Amos 5:11

The penalty for such unjust oppression of the poor is the oppressors" own disappointment and spoliation: the houses and vineyards on which they lavished their money, and from which they expected much enjoyment, will be violently taken from them.

Therefore, because ye trample upon the poor, and take from him exactions of wheat The allusion is not specially to bribes exacted of the poor as the price of justice, but to the presents which the poor fellahinhad to offer to the grasping aristocrats, out of the hard-won produce of their toil.

ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them, &c. For the form of the threat, comp. Deuteronomy 28:30; Deuteronomy 28:38-39; Micah 6:15; Zephaniah 1:13; and contrast the promise of Amos 9:14. Houses of -hewn stone" are houses of exceptional solidity and beauty, such as might be built by the wealthy (cf. Isaiah 9:10).