Text -- Amos 2:1-13 (NET)

2:1 This is what the Lord says: “Because Moab has committed three crimes– make that four!– I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They burned the bones of Edom’s king into lime. 2:2 So I will set Moab on fire, and it will consume Kerioth’s fortresses. Moab will perish in the heat of battle amid war cries and the blaring of the ram’s horn. 2:3 I will remove Moab’s leader; I will kill all Moab’s officials with him.” The Lord has spoken! 2:4 This is what the Lord says: “Because Judah has committed three covenant transgressions– make that four!– I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They rejected the Lord’s law; they did not obey his commands. Their false gods, to which their fathers were loyal, led them astray. 2:5 So I will set Judah on fire, and it will consume Jerusalem’s fortresses.”

God Will Judge Israel

2:6 This is what the Lord says: “Because Israel has committed three covenant transgressions– make that four!– I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They sold the innocent for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals. 2:7 They trample on the dirt-covered heads of the poor; they push the destitute away. A man and his father go to the same girl; in this way they show disrespect for my moral purity. 2:8 They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral; they do so right beside every altar! They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied; they do so right in the temple of their God! 2:9 For Israel’s sake I destroyed the Amorites. They were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, but I destroyed the fruit on their branches and their roots in the ground. 2:10 I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for forty years so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own. 2:11 I made some of your sons prophets and some of your young men Nazirites. Is this not true, you Israelites?” The Lord is speaking! 2:12 “But you made the Nazirites drink wine; you commanded the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy!’ 2:13 Look! I will press you down, like a cart loaded down with grain presses down.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Amo 2:1

Or ashes, reduced them by fire into fine dust, and used these ashes instead of lime to plaister the walls and roofs of his palace, and this in hatred and contempt of the king of Edom.

Wesley: Amo 2:2

A principal city of this country.

Wesley: Amo 2:2

The Moabites.

Wesley: Amo 2:2

Be destroyed.

Wesley: Amo 2:2

Such as soldiers in fight or assaults make, when they carry all by force.

Wesley: Amo 2:3

The governor that is, every one of them.

Wesley: Amo 2:4

Idols.

Wesley: Amo 2:4

Their idolatry blinded them, partly from the natural tendency of this sin, and partly from the just judgment of God.

Wesley: Amo 2:4

Idols.

Wesley: Amo 2:4

Successively, one generation after another.

Wesley: Amo 2:6

The smallest bribe, exprest here proverbially.

Wesley: Amo 2:7

That make a prey even of the poor afflicted ones, who walk with dust on their heads.

Wesley: Amo 2:7

Maliciously interpret the actions, words, and designs of the humble and meek.

Wesley: Amo 2:7

These corrupt judges commit also that lewdness which the Heathens abhor.

Wesley: Amo 2:8

The Jews of old did not sit upright at their meals, but leaned on one side.

Wesley: Amo 2:8

Of which the law had expressly said, none should detain them all night, Deu 24:12-13.

Wesley: Amo 2:8

Of their idols.

Wesley: Amo 2:8

They offer their drink-offerings in wine, which they bought with the fines laid on the innocent.

Wesley: Amo 2:9

The mightiest nation of all the Canaanites.

Wesley: Amo 2:9

Another proverbial speech denoting their great strength.

Wesley: Amo 2:9

Their children.

Wesley: Amo 2:9

The old standards; that present generation.

Wesley: Amo 2:11

Persons who bound themselves to a very sober and holy life; either for some certain time, or for their whole life.

Wesley: Amo 2:12

Importuned them to drink wine, to violate their vow, and contemn God's law.

Wesley: Amo 2:13

Under the load of your sins.

JFB: Amo 2:1

When Jehoram of Israel, Jehoshaphat of Judah, and the king of Edom, combined against Mesha king of Moab, the latter failing in battle to break through to the king of Edom, took the oldest son of the latter and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall (2Ki 3:27) [MICHAELIS]. Thus, "king of Edom" is taken as the heir to the throne of Edom. But "his son" is rather the king of Moab's own son, whom the father offered to Molech [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 9.3]. Thus the reference here in Amos is not to that fact, but to the revenge which probably the king of Moab took on the king of Edom, when the forces of Israel and Judah had retired after their successful campaign against Moab, leaving Edom without allies. The Hebrew tradition is that Moab in revenge tore from their grave and burned the bones of the king of Edom, the ally of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, who was already buried. Probably the "burning of the bones" means, "he burned the king of Edom alive, reducing his very bones to lime" [MAURER].

JFB: Amo 2:2

The chief city of Moab, called also Kir-Moab (Isa 15:1). The form is plural here, as including both the acropolis and town itself (see Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41, Margin).

JFB: Amo 2:2

That is, amid the tumult of battle (Hos 10:14).

JFB: Amo 2:3

The chief magistrate, the supreme source of justice. "King" not being used, it seems likely a change of government had before this time substituted for kings, supreme judges.

JFB: Amo 2:4

From foreign kingdoms he passes to Judah and Israel, lest it should be said, he was strenuous in denouncing sins abroad, but connived at those of his own nation. Judah's guilt differs from that of all the others, in that it was directly against God, not merely against man. Also because Judah's sin was wilful and wittingly against light and knowledge.

JFB: Amo 2:4

The Mosaic code in general.

JFB: Amo 2:4

Or statutes, the ceremonies and civil laws.

JFB: Amo 2:4

Their lying idols (Psa 40:4; Jer 16:19), from which they drew false hopes. The order is to be observed. The Jews first cast off the divine law, then fall into lying errors; God thus visiting them with a righteous retribution (Rom 1:25-26, Rom 1:28; 2Th 2:11-12). The pretext of a good intention is hereby refuted: the "lies" that mislead them are "their (own) lies" [CALVIN].

JFB: Amo 2:4

We are not to follow the fathers in error, but must follow the word of God alone. It was an aggravation of the Jews' sin that it was not confined to preceding generations; the sins of the sons rivalled those of their fathers (Mat 23:32; Act 7:51) [CALVIN].

JFB: Amo 2:5

Nebuchadnezzar.

JFB: Amo 2:6

The ten tribes, the main subject of Amos' prophecies.

JFB: Amo 2:6

Israel's judges for a bribe are induced to condemn in judgment him who has a righteous cause; in violation of Deu 16:19.

JFB: Amo 2:6

Literally, "sandals" of wood, secured on the foot by leather straps; less valuable than shoes. Compare the same phrase, for "the most paltry bribe," Amo 8:6; Eze 13:19; Joe 3:3. They were not driven by poverty to such a sin; beginning with suffering themselves to be tempted by a large bribe, they at last are so reckless of all shame as to prostitute justice for the merest trifle. Amos convicts them of injustice, incestuous unchastity, and oppression first, as these were so notorious that they could not deny them, before he proceeds to reprove their contempt of God, which they would have denied on the ground that they worshipped God in the form of the calves.

JFB: Amo 2:7

That is, eagerly thirst for this object, by their oppression to prostrate the poor so as to cast the dust on their heads in mourning on the earth (compare 2Sa 1:2; Job 2:12; Eze 27:30).

JFB: Amo 2:7

Pervert their cause (Amo 5:12; Job 24:4 [GROTIUS]; Isa 10:2).

JFB: Amo 2:7

A crime "not so much as named among the Gentiles" (1Co 5:1). When God's people sin in the face of light, they often fall lower than even those who know not God.

JFB: Amo 2:7

From Amo 2:8 it seems likely "the damsel" meant is one of the prostitutes attached to the idol Astarte's temple: prostitution being part of her filthy worship.

JFB: Amo 2:7

Israel in such abominations, as it were, designedly seeks to insult God.

JFB: Amo 2:8

The outer garment, which Exo 22:25-27 ordered to be restored to the poor man before sunset, as being his only covering. It aggravated the crime that they lay on these clothes in an idol temple.

JFB: Amo 2:8

They partook in a recumbent posture of their idolatrous feasts; the ancients being in the habit of reclining at full length in eating, the upper part of the body resting on the left elbow, not sitting as we do.

JFB: Amo 2:8

That is, wine bought with the money of those whom they unjustly fined.

JFB: Amo 2:9

My former benefits to you heighten your ingratitude.

JFB: Amo 2:9

The most powerful of all the Canaanite nations, and therefore put for them all (Gen 15:16; Gen 48:22; Deu 1:20; Jos 7:7).

JFB: Amo 2:9

(Num 13:32-33).

JFB: Amo 2:9

That is, destroyed him utterly (Job 18:16; Eze 17:9; Mal 4:1).

JFB: Amo 2:10

"brought up" is the phrase, as Egypt was low and flat, and Canaan hilly.

JFB: Amo 2:10

The Amorites strictly occupied both sides of the Jordan and the mountains afterward possessed by Judah; but they here, as in Amo 2:9, stand for all the Canaanites. God kept Israel forty years in the wilderness, which tended to discipline them in His statutes, so as to be the better fitted for entering on the possession of Canaan.

JFB: Amo 2:11

Additional obligations under which Israel lay to God; the prophets and Nazarites, appointed by Him, to furnish religious instruction and examples of holy self-restraint.

JFB: Amo 2:11

It was a specimen of Israel's highly favored state, that, of the class most addicted to pleasures, God chose those who by a solemn vow bound themselves to abstinence from all produce of the vine, and from all ceremonial and moral defilement. The Nazarite was not to shave (Num 6:2, &c.). God left nothing undone to secure the purity of their worship and their faithfulness to it (Lam 4:7). The same comes from a Hebrew root, nazar, "to set apart." Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were Nazarites.

JFB: Amo 2:11

Will any of you dare to deny it is so?

JFB: Amo 2:12

Ye so despised these My favors, as to tempt the Nazarite to break his vow; and forbade the prophets prophesying (Isa 30:10). So Amaziah forbade Amos (Amo 7:12-14).

JFB: Amo 2:13

So CALVIN (Compare Isa 1:14). The Margin translates actively, "I will depress your place," that is, "I will make it narrow," a metaphor for afflicting a people; the opposite of enlarging, that is, relieving (Psa 4:1; Pro 4:12). MAURER translates, "I will press you down" (not as Margin, "your place"; so the Hebrew, Job 40:12; or Amo 2:7 in Hebrew text). Amos, as a shepherd, appropriately draws his similes from rustic scenes.

Clarke: Amo 2:1

For three transgressions of Moab and for four - See an explanation of this form Amo 1:2. The land of the Moabites lay to the east of the Dead Sea. For the origin of this people, see Gen 19:37

Clarke: Amo 2:1

He burned the bones on the king of Edom into lime - Possibly referring to some brutality; such as opening the grave of one of the Idumean kings, and calcining his bones. It is supposed by some to refer to the fact mentioned 2Ki 3:26, when the kings of Judah, Israel, and Idumea, joined together to destroy Moab. The king of it, despairing to save his city, took seven hundred men, and made a desperate sortie on the quarter where the king of Edom was; and, though not successful, took prisoner the son of the king of Edom; and, on their return into the city, offered him as a burnt-offering upon the wall, so as to terrify the besieging armies, and cause them to raise the siege. Others understand the son that was sacrificed to be the king of Moab’ s own son.

Clarke: Amo 2:2

The palaces of Kirioth - This was one of the principal cities of the Moabites

Clarke: Amo 2:2

Moab shall die with tumult - All these expressions seem to refer to this city’ s being taken by storm, which was followed by a total slaughter of its inhabitants.

Clarke: Amo 2:3

I will cut off the judge - It shall be so destroyed, that it shall never more have any form of government. The judge here, שופט shophet , may signify the chief magistrate. The chief magistrates of the Carthaginians were called suffetes; probably taken from the Hebrew Judges, שופטים shophetim .

Clarke: Amo 2:4

For three transgressions of Judah - We may take the three and four here to any latitude; for this people lived in continual hostility to their God, from the days of David to the time of Uzziah, under whom Amos prophesied. Their iniquities are summed up under three general heads

1.    They despised, or rejected the law of the Lord

2.    They kept not his statutes

3.    They followed lies, were idolaters, and followed false prophets rather than those sent by Jehovah.

Clarke: Amo 2:5

I will send a fire upon Judah - This fire was the war made upon the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, which terminated with the sackage and burning of Jerusalem and its palace the temple.

Clarke: Amo 2:6-8

For three transgressions of Israel, etc. - To be satisfied of the exceeding delinquency of this people, we have only to open the historical and prophetic books in any part; for the whole history of the Israelites is one tissue of transgression against God. Their crimes are enumerated under the following heads: -

1.    Their judges were mercenary and corrupt. They took bribes to condemn the righteous; and even for articles of clothing, such as a pair of shoes, they condemned the poor man, and delivered him into the hands of his adversary

2.    They were unmerciful to the poor generally. They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; or, to put it on the head of the poor; or, they bruise the head of the poor against the dust of the earth. Howsoever the clause is understood, it shows them to have been general oppressors of the poor, showing them neither justice nor mercy

3.    They turn aside the way of the meek. They are peculiarly oppressive to the weak and afflicted

4.    They were licentious to the uttermost abomination; for in their idol feasts, where young women prostituted themselves publicly in honor of Astarte, the father and son entered into impure connections with the same female

5.    They were cruel in their oppressions of the poor; for the garments or beds which the poor had pledged they retained contrary to the law, Exodus 22:7-26, which required that such things should be restored before the setting of the sun

6.    They punished the people by unjust and oppressive fines, and served their tables with wine bought by such fines. Or it may be understood of their appropriating to themselves that wine which was allowed to criminals to mitigate their sufferings in the article of death; which was the excess of inhumanity and cruelty.

Clarke: Amo 2:9

Yet destroyed I the Amorite - Here follow general heads of God’ s mercies to them, and the great things he had done for them

1.    Bringing them out of Egypt

2.    Miraculously sustaining them in the wilderness forty years

3.    Driving out the Canaanites before them, and giving them possession of the promised land

4.    Raising up prophets among them to declare the Divine will

5.    And forming the holy institution of the Nazarites among them, to show the spiritual nature of his holy religion, Amo 2:9-11.

Clarke: Amo 2:12

But ye gave the Nazarites wine - This was expressly forbidden in the laws of their institution. See Num 6:1-3

Clarke: Amo 2:12

Prophesy not - They would not worship God, and they would not hear the voice of his prophets.

Clarke: Amo 2:13

Behold, I am pressed under you - The marginal reading is better: "Behold, I will press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth."I will bring over you the wheel of destruction; and it shall grind your place - your city and temple, as the wheel of a cart laden with sheaves presses down the ground, gravel, and stones over which it rolls.

Calvin: Amo 2:1

Now Amos prophesies here against the Moabites, and proclaims respecting them what we have noticed respecting the other nations, — that the Moabites were wholly perverse, that no repentance would be hoped for, as they had added crimes to crimes, and reached the highest pitch of wickedness; for, as we have said, the number, seven, imports this. The Prophet then charges the Moabites here with perverseness: and hence we learn that God’s vengeance did not come hastily upon them, for their wickedness was intolerable since they thus followed their crimes. But he mentions one thing in particular, — that they had burnt the bones of the king of Edom.

Some take bones here for courage, as though the Prophet had said, that the whole strength of Edom had been reduced into ashes: but this is a strained exposition; and its authors themselves confess that they are forced to it by necessity, when yet there is none. The comment given by the Rabbis does not please them, — that the body of a certain king had been burnt, and then that the Moabites had strangely applied the ashes for making a cement instead of lime. Thus the Rabbis trifle in their usual way; for when an obscure place occurs, they immediately invent some fable; though there be no history, yet they exercise their wit in fabulous glosses; and this I wholly dislike: but what need there is of running to allegory, when we may simply take what the Prophet says, that the body of the king of Edom had been burnt: for the Prophet, I doubt not, charges the Moabites with barbarous cruelty. To dig up the bodies of enemies, and to burn their bones, — this is an inhuman deed, and wholly barbarous. But it was more detestable in the Moabites, who had some connection with the people of Edom; for they descended from the same family; and the memory of that relationship ought to have continued, since Abraham brought up Lot, the father of the Moabites; and thus the Moabites were under an obligation to the Idumeans. If then any humanity existed in them, they ought to have restrained their passions, so as not to treat so cruelly their brethren. Now, when they exceeded all moderation in war, and raged against dead bodies, and burnt the bones of the dead, it was, as I have said, an extremely barbarous conduct. The meaning then is, that the Moabites could no longer be borne with; for in this one instance, they gave an example of savage cruelty. Had there been a drop of humanity in them, they would have treated more kindly their brethren, the Idumeans; but they burnt into lime, that is, into ashes, the bones of the king of Edom, and thereby proved that they had forgotten all humanity and justice. We now understand the Prophet’s meaning.

