Please read the passage before reading the commentary
This reminds me of the preacher who was railing against the sins of humanity and after each one, a gentleman in the back row would call out, “Amen, brother, that’s preaching!” The preacher continued his preaching and railed out above these sniveling varmints who would stealthily sneak into people’s chicken coops and make off with a few nice chickens. The gentleman said nothing. The preacher looked at him and said, “Isn’t that preaching?” The gentleman replied, “No sir, that’s downright meddling!”
In today’s reading the prophet had just attacked all the countries surround Israel to denounce them. Then he hit the people of his own country for the way they mistreated the poor, mocked God, and strutted their pride and power. The former preaching was right on, but the reading for today was considered meddling.
The crimes listed in the first chapter were fewer than the ones listed here. The crimes of Israel included cheating and abusing the destitute of society, doing evil in the name of God, making people homeless. God had taken Israel when Israel was a nobody and God had nourished Israel and made him strong and powerful. For the defense of the poor and downtrodden God had lifted Israel up.
We can look upon the human rights’ record of many nations and take comfort in the fact that we have a so much better record in our own eyes. On the other hand, in building up our nation, we have tried to annihilate the indigenous peoples, enslaved others, catered to wealth and closed our borders to the poor non-white people of the world.
How will God turn our wealth into dust, and undo our great pretense of being better than others? With each of us, it is not the problem caused by others it is the problems we ourselves cause. How do we serve money instead of have money serve us? Why do we not forgive when we expect forgiveness for our own faults, failings and sins? The sins of the nation reflect the sins of its citizens. Much as we should like to think otherwise, the prophet is speaking to us, listing our sins, and calling us to repentance.