the Corinthian church was proud that they had a man who was living with his father’s wife, that is, his stepmother. (1 Corinthians 5)
The Old Covenant law forbade this conduct. (Leviticus 18:8) So, Paul here applies the Old Covenant moral law to the church.
It is also possible that men were engaged in pagan worship rituals, which sometimes included temple prostitutes. That would certainly profane God’s name.
To further show the trampling of the poor, the rich people used the cloaks of poor people taken as pledges of debt payments. (7) In contrast, the law required a person to return a pledged cloak to the debtor by nightfall so that he could sleep in something warm. (Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:12) The cloak might be all the poor person had to keep warm at night.
A further indication of idolatry is the idea that there were many altars. (8)
The wine referred to in verse 8 was probably given as restitution or pledge. But, rich people used it to party, participating in the drunken rituals like pagans did. This was inappropriate worship at best and idolatry at the worst.
God Takes Offense
2:9-11
God took offense at Israel’s behavior. He recited the things he had done for Israel, how he destroyed the Amorites in Canaan on their behalf, how he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, and how he led them through the wilderness. (9-10)
These statements form the basis for the very identity of Israel. The Israelites were a people God redeemed from slavery in Egypt. They were a people he led through the wilderness. And they were a people to whom he had given a land occupied by other people. They were the recipients of God’s grace.
These statements also invoke the prologue to the covenant. Before setting the terms of the covenant with Israel, God identified himself. He said “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”. (Exodus 20:1)
God also said he had helped them spiritually, raising up prophets and calling some people to be Nazirites. Nazirites were men and women who took special vows to dedicate themselves to God. (11)
The word Nazirite comes from the Hebrew nazir, meaning "consecrated" or “separated". During the time of their consecration, they could not eat or drink anything made from grapes. They could not cut their hair. They could not go near dead bodies and get defiled. (Numbers 6)
Sampson and Samuel are the only Nazirites identified in the Old Testament. (Judges 13:5-7; 1 Samuel1:11)
Normally, prophets and Nazirites would be revered as holy people. Instead, the Israelites commanded the prophets not to testify.
Jeremiah is a good example of a prophet that the kings tried to silence. Jeremiah 32 records King Zedekiah of Judah imprisoning Jeremiah to keep him from prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem and exile of its people. King Jehoiakim burned the scroll of Jeremiah’s prophesy. (Jeremiah 36) Later, Jeremiah was kept at the muddy bottom of a cistern. (Jeremiah 38)
Things got so bad in Israel that people even interfered with Nazirites keeping their vows, making the drink wine. (12)
This is that thing people do when believers try to holy lives, trying to get them to do something unholy either by persuasion or force.
What God Will Do In Response
2:13-16
In response to the sins and disrespect of Israel, God said he would make them “road kill”. They would be flattened as if a heavy cart ran over them.
There would be no escape from God’s punishment. No one could escape by fleeing, no matter how fast they ran. Physical strength would not matter. Skill at weapons or riding horses would not help them.
All of this reinforces God’s statement that the punishment he decreed was irrevocable.
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