Calvin: Amo 2:2

He therefore adds a threatening, I will send a fire on Moab, which shall devour the palaces of קריות , Koriut We have stated that what the Prophet means by these modes of speaking is that God would consume the Moabites by a violent punishment as by a burning fire, that fortified places could not hinder him from executing his vengeance, and that though they were proud of their palaces, yet these would avail them nothing.

And he subjoins, Moab shall die with tumult, with noise, with the sound of the trumpet; that is, I will send strong enemies, who will come and make no peace with the Moabites, but will take possession of every place, and of fortified cities, by force and by the sword. For what the Prophet means by tumult, by shouting, by the sound of the trumpet, is, that the Moabites would not come under the power of their enemies by certain agreements and compacts, as when a voluntary surrender is made, which usually mitigates the hostile rage of enemies; no, he says, it shall not be so; for their enemies shall have not only their wealth but their lives also.

Calvin: Amo 2:3

He finally adds, And I will cut off the judge from the midst of her, and will slay her princes, saith Jehovah. God here declares, that the kingdom of the Moabites and the people shall be no more; for we know that men cannot exist as a body without some civil government. Wherever then there is an assemblage of men, there must be princes to rule and govern them. Hence, when God declares that there would be no more a judge among the Moabites, it is the same thing as if he had said, that their name would be blotted out; for had the people of Moab continued, some princes must have necessarily, as we have said, remained among them. When princes then are destroyed, the people must also perish, for there is no security for them. The Prophet then denounces not here a temporary punishment on the Moabites, but utter ruin, from which they were never to rise. This is the meaning. Let us now proceed —

Calvin: Amo 2:4

Amos turns now his discourse to the tribe of Judah, and to that kingdom, which still continued in the family of David. He has hitherto spoken of heathen and uncircumcised nations: what he said of them was a prelude of the destruction which was nigh the chosen people; for when God spared not others who had through ignorance sinned, what was to become of the people of Israel, who had been taught in the law? For a servant, knowing his master’s will, and doing it not, is worthy of many stripes, (Luk 12:47) God could not, then, forgive the children of Abraham, whom he had adopted as his peculiar people, when he inflicted each grievous punishments on heathen nations, whose ignorance, as it is commonly thought by men, was excusable. It is indeed true, that all who sin without law will justly perish, as Paul says in Rom 2:12, but when a comparison is made between the children of Israel and the wretched heathens, who were immersed in errors, the latter were doubtless worthy of being pardoned, when compared with that people who had betrayed their perverseness, and, as it were, designedly resolved to bring on themselves the vengeance of God.

The Prophet then having hitherto spoken of the Gentiles, turns his discourse now to the chosen people, the children of Abraham. But he speaks of the tribe of Judah, from which he sprang, as I said at the beginning; and he did this, lest any one should charge him with favoring his own countrymen: he had, indeed, migrated into the kingdom of Israel; but he was there a stranger. We shall now see how severely he reproved them. Had he, then, been silent as to the tribe of Judah, he might have been subject to calumny; for many might have said, that there was a collusion between him and his own countrymen and that he concealed their vices, and that he fiercely inveighed against their neighbors, through a wicked emulation, in order to transfer the kingdom again into the family of David. Hence, that no such suspicion might tarnish his doctrine, the Prophet here summons to judgment the tribe of Judah, and speaks in no milder language of the Jews than of other nations: for he says, that they, through their stubbornness, had so provoked God’s wrath, that there was no hope of pardon; for such was the mass of their vices, that God would now justly execute extreme vengeance, as a moderate chastisement would not be sufficient. We now then understand the Prophet’s design.

I come now to the words: For they have despised, he says, the law of Jehovah. Here he charges the Jews with apostasy; for they had cast aside the worship of God, and the pure doctrine of religion. This was a crime the most grievous. We hence see, that the Prophet condemns here freely and honestly as it became him, the vices of his own people, so that there was no room for calumny, when he afterwards became a severe censor and reprover of the Israelites; for he does not lightly touch on something wrong in the tribe of Judah, but says that they were apostates and perfidious, having cast aside the law of God. But it may be asked, why the Prophet charges the Jews with a crime so atrocious, since religion, as we have seen in the Prophecies of Hosea, still existed among them? But to this there is a ready answer: the worship of God was become corrupt among them, though they had not so openly departed from it as the Israelites. There remained, indeed, circumcision among the Israelites; but their sacrifices were pollutions, their temples were brothels: they thought that they worshipped God; but as a temple had been built at Bethel contrary to God’s command, the whole worship was a profanation. The Jews were somewhat purer; but they, we know, had also degenerated from the genuine worship of God. Hence the Prophet does not unjustly say here, that they had despised the law of God.

But we must notice the explanation which immediately follows, — that they kept not his statutes. The way then by which Amos proves that the Jews were covenant-breakers, and that having repudiated God’s law, they had fallen into wicked superstitions, is by saying, that they kept not the precepts of God. It may, however, appear that he treats them here with too much severity; for one might not altogether keep God’s commands either through ignorance or carelessness, or some other fault, and yet be not a covenant-breaker or an apostate. I answer, — That in these words of the Prophet, not mere negligence is blamed in the Jews; but they are condemned for designedly, that is, knowingly and willfully departing from the commandments of God, and devising for themselves various modes of worship. It is not then to keep the precepts of God, when men continue not under his law, but audaciously contrive for themselves new forms of worship; they regard not what God commands, but lay hold on anything pleasing that comes to their minds. This crime the Prophet now condemns in the Jews: and hence it was that they had despised the law of God. For men should never assume so much as to change any thing in the worship of God; but due reverence for God ought to influence them: were they persuaded of this — that there is no wisdom but what comes from God — they would surely confine themselves within his commands. Whenever then they invent new and fictitious forms of worship, they sufficiently show that they regard not what the Lord wills, what he enjoins, what he forbids. Thus, then, they despise his law, and even cast it away.

This is a remarkable passage; for we see, first, that a most grievous sin is condemned by the Prophet, and that sin is, that the Jews confined not themselves to God’s law, but took the liberty of innovating; this is one thing: and we also learn how much God values obedience, which is better, as it is said in another place, than all sacrifices, (1Sa 15:22) And that we may not think this a light or a trifling sin, let us notice the expression — that they despised the law of God. Every one ought to dread this as the most monstrous thing; for we cannot despise the law of God without insulting his majesty. And yet the Holy Spirit declares here, that we repudiate and reject the law of God, except we wholly follow what it commands, and continue within the limits prescribed by it. We now perceive what the Prophet means.

But he also adds, that their own lies deceived or caused them to go astray. He here confirms his preceding doctrine; for the Jews had ever a defense ready at hand, that they did with good intent what the Prophet condemned in them. They, forsooth! sedulously worshipped God, though they mixed their own leaven, by which their sacrifices were corrupted: it was not their purpose to spend their substance in vain, to undergo great expenses in sacrifices, and to undertake much labor, had they not thought that it was service acceptable to God! As then the pretense of good intention, (as they say,) ever deceives the unbelieving, the Prophet condemns this pretense, and shows it to be wholly fallacious, and of no avail. “It is nothing,” he says, “that they pretend before God some good intention; their own lies deceive them.” And Amos, no doubt, mentions here these lies, in opposition to the commands of God. As soon then as men swerve from God’s word, they involve themselves in many delusions, and cannot but go astray; and this is deserving of special notice. We indeed see how much wisdom the world claims for itself: for as soon as we invent anything we are greatly delighted with it; and the ape, according to the old proverb, is ever pleased with its own offspring. But this vice especially prevails, when by our devices we corrupt and adulterate the worship of God. Hence the Prophet here declares, that whatever is added to God’s word, and whatever men invent in their own brains is a lie: “All this,” he says, “is nothing but imposture.” We now see of what avail is good intention: by this indeed men harden themselves; but they cannot make the Lord to retract what he has once declared by the mouth of his Prophet. Let us then take heed to continue within the boundaries of God’s word, and never to leap over either on this or on that side; for when we turn aside ever so little from the pure word of God, we become immediately involved in many deceptions.

It then follows, After which have walked their fathers; literally it is, Which their fathers have walked after them: ²⁰ but we have given the sense. The Prophet here exaggerates their sin, the insatiable rage of the people; for the children now followed their fathers. This vice, we know, prevailed in all ages among the Jews; leaving the word of God, they ever followed their own dreams, and the delusions of Satan. Since God had now often tried to correct this vice by his Prophets, and no fruit followed, the Prophet charges them here with hardness, and by this circumstance enhances the sin of the Jews: “It is nothing new,” he says, “for children to imitate their fathers, and to be wholly like them: they are then the bad eggs of bad ravens.” So also said Stephen,

‘Ye are hard and uncircumcised in heart, and resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers also did formerly,’ (Act 7:51.)

We now understand the intention of the Prophet.

But we hence learn of what avail is the subterfuge resorted to by the Papists, when they boast of antiquity. For they set up against the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, this shield, — that theirs is the old religion, that they have not been the first founders, but that they follow what has been handed down to them from early times, and observed for many ages. When the Papists boastingly declare all this, they think that they say enough to put God to silence, and wholly to reject his Word. But we see how frivolous is this sort of caviling, and how worthless before God: for the Prophet does not concede to the Jews the example of the fathers as an excuse, but sets forth their sin as being greater because they followed their perfidious fathers, who had forsaken the Law of the Lord. The same thing is also said by Ezekiel,

‘After the precepts of your fathers walk not,’
(Eze 20:18.)

Calvin: Amo 2:5

We now see what sort of crime is that of which the Prophet speaks. At last a threatening follows, “The Lord saith, Fire will I send on Judah, which shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.’ But all this we have already explained. Let us now proceed —

Calvin: Amo 2:6

The Prophet here assails the Israelites, to whom he had been sent, as we have said at the beginning. He now omits every reference to other nations; for his business was with the Israelites to whom he was especially appointed a teacher. But he wished to set before them, as in various mirrors, the judgment of God, which awaited them, that he might the more effectually awaken them: and he wished also to exhibit in the Jews themselves an example of the extreme vengeance of God, though there was greater purity among them, at least a purer religion, and more reverence for God prevailed as yet among them. He in this way prepared the Israelites, that they might not obstinately and proudly reject his doctrine. He now then addresses them, and says that they continued unmoved in their many sins. The import of the whole is, that if the Moabites, the Idumeans, the Tyrians, the Sidonians, and other nations, and that if the Jews as well as these were irreclaimable in their obstinacy, so that their diseases were incurable, and their wickedness such as God could no longer endure, the Israelites were also in the same condition; for they also continued perverse in their wickedness, and provoked God, and repented not, though God had waited long, and exhorted them to repent.

It is now meet for us to bear in mind what we have before said, — that if impiety was so rampant in that age, and the contempt of God so prevailed, that men could not be restored to a sane mind, and if iniquity everywhere overflowed, (for Amos accuses not a few people, but many nations,) let us at this day beware, lest such corruptions prevail among us; for, certainly, the world is now much worse than it was then: nay, since the Prophet says here, that both the Israelites and the Jews were wholly irreclaimable in their obstinacy, there is no excuse for us at this day for deceiving ourselves with an empty name, because we have the symbol of faith, having been baptized; and in case we have other marks, which seem to belong to the Church of God, let us not think that we are therefore free from guilt, if we allow ourselves that unruliness condemned here by the Prophet both in the Israelites and in the Jews; for they had become hardened against all instructions, against all warnings. Let, then, these examples rouse our attention, lest we, like them, harden ourselves so much as to constrain the Lord to execute on us extreme vengeance.

Let us now especially observe what the Prophet lays to the charge of Israel. He begins with their cruel deeds; but the whole book is taken up with reproofs; there is to the very end a continued accusation as to those crimes which then prevailed among the people of Israel. He does not then point out only one particular crime, as with respect to the other nations; but he scrutinizes all the vices of which the people were guilty, as though he would thoroughly anatomize them. But these we shall notice in their proper order.

Now as to the first thing, the Prophet says, that the just among the Israelites was sold for silver, yea, for shoes. It may be asked, Why is it that he does not begin with those superstitions, in which they surpassed the Jews? for if God had resolved to destroy Jerusalem and his own temple, because they had fallen away into superstitious and spurious modes of worship, how much more ought such a judgment to have been executed on the Israelites, as they had perverted the whole law, and had become wholly degenerate; and even circumcision was nothing but a profanation of God’s covenant? Why, then, does not the Prophet touch on this point? To this I answer, — That as superstition had now for many years prevailed among them, the Prophet does not make this now his subject; but we shall hereafter see, that he has not spared these ungodly deprivations which had grown rampant among the Israelites. He indeed sharply arraigns all their superstitions; but he does this in its suitable place. It was now necessary to begin with common evils; and this was far more opportune than if he had at first spoken of superstitions; for they might have said, that they did indeed worship God. He therefore preferred condemning the Jews for alienating themselves from the pure commandments of God; and as to the Israelites, he reproves here their gross vices. But after having charged them with cruelty, shameless rapacity, and many lusts, after having exposed their filthy abominations, he then takes the occasion, as being then more suitable of exclaiming against superstitions. This order our Prophet designedly observed, as we shall see more fully from the connection of his discourse.

I now return to the words, that they sold the just for silver, and the poor for shoes. He means that there was no justice nor equity among the Israelites, for they made a sale of the children of God: and it was a most shameful thing, that there was no remedy for injuries. For we hence, no doubt, learn, that the Prophet levels his reproof against the judges who then exercised authority. The just, he says, is sold for silver: this could not apply to private individuals, but to judges, to whom it belonged to extend a helping hand to the miserable and the poor, to avenge wrongs, and to give to every one his right. It is then the same as though the Prophet had said, that unbridled licentiousness reigned triumphant among the Israelites, so that just men were exposed as a prey, and were set, as it were, on sale. He says, first, that they were sold for silver, and then he adds for shoes: and this ought to be carefully observed; for when once men begin to turn aside from the right course, they abandon themselves to evil without any shame. When an attempt is first made to draw aside a man that is just and upright and free from what is corrupt, he is not immediately overcome; though a great price may be offered to him, he will yet stand firm: but when he has sold his integrity for ten pieces of gold, he may afterwards be easily bought, as the case is usually will women. A woman, while she is pure, cannot be easily drawn away from her conjugal fidelity: she may yet be corrupted by a great price; and when once corrupted, she will afterwards prostitute herself, so that she may be bought for a crust of bread. The same is the case with judges. They, then, who at first covet silver, that is, who cannot be corrupted except by a rich and fat bribe, will afterwards barter their integrity for the meanest reward; for there is no shame any more remaining in them. This is what the Prophet points out in these words, — That they sold the just for silver; that is, that they sold him for a high price, and then that they were corrupted by the meanest gift, that if one offered them a pair of shoes, they would be ready without any blush of shame to receive such a bribe.

We now then see the crime of which Amos accused the Israelites. They could not raise an objection here, which they might have done, if he touched their superstitions. He wished therefore to acquire authority by reprobating first their manifest and obvious crimes. He afterwards, as it has been stated, speaks in its proper place, of that fictitious worship, which they, after having rejected the Law of God, embraced. It follows —

Calvin: Amo 2:7

Here Amos charges them first with insatiable avarice; they panted for the heads of the poor on the dust of the earth. This place is in my judgment not well understood. שאף , shaph, means to pant and to breathe, and is taken often metaphorically as signifying to desire: hence some render the words, “They desire the heads of the poor to be in the dust of the earth;” that is, they are anxious to see the innocent cast down and prostrate on the ground. But there is no need of many words to refute this comment; for ye see that it is strained. Others say, that in their cupidity they cast down the miserable into the dust; they therefore think that a depraved cupidity is connected with violence, and they put the lust for the deed itself.

But what need there is of having recourse to these extraneous meanings, when the words of the Prophet are in themselves plain and clear enough? He says that they panted for the heads of the poor on the ground; as though he had said, that they were not content with casting down the miserable, but that they gaped anxiously, until they wholly destroyed them. There is then nothing to be changed or added in the Prophet’s words, which harmonize well together, and mean, that through cupidity they panted for the heads of the poor, after the poor had been cast down, and were laid prostrate in the dust. The very misery of the poor, whom they saw to be in their power, and lying at their feet, ought to have satisfied them: but when such an insatiable cupidity still inflamed them, that they panted for more punishment on the poor and the miserable, was it not a fury wholly outrageous? We now perceive the Prophet’s meaning: He points out again what he has said in the former verse, — that the Israelites were given to rapacity, avarice, and cruelty of every kind.

He adds at last, and the way of the miserable they pervert. He still inveighs against the judges; for it can hardly comport with what belongs to private individuals, but it properly appertains to judges to pervert justice, and to violate equity for bribery; so that he who had the best cause became the loser, because he brought no bribe sufficiently ample. We now see what was the accusation he alleged against the Israelites. But there follows another charge, that of indulgence in lusts.

Calvin: Amo 2:8

Here the Prophet again inveighs against the people’s avariciousness, and addresses his discourse especially to the chief men; for what he mentions could not have been done by the common people, as the lower and humbler classes could not make feasts by means of spoils gained by judicial proceedings. The Prophet then condemns here, no doubt, the luxury and rapacity of men in high stations. They lie down, he says, on pledged clothes nigh every altar. God had forbidden, in his law, to take from a poor man a pledge, the need of which he had for the support of life and daily use, (Exo 22:26) For instance, it was prohibited by the law to take from a poor man his cloak or his coat, or to take the covering of his bed, or any thing else of which he had need. But the Prophet now accuses the Israelites, that they took away pledges and clothes without any distinction, and lay down on them nigh their altars. This belonged to the rich.

Then follows another clause, which, strictly speaking, must be restricted to the judges and governors, They have drunk the wine of the condemned in the house, or in the temple, of their God This may also be understood of the rich, who were wont to indulge in luxury by means of ill-gotten spoils: for they litigated without cause; and when they gained judgment in their favor, they thought it lawful to fare more sumptuously. This expression of the Prophet may therefore be extended to any of the rich. But he seems here to condemn more specifically the cruelty and rapaciousness of the judges. We now then perceive what the Prophet had in view by saying, that they lay down on pledged garments.

He then says that they drank wine derived from fines, which had been laid on the condemned. But this circumstance, that is added, ought to be observed, — that they lay down near altars and drank in the very temple: for the Prophet here laughs to scorn the gross superstition of the Israelites, that they thought that they were discharging their duty towards God, provided they came to the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar. Thus, indeed, are hypocrites wont to appease God, as if one by puppets played with a child. This has been a wickedness very common in all ages, and is here laid to the charge of the Israelites by the Prophet: they dared with an open front to enter the temple, and there to bring the pledged garments, and to feast on their spoils. Hypocrites do ever make a den of thieves of God’s temple, (Mat 21:13) for they think that all things are lawful for them, provided they put on the appearance, by external worship, of being devoted to God. Since, then, the Israelites promised themselves impunity and took liberty to sin, because they performed religious ceremonies, the Prophet here sharply reproves them: they even dared to make God a witness of their cruelty by bringing pledged garments and by blending their spoils with their sacrifices, as though God had a participation with robbers.

We hence see that rapaciousness and avarice are not alone condemned here by the Prophet, but that the gross superstition of the Israelites is also reprobated, because they thought that there would be no punishment for them, though they plundered and robbed the poor, provided they reserved a part of the spoil for God, as though a sacrifice from what had been unjustly got were not an abomination to him.

But it may be asked, Why does the Prophet thus condemn the Israelites for they had no sacred temple; and we also know (as it has been elsewhere stated) that the temples, in which they thought that they worshipped God, were filthy brothels, and full of all obscenity. How is it, then, that the Prophet now so sharply inveighs against them, because they mingled their spoils with their impure sacrifices? To this the answer is, That he had regard to their views, and derided the grossness of their minds, that they thus childishly trifled with the God whom they imagined for themselves. We say the same at this day to the Papists, — that they blend profane with sacred things, when they prostitute their masses, and also when they trifle with God in their ceremonies. It is certain that whatever the Papists do is an abomination; for the whole of religion is with them adulterated: but they yet cease not to wrong God, whose name they pretend to profess. Such also were then the Israelites: though they professed still to worship God, they were yet sacrilegious; though they offered sacrifices to the calves in Dan and in Bethel, they yet reproached God, for they ever abused his name. This, then, is the crime the Prophet now condemns in them. But what I have said must be remembered, — that this blind assurance is reprehended in the Israelites, that they thought spoils to be lawful provided they professed to worship God: but they thus rendered double their crime, as we have said; for they tried to make God the associate of robbers, mingling as they did their pollutions with their sacrifices. Let us proceed —

Calvin: Amo 2:9

God expostulates here with the Israelites for their ingratitude. He records the benefits he had before conferred on that people; and then shows how unworthily and disgracefully they had conducted themselves; for they forgot their many blessings and proudly despised God, and acted as if they were like other nations, and not bound to God for the singular benefit of adoption. The sum then is that God here complains that he had ill bestowed his blessings; and he reproves the people for their impiety, inasmuch as they did not lead a holier life after having been freely redeemed.

He says first, I have exterminated the Amorite before their face. God shows here that he was disgracefully defrauded by the Israelites, for whose sake he had previously destroyed the Amorites. For why were the Amorites exterminated, but that God would cleanse the land, and also, that he might give there a dwelling to his own people, that he might be purely worshipped? Then the people of Israel ought to have given up themselves wholly to the service of God; but as they neglected to do this, they frustrated the purpose of God, who had expelled the Amorites from that land, yea, and entirely destroyed them. The first complaint then is, that the children of Israel were nothing better than the Amorites, though God had given them the land, which was taken from its natives, that they might dwell in it, and on the condition, that his name should be there worshipped. Hence the Prophets say elsewhere, that they were Amorites. They ought to have been a new people; but as they followed the examples of others, in what did they differ from them? They are therefore called their posterity. But the Prophet speaks not here so severely; he only reproves the Israelites, because they differed in nothing from the Amorites, whom they knew to have been destroyed that they might be introduced into their place, and succeed to their inheritance.

It is then added, that the Amorites were tall in stature, and also that they were strong men. By these words the Prophet intimates that the Amorites were not conquered by the people’s valor, but by the wonderful power of God. We indeed know that they were dreaded by the people of Israel, for they were like giants. Then the Prophet speaks here of their height and strength, that the Israelites might consider that they overcame them not by their own valor, but that the land was given them by a miracle, for they had to do with giants, on whom they could hardly dare to look. It was then God who prostrated the cedars and the oaks before his people. We hence learn, that the Israelites could not boast of their own strengths as though they took possession of the land, because by means of war they ejected their enemies; for this was done by the singular kindness of God. They could not indeed have contended with their enemies, had not that been fulfilled which the Lord had so often foretold, ‘For you, while still, I will fight,’ (Exo 14:14) We now perceive the Prophet’s intention. But we may hence farther learn, that the Israelites had not possessed the land, because they were more excellent than the Amorites, its ancient inhabitants; but because it so pleased God. There was therefore no reason for the people of Israel to be proud on account of any excellency. It hence appears that they, who did not consider this remarkable kindness done to them, were more than doubly ungrateful to God.

He says that their fruit above and root below were destroyed. By this metaphor God enlarges on what he said before, that the Amorites had been exterminated, so that none of them remained. “I have demolished,” he says, or, “I have entirely destroyed the root beneath and the fruit above; I have extinguished the very name of the nation.” And yet the Israelites were not better, though the Amorites were thus destroyed; but having succeeded in their place, they became like them: this was utterly inexcusable. The more severe God’s vengeance had been towards the Amorites, the more ought the Israelites to have extolled his favor: but when with closed eyes they passed by so remarkable a testimony of God’s paternal love, it appears that they were extremely wicked and ungrateful.

Calvin: Amo 2:10

He afterwards subjoins, I have made you to ascend from the land of Egypt; I have made you to walk in the desert for forty years, in order to possess the land of the Amorite. The circumstances here specified are intended to confirm the same thing, that God had miraculously redeemed his people. Men, we know, for the most part extenuate the favors of God; nay, this evil is innate in us. This is the reason why the Prophet so largely describes and extols the redemption of the people. Hence he says now that they had been led out of the land of Egypt. And they ought to have remembered what had been their condition in Egypt; for there they were most miserably oppressed. When therefore that coming out was set before them, it was the same as if God had reminded them how shamefully they had been treated, and how hard had been their bondage in Egypt. That beginning ought to have humbled them, and also to have stimulated them to the cultivation of piety. When now they proudly exulted against God, when no recollection of their deliverance laid hold on them, this vice is justly laid to their charge by the Prophet: “See,” he says, “ I have brought you forth from the land of Egypt; what were ye then? what was your nobility? what was your wealth or riches? what was your power? For the Egyptians treated you as the vilest slaves; your condition then was extremely ignominious; ye were as lost, and I redeemed you: and now buried is the recollection of so illustrious a kindness, which deserved to be for ever remembered.”

He afterwards adds, I have made you to walk, etc. The Prophet here reminds them of the desert, that the Israelites might know that God might have justly closed up against them an entrance into the land, though he had promised it for an inheritance to Abraham. For how was it that the Lord led them about for so long a time, except that they, as far as they could, had denied God, and rendered themselves unworthy of enjoying the promised land? Then the Prophet indirectly blames the Israelites here for having been the cause why God detained them for forty years without introducing them immediately into the promised land; which might have easily been done, had they not closed the door against themselves by their ingratitude. This is one reason why the Prophet now speaks of the forty years. And then, as God had in various ways testified his kindness towards the Israelites, he had thus bound them the more to himself; but an ungodly forgetfulness had buried all his favors. God daily rained manna on them from heaven; he also gave them drink from a dry rock; he guided them during the day by a pillar of cloud, and in the night by fire: and we also know how often God bore with them, and how many proofs he gave them of his forbearance. The Prophet, then, by speaking here of the forty years, meant to counsel the Israelites to call to mind the many favors, by which they were bound to God, while they were miraculously led by him for forty years in the desert.

Calvin: Amo 2:11

He now subjoins, I have raised from your sons Prophets, and Nazarites from your young or strong men, (for בחרים , becharim, as we have elsewhere said, are called by the Hebrews chosen men;) then from your youth or chosen men have I raised Nazarites. Was it not so, O children of Israel? or certainly it was so: for the particle אף , aph, sometimes is a simple affirmation, and sometimes an addition. Is not then all this true, O children of Israel? saith Jehovah. God first reminds them that he had raised up Prophets from their sons. It if a remarkable proof of God’s love, that he deigns to guide his people by Prophets: for if God were to speak himself from heaven, or to send his angels down, it would apparently be much more dignified; but when he so condescends as to employ mortal men and our own brethren, who are the agents of his Spirit, in whom he dwells, and by whose mouth he speaks, it cannot indeed be esteemed as highly as it deserves, that the Lord should thus accommodate himself to us in so familiar a manner. This is the reason why he now says, that he had raised up Prophets from their sons. They might have objected and said, that he had introduced the Law, and that then the heaven was moved, and that the earth shook: but he speaks of his daily favor in having been pleased to speak continually to his people, as it were, from mouth to mouth, and this by men: I have raised up, he says, Prophets from your sons; that is, “I have chosen angels from the midst of you.” The Prophets are indeed, as it were, celestial ambassadors, and God commands them to be heard, the same as if he himself appeared in a visible form. Since then he choose angels from the midst of us, is not this an invaluable favor? We hence see how much force is contained in this reproof, when the Lord says, that Prophets had been chosen from his own people.

And he mentions also the Nazarites. It appears sufficiently evident from Num 6:1, why God appointed Nazarites. Nothing is more difficult, we know, than to induce men to follow a common rule; for they ever seek something new; and hence have arisen so many devices, so many additions, in short, so many leavenings by which God’s worship is corrupted; for each wishes to be more holy than another, and affects some singularity. In case then any one had a wish to consecrate himself to God beyond what was commonly required, the Lord instituted a peculiar observance, that the people might not attempt any thing without at least his permission. Hence, when any one wished to consecrate himself to God, though they were all holy, he yet observed certain regulations: he abstained from wine; he allowed his hair to grow; in a word, he observed those ceremonial rites which we find in the chapter already referred to. God now reminds the Israelites that he had omitted nothing calculated to preserve them pure and holy, and entire in his worship.

After having related these two things, he asks them, Is not all this true? The facts were indeed well known: then the question, it may be said, was superfluous. But the Prophet designedly asked the Israelites the question here — Is it not so? that he might more deeply touch their hearts. We indeed often despise things well known, and we see how many heedlessly allow what they hear, and pass by things without any thought. Such must have been the torpidity of the Israelites; they might have confessed without disputing that all this was true, — that the Lord had raised up Prophets from their children, and that he had given to them that peculiar service of which we have spoken; but they mighty at the same time, have contemptuously overlooked the whole, had not this been added: “What do ye mean, O Israelites? ye do indeed see that nothing has been left undone by me to retain you in my service: how then is it now, that your lust leads you away from me, and that having shaken off the yoke, ye grow thus wanton against me?” We now perceive why the Prophet inserted this clause, for it was necessary that the Israelites should be more sharply roused, that being convicted, they might acknowledge their guilt.

Calvin: Amo 2:12

But it now follows, Ye have to the Nazarites quaffed wine, and on the Prophets ye have laid a command, that they should not prophesy God complains here that the service which he had instituted had been violated by the people. It seems indeed a light offense, that wine had been given to the Nazarites; for the kingdom of God, we know, is not meat and drink, (1Co 8:8) though this saying of Paul was not yet made known, it was yet true in all ages. It was then lawful for the Nazarites to drink wine, provided they used moderation. To this the simple answer is that it was lawful to drink wine, for they of their own accord undertook to abstain from it. In similar manner God forbade the priests to drink wine or strong drink whenever they entered the temple. God indeed did not wish to be served with this kind of ceremony; but his intention was to show, by such a rite, that a greater temperance is required in priests than in the people in general. His purpose then to withdraw them from the common mode of living, when they entered the temple; for they were as mediators between God and his people: they ought then to have consecrated themselves in a special manner. We now see that the priests were reminded by this external symbol, that greater holiness was required in them than in the people. The same thing must be also said of the Nazarites. The Nazarites might drink wine; but during the time they consecrated themselves to God, they were not allowed to drink wine, that they might thereby acknowledge that they were in a manner separated from the common habits of men, and were come nearer to God. We now understand why it was not lawful for the Nazarites to drink wine.

But it is frivolous for the Papists to pretend this example, and to introduce it in defense of their superstitions, and of their foolish and rash vows, which they undertake without any regard to God: for God expressly sanctioned and confirmed whatever the Nazarites did under the law. Let the Papists show a proof for their monastic vows, and foolish rites, by which they now trifle with God. We also know that there is a great difference between the Nazarites and the Papal monks; for the monks vow perpetual celibacy; others vow abstinence from flesh during life; and these things are done foolishly and rashly. They indeed think that the worship of God consists in these trifles. They promise what is not in their own power; for they renounce marriage, when they know not whether they are endued with the gift of chastity. And to abstain from flesh all their life is more foolish still, because they make this to be a part of God’s service. I do, at the same time, wonder that they bring forward this example, since there are none so holy under the Papacy as to abstain from wine. As for the Carthusians and other monks of the holier sort, they seem determined to take revenge on abstinence from flesh, for they choose the sweetest and the liveliest wine; as though they intended to get a compensation for the loss and deprivation they undergo, when they pledge to God their abstinence from flesh, by reserving the best wine for themselves. These things are extremely ludicrous. Besides it is a sufficient reply if we adduce what I have already said, that the Nazarites did nothing under the law but what God in his word approved and sanctioned.

Since God then so sharply and severely reproved the Israelites for giving wine to the Nazarites, what must be expected now, when we transgress the chief commandments of God, when we corrupt his whole spiritual worship? It seemed apparently but a venial sin, so to speak, in the Nazarites to drink wine. Had they become wanton or robbed, or had they done wrong to their brethren, or committed forgery, the charge against them would have doubtless been much more atrocious. Yet the Prophet does not now abstain from bitterly complaining that they drank wine. Then, since God would have us to worship him in a spiritual manner, a much heavier charge lies against us, if we violate his spiritual worship. As, for instance, if we now pollute the sacraments, if we corrupt the purity of divine worship, if we treat his word with scorn, yea, if we transgress as to these main points of religion, much less is our excuse. Let us then remember that the Prophet here reproves the Israelites for giving wine to the Nazarites.

He then adds, that they commanded the Prophets not to prophesy. It is certain that the Prophets were not forbidden to speak, at least expressly forbidden: but when the liberty of teaching faithfully as they ought to do is taken away from God’s servants, and a command to this effect is given them, it is the same thing as to reject wholly their doctrine. The Israelites wished Prophets to be among them; and yet they could not endure their plain reproofs. But when they had polluted the worship of God, when their whole conduct became dissolute, the Prophets sharply inveighed against them: this freedom could not be endured by the Israelites; they wished to be spared and flattered. What then the Prophet now lays to their charge is that they forbade God’s servants to declare the word freely and honestly as God had commanded them. Hence he says, On the Prophets they have laid a charge, that they should not prophesy.

This evil reigns in the world at this day. It would indeed be an execrable audacity wholly to reject the Lord’s word; this is what even ungodly men dare not openly to do: but they wish at the same time some middle course to be adopted, that God might not fully exercise authority over them. They then would gladly put restraint on the Holy Spirit, so as not to allow him to speak but within certain limitations: “See, we willingly allow thee some things, but this we cannot bear: so much asperity is extremely odious.” And under the Papacy at this day the liberty of prophesying is wholly suppressed: and among us how many there are who wish to impose laws on God’s servants beyond which they are not to pass? But we see what the Prophet says here, — that the word of God is repudiated when the freedom of teaching is restrained, and men wish to be flattered, and desire their sins to be covered, and cannot bear free admonitions.

Let us also notice the word command, which the Prophet uses. צוה , tsue, means to order, to command, or to determine, in an authoritative manner. The Prophet then does not expostulate with them, because there were many who clamored, who murmured against the Prophets, as it is always the case; but he rather condemns the audacity of the chief men for daring to consult how they might silence the Prophets, and not allow them the free liberty of teaching, as we find it to be done even now. For not only in taverns and lurking-places do the ungodly clamor when their sins are severely reproved, but they also go forth publicly and complain that too much liberty is allowed the ministers of the word, and that some course ought to be adopted to make them speak more moderately. It is then this sacrilege that the Prophet now rebukes, when he says, that the ungodly commanded the Prophets, that they should not prophecy, as though they made a law, as though they wished to proclaim a decree, that the Prophets should not speak so boldly and so freely. It now follows —

Calvin: Amo 2:13

The verb עיק , oik, in Hebrew is often transitive, and it is also a neuter. This place then may admit of two interpretations. The first is, that God was pressed under the Israelites, as a wagon groans under too much weight; and so God expostulates by Isaiah, that he was weighed down by the Israelites, ‘Ye constrain me,’ he says, ‘to labor under your sins’ (Isa 1:14) The sense then, that God was pressed down under them, may be viewed as not unsuitable: and yet the more received interpretation is this, “Behold, I will bind you fast as a wagon is bound.” I am, however, more inclined to take the first meaning, — that God here reprehends the Israelites, because he had been pressed down by them: for תחתיכם , tacheticam, properly signifies, “Under you,” which some render, but strainedly, “Is your place:” for when the verb is transitive, they say, that תחתיכם , tacheticam, must be rendered “In your place:” but this is frigid and forced; and the whole passage will run better, if we say, “I am bound fast under you, as though ye were a wagon full of sheaves; ²¹ ” that is, “Ye are to me intolerable.” For God carried that people on his shoulders; and when they loaded him with the burden of iniquities, it is no wonder that he said that they were like a wagon — a wagon filled with many sheaves: “Ye are light as wind, but ye are also to me very burdensome, and I am forced at length to shake you off:” and this he afterwards shows.

Defender: Amo 2:4

Judah's sin was greater than those of other nations because the people of Judah uniquely had God's law, and yet they had despised it."

Defender: Amo 2:9

The exploits of the "giants" were still remembered some 600 or more years after the conquests of Moses and Joshua (Deu 2:10-21). They had been actual living men, possibly demonically controlled, but certainly not mere mythical creatures."

Defender: Amo 2:12

The Nazarites were dedicated to lives of abstinence from wine and strong drink (Num 6:1-8), and the prophets were called and trained to prophesy God's Word. It is doubly sinful not only to disobey God but also to induce or compel others to do so."

TSK: Amo 2:1

For three : Amo 2:4, Amo 2:6, Amo 1:3, Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9, Amo 1:11, Amo 1:13; Num. 22:1-25:18; Deu 23:4, Deu 23:5; Psa 83:4-7; Mic 6:5

of Moab : Isa 11:14, 15:1-16:14, Isa 25:10; Jer. 48:1-47; Eze 25:8, Eze 25:9; Zep 2:8, Zep 2:9

because : 2Ki 3:9, 2Ki 3:26; Pro 15:3

TSK: Amo 2:2

Kirioth : Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41

with tumult : Amo 1:14; Isa 9:5; Jer 48:34

TSK: Amo 2:3

Num 24:17; Jer 48:7, Jer 48:25

TSK: Amo 2:4

For : Deu 31:16-18, Deu 32:15-27

Judah : Amo 3:2; 2Ki 17:19; Jer 9:25, Jer 9:26; Hos 5:12, Hos 5:13, Hos 6:11, Hos 12:2

because : Lev 26:14, Lev 26:15; Jdg 2:17-20; 2Sa 12:9, 2Sa 12:10; 2Ki 22:11-17; 2Ch 36:14-17; Neh 1:7, Neh 9:26, Neh 9:29, Neh 9:30; Isa 5:24, Isa 5:25; Jer 8:9; Ezek. 16:1-63, Eze 20:13, Eze 20:16, Eze 20:24; Eze 22:8, Eze 23:11-21; Dan 9:5-12; 1Th 4:8

and their : Isa 9:15, Isa 9:16, Isa 28:15, Isa 44:20; Jer 16:19, Jer 16:20, Jer 23:13-15, Jer 23:25-32, Jer 28:15, Jer 28:16; Eze 13:6-16, Eze 13:22, Eze 22:28; Hab 2:18; Rom 1:25

after : Jdg 2:11-17, Jdg 10:6; 2Ch 30:7; Jer 8:2, Jer 9:14; Eze 20:13, Eze 20:16, Eze 20:18, Eze 20:24, Eze 20:30; 1Pe 1:18

TSK: Amo 2:5

I will : Jer 17:27, Jer 21:10, Jer 37:8-10, Jer 39:8, Jer 52:13; Hos 8:14

TSK: Amo 2:6

Thus saith : Amos, says Abp. Newcome, first prophesies against the Syrians, Philistines, Tyrians, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the twelve tribes, and had occasionally become their enemies and persecutors. Having thus taught his countrymen that the providence of God extended to other nations, he briefly mentions the idolatrous practices and consequent destruction of Judah, and then passes on to his proper subject, which was to exhort and reprove the kingdom of Israel, and to denounce against it the Divine judgments.

For three : Amo 6:3-7; 2Ki 17:7-18, 2Ki 18:12; Eze 23:5-9; Hos 4:1, Hos 4:2, Hos 4:11-14, Hos 7:7-10, Hos 8:4-6; Hos 13:2, Hos 13:3; Mic 6:10-16

because : Amo 5:11, Amo 5:12, Amo 8:4-6; Isa 5:22, Isa 5:23, Isa 29:21; Joe 3:3, Joe 3:6; Mic 3:2, Mic 3:3

TSK: Amo 2:7

pant : Amo 4:1; 1Ki 21:4; Pro 28:21; Mic 2:2, Mic 2:9, Mic 7:2, Mic 7:3; Zep 3:3

and turn : Amo 5:12; Isa 10:2

and a : Lev 18:8, Lev 18:15; Eze 22:11; 1Co 5:1

maid : or, young woman

to profane : Lev 20:3; 2Sa 12:14; Eze 36:20; Rom 2:24

TSK: Amo 2:8

laid : Exo 22:26, Exo 22:27; Deu 24:12-17; Eze 18:7, Eze 18:12

by : Amo 6:4; Isa 57:7; Eze 23:41; 1Co 8:10, 1Co 10:7, 1Co 10:21

they drink : Amo 6:6; Jdg 9:27; Hos 4:8

the condemned : or, such as have fined, or, mulcted

TSK: Amo 2:9

I the : Gen 15:16; Exo 3:8, Exo 34:11; Num 21:24; Deu 2:24-33; Jos 3:10, Jos 24:8-12; Jdg 11:21-23; Neh 9:22-24; Psa 135:10-12, Psa 136:17-22

whose : Num 13:28, Num 13:29, Num 13:32, Num 13:33; Deu 1:28, Deu 2:10,Deu 2:11, Deu 3:11, Deu 9:1-3

I destroyed : Jos 11:21, Jos 11:22; 2Sa 23:16-22; Job 18:16; Isa 5:24; Mal 4:1

TSK: Amo 2:10

I brought : Exo 12:51; Neh 9:8-12; Psa 105:42, Psa 105:43, Psa 136:10,Psa 136:11; Jer 32:20,Jer 32:21; Eze 20:10; Mic 6:4

and led : Num 14:34; Deu 2:7, Deu 8:2-4; Neh 9:21; Psa 95:10; Act 7:42, Act 13:18

to possess : Num 14:31-35; Deu 1:20,Deu 1:21, Deu 1:39

TSK: Amo 2:11

I raised : 1Sa 3:20, 1Sa 19:20; 1Ki 17:1, 1Ki 18:4, 1Ki 19:16, 1Ki 20:13, 1Ki 20:35, 1Ki 20:41, 1Ki 22:8; 2Ki 2:2-5; 2Ki 6:1, 2Ki 17:13; 2Ch 36:15; 2Pe 1:20,2Pe 1:21

and : Amo 7:12, Amo 7:13; Isa 30:10,Isa 30:11; Jer 11:21, Jer 26:11; Mic 2:6; Mat 21:34-38; Act 4:18, Act 5:28, Act 7:51; 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16

Nazarites : Num 6:2; Jdg 13:4-7; Lam 4:7; Luk 1:3-17

Is it : Isa 5:3, Isa 5:4; Jer 2:5, Jer 2:31; Mic 6:3, Mic 6:4

TSK: Amo 2:13

Behold : Psa 78:40; Isa 1:14, Isa 7:13, Isa 43:24; Eze 6:9, Eze 16:43; Mal 2:17

I am pressed : etc. or, I will press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Amo 2:1

Moab - The relation of Moab to Israel is only accidentally different from that of Ammon. One spirit actuated both, venting itself in one and the same way, as occasion served, and mostly together (see the note at Amo 1:13). Beside those more formal invasions, the history of Elisha mentions one probably of many in-roads of "bands of the Moabites."It seems as though, when "the year entered in,"and with it the harvest, "the bands of the Moabites entered in"too, like "the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east"Jdg 6:3-4, Jdg 6:11 in the time of Gideon, or their successors the Bedouins, now. This their continual hostility is related in the few words of a parenthesis. There was no occasion to relate at length an uniform hostility, which was as regular as the seasons of the year, and the year’ s produce, and the temptation to the cupidity of Moab, when Israel was weakened by Hazael.

Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom - The deed here condemned, is unknown. Doubtless it was connected with that same hatred of Edom, which the king of Moab showed, when besieged by Israel. People are often more enraged against a friend or ally who has made terms with one whom they hate or fear, than with the enemy himself. Certainly, "when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him"2Ki 3:26-27, his fury was directed personally against the king of Edom. He "took with him"700 chosen men "to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not."Escape was not their object. They sought not "to cut through"the Edomite contingent into the desert, but "to the king of Edom."Then "he took his oldest son,"that is, probably the oldest son of the king of Edom whom he captured, "and offered him up as a burnt offering on the wall."

Such is the simplest structure of the words; He "strove to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not, and he took his oldest son, etc., and there was great indignation against Israel."That "indignation"too on the part of Edom (for there was no other to be indignant "against Israel") is best accounted for, if this expedition, undertaken because Moab had rebelled against Israel, had occasioned the sacrifice of the son of the king of Edom, who took part in it only as a tributary of Judah. Edom would have had no special occasion to be indignant with Israel, if on occasion of an ordinary siege, the king of Moab had, in a shocking way, performed the national idolatry of child-sacrifice. That hatred the king of Moab carried beyond the grave, hatred which the pagan too held to be unnatural in its implacableness and unsatiableness. The soul being, after death, beyond man’ s reach, the hatred, vented upon his remains, is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengeance.

It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it. Its impotence evinces its fierceness, since, having no power to wreak any real revenge, it has no object but to show its hatred. Hatred, which death cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. With this hatred Moab hated the king of Edom, seemingly because he had been, though probably against this will, on the side of the people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, and directed against God Himself. The single instance, which we know, of any feud between Moab and Edom was, when Edom was engaged in a constrained service of God. At least there are no indications of any conquest of each other. The Bozrah of Moab, being in the Mishor, "the plain"Jer 48:21, Jer 48:24, is certainly distinct from the Bozrah of Edom, which Jeremiah speaks of at the same time, as belonging to Edom Jer 49:13. Each kingdom, Edom and Moab, had its own strong city, Bozrah, at one and the same time. And if "the rock,"which Isaiah speaks of as the strong hold of Moab Isa 16:1, was indeed the Petra of Edom, (and the mere name, in that country of rock-fortresses is not strong, yet is the only, proof,) they won it from Judah who had taken it from Edom, and in whose hands it remained in the time of Amos (2Ki 14:7; see above the note at Amo 1:12), not from Edom itself. Or, again, the tribute "may"have been only sent through Petra, as the great center of commerce. Edom’ s half-service gained it no good, but evil; Moab’ s malice was its destruction.

The proverb, "speak good only of the dead,"shows what reverence human nature dictates, not to condemn those who have been before their Judge, unless He have already openly condemned them. "Death,"says Athanasius in relating the death of Arius on his perjury, "is the common end of all people, and we ought not to insult the dead, though he be an enemy, for it is uncertain whether the same event may not happen to ourselves before evening."

Barnes: Amo 2:2

It shall devour the palaces of Kerioth - Literally, "the cities,"that is, a collection of cities. It may have received a plural form upon some enlargement, as Jerusalem received a dual form, as a double city. The name is, in different forms, very common . In the plain or high downs of Moab itself, there were both Kiriathaim, "double city"and Kerloth Jer 48:23-24; in Naphthali, a Kiriathaim, (1Ch 6:76, (1Ch 6:61 in Hebrew)) or Kartan Jos 21:32; in Judah, the Kerioth Jos 15:25 from where the wretched Judas has his name Iscariot; in Zebulon, Kartah Jos 21:34 also, which reappears as the Numidian Cirta. Moab had also a Kiriath-huzoth, "city of streets"Num 22:39, within the Arnon . This alone was within the proper border of Moab, such as the Armorites had left it.

Kerioth and Kiriathaim were in the plain country which Israel had won from the Amorites, and its possession would imply an aggression of Moab. Jeroboam II had probably at this time brought Moab to a temporary submission (see the note at Amo 6:14); but Israel only required fealty and tribute of Moab; Moab appears even before the captivity of the 2 12 tribes, to have invaded the possessions of Israel. Kerioth was probably a new capital, beyond the Arnon, now adorned with "palaces"and enlarged, as "Paris, Prague, Cracow , "London, are composed of different towns. In Jerome’ s time, it had probably ceased to be .

Shall die with tumult - Jeremiah, when prophesying the destruction of Moab, designates it by this same name "sons of tumult Jer 48:45. A flame shall devour the corner of Moab and the crown of the sons of tumult."And probably herein he explains the original prophecy of Balaam, "shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of tumult"Num 24:17. As they had done, so should it be done to them; tumults they caused, "in tumult"they should perish.

After the subdual of Moab by Nebuchadnezzar, it disappears as a nation, unless indeed Daniel in his Prophecy, "Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon shall escape out of his hand"Amos 11:41 (Antiochus Epiphanes,) means the nations themselves, and not such as should be like them. Else the intermarriage with Moabite women Ezr 9:1 is mentioned only as that with women of other pagan nations which had ceased to be. The old name, Moabitis, is still mentioned; but the Arabs had possessed themselves of it, and bore the old name. Alexander Jannaeus "subdued"we are told, "of the Arabians, the Moabites and Gileadires,"and then, again, when in difficulty, made it over with its fortified places, to the king of the Arabians . Among the cities which Alexander took from the king of the Arabians , are cities throughout Moab, both in that part in which they had succeeded to Israel, and their proper territory south of the Arnon .

Barnes: Amo 2:3

And I will cut off the judge - The title "judge"(shophet) is nowhere used absolutely of a king. Holy Scripture speaks in several places of "all the judges of the earth"Job 9:24; Psa 2:10; Psa 148:11; Pro 8:16; Isa 40:23. Hosea Hos 13:10, under "judges,"includes "kings and princes,"as judging the people. The word "judge"is always used as one invested with the highest, but not regal authority, as of all the judges from the death of Joshua to Samuel. In like way it (Sufetes) was the title of the chief magistrates of Carthage , with much the same authority as the Roman Consuls . The Phoenician histories, although they would not own that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre, still own that, after his 13 years’ siege , Baal reigned 10 years, and after him judges were set up, one for two months, a second for ten, a third, a high priest, for three, two more for six, and between these one reigned for a year. After his death, they sent for Merbaal from Babylon, who reigned for four years, and on his death, they sent for Hiram his brother who reigned for twenty. The judges then exercised the supreme authority, the king’ s sons having been carried away captive. Probably, then, when Jeroboam II recovered the old territory of Israel, Moab lost its kings. It agrees with this, that Amos says, "the princes thereof,"literally, "her princes,"the princes of Moab, not as of Ammon, "his princes,"that is, the princes of the king.

Barnes: Amo 2:4

For three transgressions of Judah etc. - Rup.: "Here too there is no difference of Jew and Gentile. The word of God, a just judge, spareth no man’ s person. whom sin joins in one, the sentence of the Judge disjoins not in punishment"Rom 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law, and as many as have signed in the law, shall be judged by the law."Jerome: "Those other nations, Damascus and the rest, he upbraids not for having cast away the law of God, and despised His commandments, for they had not the written law, but that of nature only. So then of them he says, that "they corrupted all their compassions"- and the like. But Judah, who, at that time, had the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had received the law and commandments and judgments and precepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, for that it had "cast aside His law and not kept His commandments;"wherefore it should be punished as it deserved.

And since they rejected and despised these, then, in course, "their lies deceived them,"that is, their idols; "lies"on their part who made them and worshiped them for the true God, and "lies"and lying to them, as deceiving their hopes. "For an idol is nothing in the world"1Co 8:4, as neither are all the vanities in the world whereof people make idols, but they deceive by a vain show, as though they were something. Jerome: "They would not have been deceived by their idols, unless they had first rejected the law of the Lord and not done His commandments."They had sinned with a high hand: "despising"and so rejecting the law of God; and so He despised and rejected them, leaving them to be deceived by the lies which they themselves had chosen. So it ever is with man. Man must either "love God’ s law and hate and abhor lies"Psa 119:163, or he will despise God’ s law and cleave to lies.

He first in act "despises"God’ s law, (and whoso does not keep it, despises it,) and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his God. He first chooses willfully his own "lie,"that is, whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own "lie"deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves. So, whatever false maxim anyone has adopted against his conscience, whether in belief or practice, to justify what he wills against the will of God, or to explain away what God reveals and he mislikes, stifling and lying to his conscience, in the end deceives his conscience, and at the last, a man believes that to be true, which, before he had lied to his conscience, he knew to be false. The prophet uses a bold word in speaking of man’ s dealings with his God, "despises."Man carries on the serpent’ s first fraud, "Hath God indeed said?"Man would not willingly own, that he is directly at variance with the Mind of God. Man, in his powerlessness, at war with Omnipotence, and, in his limited knowledge, with Omniscience! It were too silly, as well as too terrible.

So he smoothes it over to himself, "lying"to himself. "God’ s word must not be taken so precisely;""God cannot have meant;""the Author of nature would not have created us so, if He had meant;"and all the other excuses, by which he would evade owning to himself that he is directly rejecting the Mind of God and trampling it under foot. Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God, and did not keep it; then, he "despised"it. On the one side was God’ s will, His Eternal Wisdom, His counsel for man for good; on the other, what debasements! On the one side were God’ s awful threats, on the other, His exceeding promises. Yet man chose whatever he willed, lying to himself, and acting as though God had never threatened or promised or spoken. This ignoring of God’ s known Will and law and revelation is to despise them, "as effectually as to curse God to His face"Job 2:5. This rejection of God was hereeditary.

Their lies were those "after which their fathers walked,"in Egypt and from Egypt onward, in the wilderness (see the note at Amo 5:25-26) , "making the image of the calf of Egypt and worshiping Baalpeor and Ashtoreth and Baalim."Evil acquires a sort of authority by time. People become inured to evils, to which they have been used. False maxims, undisputed, are thought indisputable. They are in possession; and "possession"is held a good title. The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. The descent "of the image of the great goddess Diana from Jupiter"or of the Coran, becomes a "thing"which cannot be spoken against"Act 19:35-36. The "lies after which the fathers walked"deceive the children. The children canonize the errors of their fathers."Human opinon is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as God’ s truth.

The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, does not excuse it Neh 5:5. "Judah is the Church. In her the prophet reproves whosoever, worshiping his own vices and sins, cometh to have that as a god by which he is overcome; as Peter saith, "Whereby a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage"2Pe 2:19. The covetous worshipeth mammon; the glutton, his belly Phi 3:19; the impure, Baalpeor; she who, "living in pleasure, is dead while she liveth"1Ti 5:6, the pleasure in which she liveth."Of such idols the world is full. Every fair form, every idle imagination, everything which gratifies self-love, passion, pride, vanity, intellect, sense, each the most refined or the most debased, is such a "lie,"so soon as man loves and regards it more than his God.

Barnes: Amo 2:5

I will send a fire upon Judah - All know now, how Jerusalem, its temple, and its palaces perished by fire, first by Nebuchadnezzar, then by the Romans. Yet some two centuries passed, before that first destruction came. The ungodly Jews flattered themselves that it would never come. So we know that a "fiery stream"Dan 7:10 will issue and come forth from Him; "a fire"that "consumeth to destruction"Job 31:12, all who, whether or no they are in the body of the Church, are not of the heavenly Jerusalem; dead members in the body which belongs to the Living Head. And it will not the less come, because it is not regarded. Rather, the very condition of all God’ s judgments is, to be disregarded and to come, and then most to come, when they are most disregarded.

Barnes: Amo 2:6

For three transgressions of Israel, and for four - In Israel, on whom the divine sentence henceforth rests, the prophet numbers four classes of sins, running into one another, as all sins do, since all grievous sins contain many in one, yet in some degree distinct:

(1) Perversion of justice;

(2) oppression of the poor;

(3) uncleanness;

(4) luxury with idolatry.

They sold the righteous for silver - It is clear from the opposite statement, "that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes,"that the prophet is not speaking of judicial iniquity, but of actual buying and selling. The law allowed a Hebrew who was poor to sell himself , and a Hebrew to buy him until the year of release; yet this too with the express reserve, that the purchaser was forbidden to "serve himself with him with the service of a slave, but as a hired servant and a sojourner stroll he be with thee"Lev 25:39-40. The thief who could not repay what he stole, was to "be sold for his theft"Exo 22:2-3. But the law gave no power to sell an insolvent debtor. It grew up in practice. The sons and daughters of the debtor Neh 5:5, or "his wife and children"Mat 18:25, nay even the sons of a deceased debtor 2Ki 4:1, were sold. Nehemiah rebuked this sharply. In that case, the hardness was aggravated by the fact that the distress had been fomented by usury. But the aggravation did not constitute the sin. It seems to be this merciless selling by the creditor, with Amos rebukes. The "righteous"is probably one who, without any blame, became insolvent. The "pair of shoes,"that is, sandals, express the trivial price, or the luxury for which he was sold. They had him sold "for the sake of a pair of sandals,"that is, in order to procure them. Trivial in themselves, as being a mere sole, the sandals of the Hebrew women were, at times, costly and beautiful (Son 7:1; Ezra 10; Judith 16:9). Such a sale expressed contempt for man, made in the image of God, that he was sold either for some worthless price, or for some needless adornment.

Barnes: Amo 2:7

That pant after the dust of the earth - Literally, "the panters!"with indignation. Not content with having rent from him the little hereditary property which belonged to each Israelite, these creditors grudged him even the "dust,"which, as a mourner, he strewed on his head Job 2:12, since it too was "earth."Covetousness, when it has nothing to feed it, craves for what is absurd or impossible. What was Naboth’ s vineyard to a king of Israel with his "ivory palace?"What was Mordecai’ s refusal to bow to one in honor like Haman? What a trivial gain to a millionaire? The sarcasm of the prophet was the more piercing, because it was so true. People covet things in proportion, not to their worth, but to their worthlessness. No one covets what he much needs. Covetousness is the sin, mostly not of those who have not, but of those who have. It grows with its gains, is the less satisfied, the more it has to satisify it, and attests its own unreasonableness, by the uselessness of the things it craves for.

And turn aside the way of the meek - So Solomon said, "A wicked"man "taketh a bribe out of the bosom, to pervert the ways of judgment."(Pro 17:23. God had laid down the equality of man, made in His own image, and had forbidden to favor either poor Exo 23:3 or rich Exo 23:6. Amos calls these by different names, which entitled them to human sympathy; "poor, depressed, lowly; poor,"in their absolute condition; "depressed,"as having been brought low; "lowly,"as having the special grace of their state, the wonderful meekness and lowliness off the godly poor. But all these qualities are so many incentives to injury to the ungodly. They hate the godly, as a reproach to them; because "he is clean contrary to their doings, his life is not like other people’ s; his ways are of another fashion"(Wisdom Amo 2:12, Amo 2:15). Wolves destroy not wolves but sheep. Bad people circumvent not the bad but the good. Besides the easiness of the gain, there is a devilish fascinating pleasure to the bad, to overreach the simple and meek, because they are such.

They love also to "turn aside the way of the meek,"by , "turning them from what is truly right and good; "or from the truth; or again to thwart them in all their ways and endeavors, by open injustice or by perverting justice. Every act of wrong prepares the way for the crowning act; and so "the turning aside the way of the meek"foreshadowed and prepared for the unjust judgment of Him who was "the Meek and Lowly"One Mat 11:29, the selling the righteous for a trilling sum prepared for the selling "the Holy One and the Just"Act 3:14 for "the thirty pieces of silver.": "Contrariwise, whoso is truly wise, cordially venerates the humble and abject, the poor and simple, and prefers them in his own heart to himself, knowing that God has ‘ chosen the poor, and the weak things of the world, and things despised, and things which are not’ 1Co 1:27-28; and that Christ hath likened Himself to such, saying in the Psalm, ‘ I am poor and sorrowful’ Psa 69:29."

The same damsel - This is not expressly forbidden by the law, except in the case of marriage, the father being forbidden to marry his son’ s widow, and the son to take his father’ s widow to wife Lev 18:8, Lev 18:15. Abominations, unless they had become known to Israel in Egypt, were not expressly forbidden, but were included in the one large prohibition, which, as our Lord explains, forbade every offence, bearing upon it. Israel must have so understood the law, since Amos could upbraid them with this, which is not forbidden by the letter of the law, as a willful insult to the Majesty of God. Reverence was due from the son to the father, example from the father to the son. But now the father was an example of evil to the son; and the son sinned in a way which had no temptation except its irreverence. People, sated with ordinary sin seek incitement to sin, in its very horrors. Probably this sin was committed in connection with their idol worship (see the note at Hos 4:14). The sin of marrying the father’ s widow was "fornication not so much as named among the Gentiles"1Co 5:1; it was unknown, as seemingly legalizing what was so unnatural. Oppression of the poor, wronging the righteous, perverting the way of the meek, laid the soul open for any abomination.

To profane My Holy Name - that is, as called upon them, as the people of God. God had said, "ye shall keep My commandments and do them (Lev 22:31-32; add Lev 20:3; Lev 18:21; Lev 21:6). "I"am "the Lord, and ye shall not defile My Holy Name. For I will be sanctified among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you."The sins of God’ s people are a reproach upon Himself. They bring Him, so to say, in contact with sin. They defeat the object of His creation and revelation. He created man in His Image, to bear His likeness, to have one will with Himself. In effect, through sin, He has created rebels, deformed, unlike. So long as He bears with them, it seems as if He were indifferent to them. Those to whom He has not revealed Himself, must needs think that He takes no account of what He permits unnoticed. Israel, whom God had separated from the pagan, did, by "mingling with the pagan and learning their works"Psa 106:35, all which in them lay, to "profane"His "Holy Name."They acted as if they had no other purpose than to defile it (see the note at Hos 8:4).

Had such been their object, they could not have done it more effectually, they could not have done otherwise. In deliberate sin, people act, at last, in defiance of God, in set purpose to dishonor Him. The Name of God has ever since been blasphemed, on account of the sins of the Jews, as though it were impossible that God should have chosen for His own, a people so "laden with iniquities"Isa 1:4. Nathan’ s words to David, "Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme"2Sa 12:14, have been fulfilled until this day. How much more, Christians, who not only are called "the people of God"but bear the name of Christ incorporated in their own. Yet have we not known Muslims flee from our Christian capital, in horror at its sins? "He lives like a Christian,"is a proverb of the Polish Jews, drawn from the debased state of morals in Socinian Poland. The religion of Christ has no such enemies as Christians. Dionysius: "As the devout by honoring God, shew that He is Holy, Great, Most High, who is obeyed in holiness, fear and reverence, so the ungodly, by dishonoring God, exhibit God as far as in them lies, as if lie were not holy. For they act so as if evil were well-pleasing to Him, and induce others to dishonor Him. Wherefore the Apostle saith; "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you"Rom 2:24; and by Ezekiel the Lord saith oftentimes, "Ye have profaned My Holy Name. And I will sanctify My great Name which wets profaned among the pagan, which ye hare profaned in the midst of them"Eze 36:23. The devout then are said to "magnify,"sanctify, "exalt God;"the unrighteous to "profane Eze 13:19, despise, God."

Barnes: Amo 2:8

They lay themselves down - They condensed sin. By a sort of economy in the toil of sinning, they blended many sins in one; idolatry, sensuality, cruelty, and, in all, the express breach of God’ s commandments. The "clothes"here are doubtless the same as the "raiment"in the law, the large enfolding cloak, which by day was wrapped over the long loose shirt , the poor man’ s only dress besides, and by night was his only bedding Exo 22:26-27. God had expressly commanded, "If the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge"Deu 24:12-13; in any case "thou shalt deliver him the pledge again, when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee; and it shall be righteousness to thee before the Lord thy God."Here the "garments laid to pledge"are treated as the entire property of the creditors.

They "stretch"their listless length along upon them in their idol-feasts "by every altar."Ezekiel speaks of a "stately bed,"upon which they "sat, and a table prepared before it"Eze 23:41. Isaiah; "Upon a lofty and high mountain, hast thou set up thy bed; even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice; thou hast enlarged thy bed; thou hast loved their bed; thou providedst room"Isa 57:7-8. In luxury and state then, and withal in a shameless publicity, they "lay on the garments"of the despoiled "by every altar."The multiplication of altars Hos 8:11; Hos 10:1; Hos 12:11 was, in itself, sin. By each of these multiplied places of sin they committed fresh sins of luxury and hard-heartedness, (perhaps, from the character of the worship of nature, yet grosser sins,) "and drink the wine of the condemned,"or (as the English margin more exactly) "the amerced,"those whom, unjustly, persons in any petty judicial authority had "amerced,"expending in revelry and debanchery in the idol’ s temple what they had unjustly extorted from the oppressed.

There is no mask too transparent to serve to hide from himself one who does not wish to see himself. Nothing serves so well as religion for that self-deceit, and the less there is of it, or the more one-sided it is, the better it serves. For the narrower it is, the less risk of impinging on the awful reality of God’ s truth; and half a truth as to God is mostly, a lie which its half-truth makes plausible. So this dreadful assemblage of cruelty, avarice, malice, mockery of justice, unnatural debauchery, hard-heartedness, was doubtless smoothed over to the conscience of the ten tribes by that most hideous ingredient of all, that "the house of their god"was the place of their ill-purchased revelry. People do not serve their idols for nothing; this costly service at Bethel was not for nought. They did all these things; but they did something for "the Deity"or "Nature"or "Ashtoreth;"and so "the Deity"was to be at peace with them. Amos, with wonderful irony, marks the ghastly mixture of sin and worship, "they drank the wine of the amerced"- where? "in the house of their God,"condemning in five words their luxury, oppression, perversion of justice, cruelty, profaneness, unreal service and real apostasy. What hard-heartedness to the willfully-forgotten poor is compensated by a little Church-going!

Barnes: Amo 2:9

Yet - (and I) I (Emphatic) destroyed Such were "their"doings; such their worship of "their God."And what had "God"done? what was it, which they thus requited?

The Amorite - These, as one of the mightiest of the Canaanite tribes, stand in Moses for all. Moses, in rehearsing to them the goodness of God and their backsliding, reminds them, how he had said, "Ye have come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord your God giveth you"Deu 1:20; and that they, using this same word, said, "Because the Lord hateth us, He hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite to destroy us"Deu 1:27. The aged Joshua, in rehearsing God’ s great deeds for Israel, places first by itself the destruction of the Amorite before them, with the use of this same idiom , "I brought you into the land of the Amorites which dwelt on the other side of Jordan - and I destroyed them before you."The Amorites were descended from the 4th son of Canaan Gen 10:16.

At the invasion of Chedorlaomer, a portion of them dwelt at Hazezon-Tamar or Engedi, half way on the west side of the Dead Sea, and at Hebron near it (Gen 14:7, Gen 14:13; compare Gen 13:18; 2Ch 20:2). Their corruption had not yet reached its height, and the return of Israel was delayed to the four hundredth year, "because the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet full"Gen 15:16. When Israel returned, the Amorites, (together with the Hittites and the Jebusites) held the hill country Num 13:29; Deu 1:7, Deu 1:44, Jerusalem, Hebron, Gibeon 2Sa 21:2, and, on the skirts of the mountains westward Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon Jos 10:3, Jos 10:5. They dwelt on the side of the Jordan westward Jos 5:1, besides the two kingdoms which they had formed east of Jordan, reaching to Mount Hermon Deu 3:8 and Bashan up to the territory of Damascus. Afterward a small remnant remained only in the portion of Dan, and in the outskirts of Judah, from the south of the Dead Sea, Maaleh Akrabbim (Scorpion-pass) and Petra Jdg 1:35-36. Those near Idumea were probably absorbed in Edom; and the remnant in Dan, after becoming tributary to Ephraim Jdg 1:35-36, lost their national existence perhaps among the Philistines, since we have thenceforth only the single notice in the days of Samuel after the defeat of the Philistines, "there was peace between Israel and the Amorites"1Sa 7:14.

Whose height was like the height of the cedars - The giant sons of Anak were among the Amorites at "Hebron"Num 13:22 (called for a time Kiriath Arba Jos 14:15; Jos 15:13-14 from their giant father) "Debir, Ahab, and the mountains of Judah and Israel Jos 11:21. The valley of Rephaim"2Sa 5:18, southwest of Jerusalem, connects this giant race with the Amorites, as does the fact that Og, king of the Amorites in Basan, was "of the remnant of the Rephaim"Deu 3:11; Jos 12:4; Jos 13:19. Basan and Argob were, in Moses’ time, still called "the land of Rephaim"Deu 3:13. The Rephaim, with the Perizzites, dwelt still in woody mountains near Ephraim; from where, on the complaint that the lot of the sons of Joseph was too narrow, Joshua bade his tribe to expel them Jos 17:15, Jos 17:18. The Rephaim are mentioned between the Perizzites and the Amorites Gen 15:20-21, in God’ s first promise of the land to Abraham’ s seed, and perhaps some intermixture of race gave the giant stature to the Amorites. It is clear from Amos that the report of the spies, "all the people that we saw in it were men of stature"Num 13:32, was no exaggeration, nor did Joshua and Caleb deny "this."The name of the Amorite is probably connected with "commanding,"describing some quality of their forefather, which descended to his race.

Whose height was like the height of cedars - Giant height is sometimes a cause of weakness. Amos, in a degree like Hosea combines distinct images to make up the idea of stateliness and strength. The cedar is the ideal of eastern trees for height Isa 2:13; Eze 17:22; Eze 31:3; 1Ki 4:33; 2Ki 14:9, stretching forth its arms as for protection , "It groweth to an exceeding height, and with increasing time ever riseth higher."The oak has its Hebrew name from strength. The more majestic the tall strength of the Amorite, the more manifest that Israel "got not the land in possession by their own sword"Psa 44:3, who had counted themselves, in sight of the Amorite, "as grasshoppers"Num 13:33. God, who gave him that strength, took it away, as we say, "root and branch,"leaving him no show above, no hope of recovered life below (see Hos 9:16; Job 18:16; Eze 17:9). Having compared each Amorite to a majestic tree, he compares the excision of the whole nation to the cutting down of that one tree , so swift, so entire, so irrecoverable. Yet the destruction of the Amorite, a mercy to Israel in the purpose of God, was a warning to israel when it became as they. God’ s terrors are mercies to the repentant; God’ s mercies are terrors to the impenitent. "Ye shall keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations,"was the tenure upon which they held the Lord’ s land, "that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you"Lev 18:26, 38.

Barnes: Amo 2:10

Also I - (Literally, "And I,"I, emphatic; thus and thus did ye to Me; and thus and thus, with all the mercy from the first, did I to you,) I brought you up from the land of Egypt It is this language in which God, in the law, reminded them of that great benefit, as a motive to obedience; "I brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage"Exo 20:2; Deu 5:6; Deu 6:12; only there, since God has not as yet "brought them up"into the land which He promised them, but they were yet in the wilderness, He says, "brought them forth;"here, "brought them up,"as to a place of dignity, His own land.

And led you forty years through the wilderness - These are the very words of the law (Deu 29:4, (5 English), and reminded them of so many benefits during the course of those "forty years,"which the law rehearsed; the daily supply of manna, the water from the rock, the deliverance from the serpents and other perils, the manifold forgivenesses. To be "led forty years through the wilderness,"alone, had been no kindness, but a punishment. It was a blending of both. The abiding in the wilderness was punishment or austere mercy, keeping them back from the land which they had shown themselves unqualified to enter: God’ s "leading"them was, His condescending mercy. The words, taken from the law, must have re-awakened in the souls of Israelites the memory of mercies which they did not mention, how that same book relates "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about; He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone did lead him"Deu 32:10, Deu 32:12. In the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went until ye came to this place"Deu 1:31; or that minute tender care, mentioned in the same place (Deu 29:4, (5, English)), "your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot."But unless Israel had known the law well, the words would only have been very distantly suggestive of mercy, that it must have been well with them even in the wilderness, since God "led them."They had then the law in their memories, in Israel also , but distorted it or neglected it.

Barnes: Amo 2:11

And I raised up of your sons for prophets - Amos turns from outward mercies to inward, front past to present, from miracles of power to miracles of grace. God’ s past mercies live on in those of today; the mercies of today are the assurance to us that we have a share in the past; His miracles of grace are a token that the miracles of His power are not our condemnation. God had, from the time of Moses, "raised up"prophets. Eldad and Medad Num 11:26-29 were images Of those, whom God would raise up beyond the bounds of His promise. Samuel was an Ephrathite 1Sa 1:1; Ahijah the Shilonite, that is, of Shiloh in Ephraim, lived on to old age in the kingdom of the ten tribes after their schism, the witness against the apostasy of Jeroboam 1Ki 14:7-14; 1Ki 15:29, yet acknowledged by the king whose rise and of the destruction of whose house he prophesied 1Ki 14:2, 1Ki 14:4.

Jehu, son of Hanani, was the prophet of both kingdoms 1Ki 16:1, 1Ki 16:7, 1Ki 16:12; 2Ch 19:2; 2Ch 20:34; Micaiah, son of Imlah, was well known to Ahab, as "prophesying evil concerning him"1Ki 22:8, 1Ki 22:18 continually; unknown to Jehoshaphat 1Ki 22:7. That wondrous pair, marvelous for superhuman sanctity and power among the marvelous miracles of God, Elijalh and Elisha, were both "sons"of Israel, whom God "raised up; Elijjah the Tishbite"1Ki 17:1, born doubtless at Thisbe, a village of Naphthali , and one of the sojourners in Gilead; Elisha of Abelmeholah 1Ki 19:16, on the west side of the valley of the Jordan . And even now He had raised up to them of their own "sons,"Hosea and Jonah. Their presence was the presence of God among them, who, out of the ordinary way of His Providence, "raised"them "up"and filled them with His Spirit; and where the presence of God is, if there is fear, yet there is also hope.

And of your young men for Nazarites - The Nazarite was a fruit of the grace of God in its moral and religions workings, superhuman in holiness and self-denial, as the prophets were of that same grace, conferring superhuman wisdom and knowledge also. Of both, God says, "I raised up,"teaching that both alike, holiness of life and superhman wisdom, were His own special gift to each individual, His own creation. God survived His people, called, and "raised up,"by His grace, out of the crowd, those souls which responded to His call. The life of the Nazarites was a continual protest against the self-indulgence and worldliness of the people. It was a life above nature. Unless any prophet like Samuel 1Sa 1:11, was also a Nazarite, they had no special office except to live that life. Their life taught. Nay, it taught in one way the more, because they had no special gifts of wisdom or knowledge, nothing to distinguish them from ordinary people, except extraordinary grace.

They were an evidence, what all might do and be, if they used the grace of God. The power of the grace of God shows itself the more wondrously in these who have nought beside. The essence of the Nazarite life, as expressed by its name, was "separation,"separation from things of the world, with a view to God. The separation was not, necessarily, for more than a limited time. In such case, it answered to the strictness of the Christian Lent. It was a considerable discipline for a time. In those simpler days, when luxury had not been so busy , the absolute prohibition of anything fermented Num 6:3-4, whether from the grape or any other substance or vinegar made of either, or any liquor or refreshing food or drink, made in any way from the grape, fresh or dry, its husks or its kernels, while it cut off every evasion, involved the giving up not only every drink, in any way exciting or stimulating, but very much also, which was refreshing. Water, which in the east has seldom the freshness of ours, was their only drink. This, which to individuals may be an easy rule, would not be so in the main.

Those only think an undeviating rule slight, who have never tried one, nor set themselves on system to conquer self-will. Such a rule would not be acted upon, except for God. The long never-shorn hair was probably intended to involve the neglect of personal appearance. Yet this was the body only of the vow; its soul was the dedication to God. The Nazarite not only "separated himself from"Num 6:3 those earthly things; he "separated himself to"the Lord Num 6:2, Num 6:5-6 : he "consecrated to the Lord the days of his separation Num 6:12 : all the days of his separation he was holy to the Lord Num 6:8 : the separation of his God was upon his head."Num 6:7. The vow was a great and singular thing. "When man or woman shall vow a special vow of a Nazarite"Num 6:2. The ritual of the Nazarite likened him to the priest. Giving him no priestly office, it yet even intensified some of the rules of the priesthood.

The priest was to abstain from wine and strong drink, only "when"he "went into the tabernacle of the congregations,"that he might "put difference between holy and unholy, and teach Israel the statutes"of the Lord Lev 10:9-11 : the Nazarite, so long as he remained such. The priest might defile himself for certain very near dead Lev 21:1-3; the high priest alone and the Nazarite, "neither for father nor mother"Lev 21:11-12; Num 6:7 : and that for the kindred reason; the high priest, "because the crown of the anointing oil of his God"was "upon him;"the Nazarite, "because the consecration of his God was upon his head!"His consecrated hair was called by the self-same name Num 6:19 as the mitre of the priest. It appears to have been woven into "seven locks"Jdg 16:13, itself a number of consecration. If his consecration came to an end, that hair was mingled with the sacrifice Num 6:18, and on "his"hands alone, besides the priest’ s at his consecration, was part of the offering laid Num 6:19.

All Israel was, in God’ s purpose, "a kingdom of priests"Exo 19:6; and, among them, the Nazarite was brought yet nearer, not to the priest’ s office, but to his character. This must have diffused itself indefinitely through the outward and inward life. Further strictness probably lay in the spirit of the vow. The outward appearance of the Nazarites appears to have been changed by their abstemiousness. "Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk"Lam 4:7. Their countenance had that transparent purity, which sometimes results from a pure abstemious life; as Athanasius is said to have been "bloodless."John the Immerser, the counterpart of Elijah, ate only of the food of the wilderness, "locusts and wild honey;"his clothing was the hair cloth Luk 1:15; Luk 7:33; Mat 3:4.

Of James the Just it is related with reference to the Nazarite vow ; "He was holy from his mother’ s womb; wine and strong drink he drank not, nor ate any living thing; the razor came not up upon his head; he anointed him not with oil, and he used not a bath."Nazarites there had been in the most disorganized times of Israel. The histories of Samson and Samuel stand over against one another, as Nazarites who, the one forfeited, the other persevered in, his vocation. Elijah’ s ascetic character is as if he had been one of them, or deepened the lines of their rule. Ahaziah’ s ungodly messengers described him contemptously as "a man, lord of hair,"as though he had nothing but his prophet’ s broad mantle of hair, and "the leather girdle about his loins".

The Rechabites, although Kenites by origin 1Ch 2:55, had been enrolled in the people of God, and had received a rule from their father, uniting with the abstinence of the Nazarites, a mode of life which kept them aloof from the corruptions of cities Jer 35:7, Jer 35:9. The rules of their Nomadic life were consecrated to God, for He says, "There shall not be cut off from Jonadub, the son of Rechab, a man standing before Me for ever"Jer 35:19, that is, as the servant of God. God uses as to them the term which marks the service of the Levites Deu 10:8, priests Jdg 20:28, and prophets 1Ki 17:1. Jonadab, the author of their rule, was plainly an ascetic, through whose presence Jehu hoped to cast a religious character over his ambitious execution of God’ s command .

But the value which the artful, though impetuous 2Ki 9:20, bloodstained, captain attached to the presence of the ascetic shows the weight which they had with the people. Strange sight it must have been, the energetic warrior in his coat of mail, and the ascetic, as energetic, in his hair-cloth. Deeper far the cotrast within. But the more marvelous the contrast, the more it attests the influence which the unworldly ascetic had over the world. Like the garb of the prophets, their appearance was a standing rebuke to a life of sense. Like the patriarchs, it professed that they were "strangers and pilgrims upon the earth."They who sought nothing of the world or of time, were a witness to the belief in their eternal home. The Nazarites must now have been a numerous body, since Amos speaks of them, as a known class, like the prophets, of whose numbers we hear incidentally .

Yet the memory of these, who, amid the general corruption, were, each in his own sphere, centers of pure faith and life, is embalmed in these few words only. So little reason is there to think that God’ s commands were neglected by all, because their observance is not related. Amos appeals publicly to the people that the fact was so, that God had raised up Nazarites as well as prophets among them. He had His "little flock"Luk 12:32, His "seven thousand"1Ki 19:18, who escaped the eye even of Elijah. The gift of the Nazarites was a special favor to Israel, as a memorial what the grace of God could do for man, what man could do, with the grace of God. His "raising up Nazarites, out of their young men,"men in their first bloom of unmarried , virgin (Deu 32:25; 2Ch 36:17; Jer 51:22; and in the plur. Psa 78:63; Psa 148:12; Isa 23:4;. Jer 31:13; Lam 1:18; Lam 2:21; Zec 9:17; and by Amos himself, Amo 8:13), life their picked "very chosen men,"such as furnished the prime of their warriors , stengthened that teaching.

Even now, one devoted to God in his youth is a witness for God, leaven of the world around him. But the Nazarite had also to bear an outward mark for good, to be singular. His appearance bespoke that he had chosen God. His vow was not only a living up to the law; it lay beyond the law, the free-will offering of those whom God called. At an age, when so many do things unlawful, to gratitfy passion, these abstained even from things lawful. "Canst thou not do what these youths and these maidens can? or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God?"was Augustine’ s upbraiding of himself , on the eve of his conversion, in thought of those who were living a devoted virgin life.

Is it not even thus? - It were enough that God, the Truth, said it. But He condemns not, without giving space for excuse or defense. So he describes the Day of Judgment Mat 25:24-30, Mat 25:41-45; Mat 22:11. "The books were opened - and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works"Rev 20:12. Now, in the time of grace, the question asks, what, written under the picture of Christ crucified, once converted a sinner; "This have I done for thee: What doest thou for Me?"What did they? What had they done? What would they do?

Barnes: Amo 2:12

But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink - Literally, "and,"(this, on their part, was the consequence of what God did for them) "ye caused the Nazarites to drink wine."God appointed; Israel strove to undo His appointment. God "raised up Nazarites,"as a testimony to them; they sought to make His servants break their vow, in order to rid themselves of that testimony. Their pains to destroy it, is a strong proof of its power. The world is mad against true religion, because it feels itself condemned by it. People set themselves against religion and the religious, the Church or the priesthood, only when and because they feel their power on God’ s side against them. What people despise, they do not oppose. "They kill us, they do not despise us,"were true words of a French priest, as to the "reign of reason"in the first French revolution. If the people in power had not respected the Nazarites, or felt that the people respected them, they would not have attempted to corrupt or to force them to break their vow. The word, "cause"them "to drink,"does not express whether they used constraint or seduction. Israel’ s consciences supplied it. Yet since they "persecuted the prophets"and put them to death, it seems likely that Amos means that they used violence, either by forcing the wine into their mouths, as the swine-flesh was forced into the mouth of Eleazar (2 Macc. 6:18), and, in the Decian persecution an infant was made to eat of the idol oblation , or by threat of death.

And commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not - God had commanded the prophets to prophesy. Israel issued and laid upon them his commands against the commands of God. The more God reveals His Will, the directer and more determinate the opposition of those who will not yield. God’ s perseverance in trying to win them irritates them; they oppose grace, and are angered at not being let alone. This large statement of Amos means much more than the prohibition of Amaziah to himself Amo 7:13. Jeroboam I was prevented only by miracle 1Ki 13:4 from seizing the prophet who denounced the altar at Bethel. Ahab, during the famine foretold by Elijah, sought him everywhere to destroy him 1Ki 18:10-12, and Jezebel, after the miracle at Carmel and the death of her prophets, swore by her gods to do so 1Ki 19:2-3. Ahab’ s last act was to imprison Micaiah 1Ki 22:26-27, the son of Imlath, for prophesying his death, when adjured by himself to speak truly.

Ahaziah, his son, undeterred by the fire from heaven which destroyed two captains, each with his fifty, sent yet a 3d to take Elijah, when he prophesied that the king would not recover from his sickness 2Ki 1:9-13. Jehoram, his second son, swore by God to destroy Elisha, 2Ki 6:31, laying the evils of the siege to the prophet, as the Romans did the evils of their decaying empire to the Christian. Micah and Isaiah, a little later, speak of such opposition, in Judah, as habitual Mic 2:6; Isa 30:10-11; much more in Israel, where the opposition to God’ s law was more fundamental, and where God’ s prophet’ s had been all but exterminated. Even Asa, in his degenerate days, imprisoned Hanani for prophesying that he would "have wars"2Ch 16:7, 2Ch 16:10; Joash killed Zechariah son of Jehoiada 2Ch 24:20-21; Amaziah silenced the prophet who rebuked him, "Art thou made of the king’ s council? forbear. Why shouldest thou be smitten?"2Ch 25:15-16.

Jehoiakim sent even into Egypt to fetch Uriah and killed him Jer 26:20-23. Jeremiah’ s life was one continuous encounter with false accusations Jer 20:10; Jer 37:13; Jer 38:4, contradictions by false prophets (Jer 23:17 ff; Jer 27:9-10, Jer 27:14-16; Jer. 28; Jer. 29), hatred Jer 15:10, mockery Jer 17:15; Jer 20:7-8; Jer 23:33, persecution Jer 17:18, imprisonment Jer 20:2; Jer 32:3; Jer 33:1; Jer 37:15-21; Jer 38:6-13, attempts to destroy him (Jer 11:18-21; Jer 18:18, Jer 18:20-23; Jer 26:8 ff; Jer 36:26). The complaint was, as here, "wherefore dost thou prophesy?"Jer 32:3. What, when our Lord gives it as the characteristic of Jerusalem , that she was "the slayer of the prophets, the stoner of those sent unto her?"They would not have slain the prophets, if they could have silenced them.

People are loath to go to extremities with God; they will make an armistice with Him; their awe of holiness makes them inwardly shrink from laying hands on it. Like the wolf in the fable, they must have a plea against it; and that plea against those who have the truth is obstinacy . If the Christians would have abstained from converting the world, they would not have been persecuted. The Chief-priests at first sought simply to silence the Apostles Act 4:18, Act 4:21; then they enforced their command with scourges Act 5:40; then persecuted them and the Christians to death Act 7:57-59; Act 8:1-4; Act 9:1-2; Act 12:1-3; Act 22:4-5. Direct contumacy to God’ s known voice and silencing His messenger, is a last stage of obduracy and malice, which leaves God no further avenue to the soul or the people. His means of grace are exhausted when the soul or people not only deaden His voice within, but obstruct it without. One who, through vehemence of his passions, refuses to hear, is within the reach of the grace of God, afterward. He who stifles God’ s word to others has mostly hardened his heart deliberately and maliciously in unlove to man, as well as contempt of God. Hence, God speaks, as though this brought the day of grace to a close.

Barnes: Amo 2:13

Behold, I am pressed under you - God bore His people, as the wain bears the sheaves. "Ye yourselves have seen,"He said to them by Moses, "how I bare you on eagle’ s wings, and brought you unto Myself"Exo 19:4. "Thou hast seen how the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place"Deu 1:31. And by Isaiah, "He bare them and carried them all the days of old"Isa 63:9; and, "which are born"by Me "from the belly, which are carried from the womb"Isa 46:3. Now, He speaks of Himself as wearied by them, as by Isaiah, "thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities"Isa 43:24; and by Malachi, "ye have wearied the Lord: yet ye say, where with have we wearied Him?"Mal 2:17. His long-suffering was, as it were, worn out by them. He was straitened under them, as the wain groans under the sheaves with which it is over-full. The words are literally, "Behold I, I"(emphatic I, your God, of whom it would seem impossible) "straiten myself"(that is, of My own Will allow Myself to be straitened"under you",

"As the wain full for itself,"that is, as full as ever it can contain, is "straitened, groans,"as we say. God says, (the word in Hebrew is half active) that He allows Himself to be straitened, as in Isaiah, He says, "I am weary to bear,"literally, "I let Myself be wearied."We are simply passive under weariness or oppressiveness: God endures us, out of His own free condescension in enduring us. But it follows, that when He shall cease to endure our many and grievous sins, He will cast them and the sinner forth from Him.

Poole: Amo 2:1

For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: in this form the prophet began, Amo 1:3 , which see. Here he doth threaten a nation of some kin to Israel, &c., as was Ammon, and almost as much an enemy: they appeared early enemies to Israel, and took most wicked ways to ruin Israel; first hired Balaam to curse them, Nu 22 Nu 23 ; when this did not succeed, he next acts a vile part, and by lewd harlots draws Israel to sin, Num 25:1,2 , &c., that so he might do against sinful Israel what could not be done against innocent Israel. Moab also was the second oppressor of Israel, who for their sins were delivered into the hands of Eglon king of Moab, who oppressed them eighteen years, Jud 3:14 ; for which, and other hostile carriages, they are here threatened; yet their inhuman cruelty to Edom’ s king is only expressed, the other hostilities to Israel are implied.

He the king of Moab; who particularly this was is not here nor elsewhere mentioned, though some say it was Mesha, and refer this to 2Ki 3:4 ; yet it is not very likely that this was the king who acted such cruelty.

Burned the bones it had been barbarous to have burned the flesh and nerves of an enemy, but to make the fire so hot, and continue it so long, as to burn bones into ashes, is much more barbarous.

Of the king of Edom: this somewhat aggravates the cruelty, he was no common man, but a king, who was so used: his name, and the time when it was done, whether it were some king alive or dead, and his bones digged up, is not mentioned, but every way it was barbarous, though it were done to bones digged out of the grave, as some conjecture.

Into lime or ashes, calcined the bones, reduced them by fire into fine dust, and (as others conjecture) used these ashes instead of lime to plaster the walls and roofs of his palace; and this was done in hatred and contempt of the king of Edom.

Poole: Amo 2:2

I will send a fire: see Amo 1:4 .

Moab some think, but I know not on what ground, that there was a city of this name, and meant here, but on better reason we conclude it to be the whole country, or by a metonymy the people, who were the posterity of Lot by his elder daughter.

It shall devour the palaces: see Amo 1:4 .

Kerioth a strong and principal city of this country; or the cities, so the word will bear, and then the threat is against all their cities.

Moab the Moabites, all sorts and ranks of them, shall die, be destroyed, and perish utterly, with tumult; such as soldiers in fight or assaults make, when they carry all by force, bearing down all opposition, and slaying all opposers, with that rigour which in such cases is very usual.

With shouting as conquerors shout, to the end they may dishearten the enemy, and animate their fellow soldiers.

With the sound of the trumpet: this added partly to explain, and partly to confirm, what the prophet had foretold.

Poole: Amo 2:3

I will cut off by the sword of the enemy, the judge; the governor, i. e. every one of them; the singular being put for the plural, to intimate the destruction of all of them.

From the midst thereof either of Kirioth the metropolis, or of every city in which were judges appointed to govern and minister justice to the people; and these should be cut off in these cities, and in the midst of their government.

The princes either by birth, or by office, or by excellent endowments, the chief among the Moabitish people.

With him with the supreme governor, before threatened.

Saith the Lord noting to us the certainty of the thing, the irrevocable sentence passed upon Moab, its king, princes, and judges, who being cut off, the people must needs perish, and come to nothing.

Poole: Amo 2:4

God hath in the former verses threatened the enemies of his people for their outrages against his people; now he does threaten his people for their obstinacy in reiterated sins: see Amo 4:3 .

Despised first slighted it, as if no excellency were in it, and next rejected it, as if it were not worthy of their observance; thus they refused with an abhorrence and detestation

the law of the Lord the whole law, partly by their immoralities and transgressions against the just commands of it, and partly by their false worship and idolatry: that law which was given with so much majesty and terror. on Mount Sinai; from which they should not have departed either to the right hand or to the left; that law which was perfect, holy, and useful, with which no fault could be justly found. So much the greater were their sins, because committed against so clear, full, and pure a law. Have not kept his commandments, i.e. they have greatly violated, as the Hebrew phrase importeth, Neh 9:34 Dan 9:5,10,11 .

Their lies idols, which are a lie, whether commended to them by their false prophets, or chosen according to their own humour and fancy; all their false, superstitious, and idolatrous worship. Caused them to err; their idolatry was first their error, and this blinded them, made them more sottish and brutish, which was partly from the natural tendency of this sin, and partly from the just judgment of God, Rom 1:24 2Th 2:10 -12 .

After the which idols or lies,

their fathers first in Ur of the Chaldees, before Abraham was called, afterwards in Egypt, the wilderness, and in the land of Canaan itself, have walked, successively, one generation after another; idolatry, and superstition, and will-worship have been old hereditary sins, and now shall be punished.

Poole: Amo 2:5

I will send a fire: see Amo 1:4 .

Judah the kingdom of the two tribes; Benjamin is to be included with Judah, as elsewhere hath been already often observed. It shall devour the palaces: see Amo 1:4 .

Jerusalem the chief city of Judah’ s kingdom, the city of God, where was the temple of God, and where were the seats of judicature; the holy city, but now to be destroyed for its sins, as well as other incorrigible nations. Now this was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar, about two hundred years after this prophecy of Amos.

Poole: Amo 2:6

For three transgressions : see Amo 1:3 .

Israel the kingdom of the ten tribes, under the government of Jeroboam the Second at this time, against which the prophet was chiefly sent, though he began with Syria and others, by the threats against which nations he prepared both Judah and Israel to hearken and consider.

I will not turn away the punishment: see Amo 1:3 .

They those who by the appointment of the law had power to hear and decide causes between man and man; judges and witnesses, like the corrupt judges,

sold for bribes were their aim, and they would at any time sell justice to the highest bidder.

The righteous the innocent, or those who had a just and righteous cause, for the prophet here speaks of the justness of the cause, not of the exact justice or absolute righteousness of the person.

For silver: money was the most current and prevailing commodity with these judges, but money’ s worth would do the feat too, if money were out of the way.

The poor: when poor men went to law with poor men before these judges, and the thing they contended for was of small value, the contenders too had light purses, and could not give a considerable bribe;

a pair of shoes a very poor bribe, expressed here proverbially, would sway with these judges, who gaped still after somewhat of gain from all.

Poole: Amo 2:7

That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor or swallow up, as the word is most frequently turned by our interpreters; and so perhaps more plainly is their cruelty and violence set forth, in that they make a prey of the poor, who walk with dust on their heads by reason of distresses that are upon them, and, without any compassion towards them, greedily, and as at once, swallow up and devour the poor, whom, by the law of God, and the office they bear as judges, they should deliver out of the hand of the oppressor.

Turn aside the way of the meek perversely and maliciously misinterpret the actions, words, and designs of the humble and meek, of the compassionate and merciful, who pity the poor in these straits and dangers. These corrupt judges and violent oppressors are also shameless adulterers and fornicators, they commit that lewdness which the better-tutored heathens abhor and forbear; a kind of incestuous pollution; the father and son keep the same harlot, and go in unto her. Thus they profanely dishonour me, by casting off my law, and doing that which is so shamefully indecent and unlawful; and giving heathens occasion to blaspheme my name, and either think, or say, Like people, like God.

Poole: Amo 2:8

The Jews of old did not, as we, sit upright at their feasts, and meals, but in a posture of greater ease did lean, or lie on one side; so here

they lay themselves down i.e. put themselves in a feasting posture,

upon clothes laid to pledge of which the law had expressly said none should detain files all night, De 14 12,13 .

By every altar: impudent sinners, who dare thus before the altar, where they suppose that God is present, bring their crying, inexcusable oppressions; and feast in sacred places, on sacred viands, with bloody minds and oppressive practices; and seek mercy from God when they show, no mercy to the poor!

They drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god to complete their wickedness, they offer their drink offerings in wine which they bought with the fines and pecuniary mulcts laid on the innocent and guiltless, and thus rejoice in their violence, whilst God hates robbery for a burnt-offering.

Poole: Amo 2:9

Yet destroyed I whom they have ungratefully forgotten and forsaken, and set up idol’ s in competition with me; nay, cast off my law and worship, and embraced idolatry, worshipped idols that never could do them good, nor destroy their enemies; this they did after I had destroyed their enemies.

The Amorite the mightiest nation of all the Canaanites, and therefore expressly mentioned as an instance of God’ s great mercy, and Israel’ s great ingratitude: by this nation mentioned all the rest of the Canaanitish nations are to be understood. These Amorites dwelt beyond Jordan, between that and Moab, and their land fell by lot unto Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. Before them, the children of Israel under the conduct of Moses, Deu 2:24 , &c.; Deu 3:1-14 , at the very sight of whom these mighty men fled, for God had struck them with terror that they might not stand before Israel.

Whose height was like the height of the cedars: the Amorites were men of largest size, they were of the race of the giants, Num 13:32,33 . This is a proverbial speech, and sets out the Amorites, exceeding ordinary men in stature as much as the cedar exceeds ordinary trees in height.

Strong as the oaks another proverbial speech, denoting their great strength above the strength of other men.

I destroyed utterly rooted them out.

His fruit from above: trees propagated by fruit are diminished by destroying the fruit which is the seed of them; so God cut off the children of the Amorites, and thereby prevented all succession.

His roots from beneath: this refers to the destroying the old standards, that present generation: this last clause refers to the command God gave, Deu 7:2 .

Poole: Amo 2:10

You did not rescue yourselves out of the hands of your enemies, I did in mere mercy with a mighty arm save and rescue you, and brought you up from the land of Egypt, where you were oppressed servants, and exposed to ruin.

Led you as a shepherd leads his flock: nay, miraculously conducting by the pillar of a cloud and fire, and feeding with manna from heaven.

Forty years reckoning from their coming out of Egypt.

Through the wilderness: they passed through many wildernesses, named in Scripture according as they were then called, but all these lay so contiguous to each other, that they all made up one great wilderness, as the many names given to parts of the sea make us know what particular part is spoken of, but all make one sea.

To possess as an heir possesseth that he hath a hereditary right to, the land of the Amorite, including all the rest of the accursed and dispossessed nations.

Poole: Amo 2:11

I raised up gave prophetic endowments, stirred up their minds, commissioned them to prophesy, and carried them through by an undaunted courage given to them, that they, should not fear to set upon, or faint in attending to, their office.

Of your sons for prophets did not employ strangers, whose affections you might with some colour of reason suspect, but your own sons, whose affections to you and to their own country are unquestionable, were sent prophets to tell you of your sins, to foretell your dangers, and to importune you to repent of your sins, and to prevent your dangers.

Your young men though that age be generally inclined to please their own fancies, to walk after the sight of their eyes, Ecc 11:9 , yet did God change the mind of some of them in their youth, and inclined them to eminency in religion, to be examples to others.

Nazarites which were religious persons under vow bound to a very sober, abstemious, and holy life; either for some certain limited time, or for their whole life: see Num 6:1,2 , &c. These were not to drink any strong or intoxicating liquors.

Is it not even thus? God appeals to them in this matter whether he had not done this for them, given prophets to teach them, and Nazarites to be examples to them, in both which God showed his love and care of them.

Ye children of Israel apostatized Israel, you of the ten tribes.

Saith the Lord: this is added to excite them to serious pondering what is said to them.

Poole: Amo 2:12

But ye for whose benefit both Nazarites and prophets were raised, you who should have heard their word, and imitated their example,

gave the Nazarites wine importuned, urged, or it may be (as is the custom of excessive drinkers) forced them to drink wine, to violate their vow, and contemn God’ s law too, Num 6:3,4 .

Commanded: by this passage it appears that they were men in authority who did this; it is not probable that mean persons who had no authority would enjoin silence on the prophets, Isa 30:10 Amo 7:13 Mic 2:6 . It is evident Amaziah was chief priest in Beth-el, and by virtue of his jurisdiction there silenceth the prophet.

The prophets the true, faithful, and plain-dealing prophets, who rebuked their sins, required them to repent, and threatened judgments if they did not repent.

Saying, Prophesy not: see Isa 30:10 Amo 7:13 Mic 2:6,11 ;

Poole: Amo 2:13

Hitherto the Lord by the prophet had declared the sins of the kingdom of the ten tribes, now he is about to pronounce judgment against them; he calls for their attention, and diligent weighing what he is about to speak.

I the Lord, who have so multiplied mercies to this people,

am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves: some read this passage actively, and make this the sense, I will lead you with these judgments as a cart is loaded, and you shall cry and groan under these judgments, as a cart heavy loaded makes a noise in its motion under such pressures. Perhaps sheaves, the loading of a harvest season, are mentioned, to intimate the ripeness of their sins, and God’ s reaping them or cutting them down by his judgments, and carrying them together to be thrashed by further judgments.

Haydock: Amo 2:1

Ashes. Some think that he alludes to 4 Kings iii. 27., or rather to some war, the ashes of the dead were disturbed. (Calmet) ---

Both these acts of inhumanity deserved severe punishment. (Worthington)

Haydock: Amo 2:2

Fire: war under Ozias. (Calmet) ---

Carioth. Septuagint, "the cities." Carioth has this meaning, but is was also the name of a great city, Jeremias xlviii. 24. (Haydock)

Haydock: Amo 2:3

Judge, ruler, or head, shall be no more.

Haydock: Amo 2:4

Walked. After Solomon, scarcely a good prince appeared, till the days of Amos. Juda imitated the idolatry of Israel, hoping thus to find assistance. (Calmet) ---

His crime was the more grievous, as they had the law. (Worthington)

Haydock: Amo 2:5

Fire. Under Joathan, Rasin, &c., invaded the country. Achaz increased the misery, by applying to the Assyrians. (Calmet)

Haydock: Amo 2:6

Just man. Joseph, (Rupert) or our Saviour, (Sanctius) or any other. The expression is proverbial, Ezechiel xiii. 19. (Calmet) ---

Israel contemned the law, and adopted the abominations of all. (Worthington)

Haydock: Amo 2:7

Humble, provoking him to anger. ---

Name. Such incests caused infidels to blaspheme, Leviticus xviii. 8. (Calmet) ---

They must be punished with severity. (Worthington)

Haydock: Amo 2:8

Altar. Herein they offended doubly, (Exodus xxii. 26.) as they used the garments of others to hide their shameful actions, 4 Kings xxiii. 7. (Calmet) ---

Septuagint, "and tying up their garments with cords, they made veils touching the altar, and drank wine procured by calumnies," (Haydock) or "rapine," &c. (Chaldean) ---

Condemned by them unjustly, though some think that a very delicious and intoxicating wine is meant, such as was given to people in grief, Proverbs xxxi. 6., and Mark xv. 23. Helena learnt in Egypt how to compose such wine. (Homer, Odyssey iv.) ---

Feasting in temples on carpets was an ancient custom.

Haydock: Amo 2:9

Beneath. The Israelites seemed like locusts in comparison, Numbers xiii. 34.

Haydock: Amo 2:11

Nazarites. Some went secretly to Jerusalem for this purpose; or perhaps they performed these rites illegally at Bethel: for many parts of the law were observed, though not perfectly, chap iv. 4. The Nazarites were in high estimation, Lamentations iv. 7. But the dissolute Israelites (Calmet) derided them as well as the prophets, (Haydock) and attempted to make them transgress. (Calmet)

Haydock: Amo 2:13

I will screek. Unable to bear any longer the enormous load of your sins, &c. The Spirit of God, as St. Jerome takes notice, accommodates itself to the education of the prophet, and inspires him with encouragements taken from country affairs. (Challoner) ---

Septuagint, "I am overturned." Hebrew, "pressed." (Calmet)

Gill: Amo 2:1

Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Moab,.... Or the Moabites, who descended from the eldest son of Lot, by one of his daughters; and, though related, were great enemies to the Israelites; they sent for Balaam to curse them when on their borders, and greatly oppressed them in the times of the judges:

and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; See Gill on Amo 1:3. Idolatry, as well as the sin next charged, must be one of these four transgressions: the idols of Moab were Chemosh and Baalpeor; of the former See Gill on Jer 48:7; and of the latter See Gill on Hos 9:10;

because he burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime; either like "to lime", or "for lime"; he burnt them thoroughly, till they came to powder as small and as white as lime, and used them instead of it to plaster the walls of his palace, by way of contempt, as the Targum; and so Jarchi and Kimchi: this is thought probable by Quinquarboreus ^m, for which he is blamed by Sanctius, who observes, there is no foundation for it in Scripture; and that the ashes of the bones of one man would not be sufficient to plaster a wall; and, besides, could never be brought to such a consistence as to be fit for such a purpose; yet, if it only means bare burning them, so as that they became like lime, as the colour of it, it could not be thought so very barbarous and inhuman, since it was the usage of some nations, especially the Romans, to burn their dead: no doubt something shocking is intended, and which usage to the dead is resented by the Lord. Sir Paul Rycaut ⁿ relates a piece of barbarity similar to this, that the city of Philadelphia was built with the bones of the besieged, by the prince that took it by storm. Kimchi thinks, as other interpreters also do, that it refers to the history in 2Ki 3:27; where the king of Moab is said to offer his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead for a burnt offering; which he understands, not of the king of Moab's son, but of the king of Edom's son, here called a king, because he was to have succeeded his father in the kingdom; but it seems rather to be the king of Moab's own son that he offered; nor is it likely that the king of Edom's son was in his lands; for he would have broke through into the king of Edom, but could not; and then did this rash action; not in wrath and fury, but in a religious way. The prophet here refers to some fact, notorious in those times, the truth of which is not to be questioned, though we have no other account of it in Scripture; very probably it was the same king of Moab that did it, and the same king of Edom that was so used, mentioned in the above history; the king of Moab being enraged at him for joining with the kings of Israel and Judah against him, who afterwards falling into his hands, he used him in this barbarous manner; or very likely being possessed of his country after his death, or however of his grave, he took him out of it, and burnt his bones to lime, in revenge of what he had done to him. This was a very cruel action thus to use a human body, and this not the body of a private person, but of a king; and was an act of impiety, as well as of inhumanity, to take the bones of the dead out of his grave, and burn them; and which though done to a Heathen prince. God, who is the Creator of all, and Governor of the whole world, and whose vicegerents princes are, resented; and therefore threatened the Moabites with utter destruction for it.

Gill: Amo 2:2

But I will send a fire upon Moab,.... Either on the whole country, or on some particular city so called, as in all the other prophecies; and there was a city called Moab, now Areopolis; see Gill on Jer 48:4; though it may be put for the whole country, into which an enemy should be sent to destroy it, even Nebuchadnezzar:

and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; a principal city in the land of Moab; according to Kimchi, it was the royal city, and therefore mention is made of the palaces of it, here being the palace of the king and his princes; see Jer 48:24; though the word may be rendered cities, as it is by the Septuagint and Arabic versions; and so the Targum,

"and shall consume the palaces of the fortified place;''

and so may signify all the cities of Moab, and their palaces: or however may be put for them:

and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet: that is, the Moabites shall die, not in their beds, and in peace, but in war, amidst the howlings of the wounded, the shouts of soldiers, the clashing of arms, and the sound of trumpets,

Gill: Amo 2:3

And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof,.... Either from the midst of Moab, the country in general; or from Kerioth in particular, so Kimchi; meaning their principal governor, their king, as Aben Ezra; for kings sometimes have acted as judges, took the bench, and sat and administered justice to their subjects:

and I will stay all the princes thereof with him, saith the Lord; the king, and the princes of the blood, and his nobles; so that there should be none to succeed him, or to protect and defend the people; the destruction should be an entire one, and inevitable, for the mouth of the Lord had spoken it. This was fulfilled at the same time as the prophecy against the children of Ammon by Nebuchadnezzar, five years after the destruction of Jerusalem ^o, which is next threatened.

Gill: Amo 2:4

Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Judah,.... With whom Benjamin must be joined; for the two tribes are meant as distinct from the ten tribes, under the name of Israel, following. The prophet proceeds from the Heathens round about to the people of God themselves, for the ill usage of whom chiefly the above nations are threatened with ruin, lest they should promise themselves impunity in sin; though, if they rightly considered things, they could not expect it; since, if the Heathens, ignorant of the will of God, and his law, were punished for their sins, then much more those who knew it, and did it not, Luk 12:47; and he begins with Judah, partly because he was of that tribe, lest he should be charged with flattery and partiality, and partly because of the order of his prophecy, which being chiefly concerned with Israel, it was proper that what he had to say to Judah should be delivered first:

and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; the prophet retains the same form as in his prophecies against the Heathen nations; his own people, and God's professing people, being guilty of numerous transgressions, as well as they, and more aggravated than theirs; See Gill on Amo 1:3;

because they have despised the law of the Lord; a law so holy, just, and good, and so righteous, as no other nation had; and yet was not only not observed, but contemned: other nations sinned against the light of nature, and are not charged with breaches of the law of God, which was not given them; but these people had it, yet lightly esteemed it; counted it as a strange thing; walked not according to it, but cast it away from them; which was a great affront to the sovereignty of God, and a trampling upon his legislative power and authority:

and have not kept his commandments; or "statutes" ^p; the ordinances of the ceremonial law, which he appointed them to observe for the honour of his name, as parts of his worship; and to lead them into the designs of his grace and salvation by the Messiah:

and their lies caused them to err; either, their idols, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; which are lying vanities, and deceive, and by which they were made to err from the pure worship of the living and true God to superstition and idolatry; or the words of the false prophets, as Kimchi; the false doctrines their taught, contrary to the word of God, directing them to seek for life by their own works; and promising them peace, when destruction was at hand; and daubing with untempered mortar; and as no lie is of the truth, but against it, so one untruth leads on to another:

after the which their fathers have walked; after which lies, idols, and errors, as in Ur of the Chaldees, in Egypt, in the wilderness, and even in later times: this was no excuse to them that they followed the way of their ancestors, but rather an aggravation of their guilt, that they imitated them, took no warning by them; but filled up the measure of their iniquities, and showed themselves to be a seed of evildoers, a generation of wicked men, the sons of rebellious parents.

Gill: Amo 2:5

But I will send a fire upon Judah,.... An enemy, Nebuchadnezzar, who should burn, waste, and destroy, all that were in his way:

and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem; the chief city of Judah, the royal city, where stood the temple, the palace of the most High, and the palaces of the king and his nobles; these were burnt with fire when it was taken by the Chaldean army, about two hundred years after this prophecy, Jer 52:13.

Gill: Amo 2:6

Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel,.... The ten tribes rent from the house of David in the times of Rehoboam, and who departed from the true worship of God, and set up calves at Dan and Bethel:

and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; the following part of this prophecy is taken up in pointing at the sins and punishment of Israel; now the prophet is come to the main business he was sent to do:

because they sold the righteous for silver; meaning not any particular person, as Joseph sold by his brethren, for in that they were all concerned, Judah as well as the rest; nor Christ, as others ^q, sold for thirty pieces of silver; since the persons here charged with it, and the times in which it was done, will not agree with that case; but the sense is, that the judges of Israel were so corrupt, that for a piece of money they would give a cause against a righteous man, and in favour of an unjust man that bribed them:

and the poor for a pair of shoes; that is, for a mere trifle they would pervert justice; if two men came before them with a cause, and both poor; yet if one could but give a pair of shoes, or anything he could part with, though he could not give money; so mean and sordid were they, they would take it, and give the cause for him, however unjust it was.

Gill: Amo 2:7

That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor,.... Either were greedy after money, the dust of the earth, and even that small portion of it the poor were possessed of; they could not be easy that they should enjoy that little of it they did, but were desirous to get it out of their hands by oppression and injustice: or they were eagerly desirous of throwing the poor upon the earth, and trampling upon them, and dragging them through the dust of it, thereby filling their heads and covering their faces with it; and caused them to put their mouths in the dust, and be humble suppliants to them. Some think there is an allusion to an ancient custom, which Joseph ben Gorion ^r speaks of, that a guilty person should stand before the judges, clad in black, and his head covered with dust; and this these judges desired here might be done by the rich, that the poor might be accused by them from whom they expected gifts:

and turn aside the way of the meek; decline doing them justice, pervert it, and hinder the course of it, denying it to those who are humble, meek, and modest; or else by one means or another turned them from the good ways in which they were walking, and by degrees at length brought them to such impudence and immodesty as is next expressed, so Aben Ezra:

and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name; that is, will be guilty of such uncleanness, as not only to have and enjoy the same harlot, but of such incest, as that the son would lie with his father's wife, and the father lie with his son's wife; a sin which was not named among the Gentiles, 1Co 5:1; and whereby the name of God was blasphemed among them, as if their religion taught them and encouraged them in such filthy actions; see Rom 2:24.

Gill: Amo 2:8

And they laid themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar,.... That is, the clothes they took in pledge of poor people, which they should have restored before sun setting, Exo 22:26; these they spread by every altar, of which they had many erected to their idols, and on these as on carpets they slept by them, as was usual with the Gentiles; who not only in common used to lie and sleep on garments, or carpets, or skins spread on the floor ^s, but upon such in the temples of their idols, in order to obtain good dreams; so in the temple of Amphiaraus in Greece, after purgations and sacrifices to him, and to the gods whose names were engraven on the same altar, they slew a ram, and spread the skin, on which they laid themselves down, and had dreams, the signification and events of which they presently interpreted ^t; and Jerom says ^u, they used to spread the skins of the sacrifices, and lie upon them, that they might by dreams know things to come, which custom in the temple of Aesculapius continued to his times; and this custom might be imitated by the Jews; and so they are described by such, "who sleep in the temples of idols", in the Vulgate Latin version of Isa 65:4; See Gill on Isa 65:4; but very false it is what Strabo ^w says, that the Jews were taught this custom by Moses; telling them that such as lived soberly and righteously ought to sleep in the temple, where they might expect good dreams for themselves and others, as good gifts and signs from God, which others might not expect: or else the sense is, they laid themselves down on these clothes, and feasted on them; it being their custom at meals not to sit upright, but to recline on couches; or as the manner of the Turks and other eastern nations to sit on carpets; and it was also the custom of the Heathens to feast in their temples, and by their altars, in honour of their gods. So Herodotus relates ^x, that at a festival of June with the Argives, the mother of Cleobis and Biton prayed the goddess, whom they had drawn to the temple, oxen not being ready, that she would give to them what was best for men; after which prayer, it is said, they sacrificed and "feasted"; and the young men falling asleep in the temple, never rose more, but finished this life: the deity judging it better for a man to die than to live; and this custom of feasting in idols' temples obtained, in the times of the apostles, as appears from 1Co 8:10; and which was now observed by the Israelites, with this aggravation of their sin, that they laid themselves on the garments of the poor they had taken for a pawn, when they were performing their idolatrous rites; which must be very provoking to God:

and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god: either wine which used to be given to condemned malefactors to cheer and refresh them; which custom among the Jews was founded on Pro 31:6; See Gill on Pro 31:6; See Gill on Pro 31:7; The manner was to put a grain of frankincense into a cup of wine, which they gave to the malefactor just as he was going to be executed, that his mind might be disturbed and become insensible; and which was usually the free gift of honourable women, out of compassion to the sufferer; and if they did it not, it was provided at the expense of the public ^y; but this seems to be done rather to intoxicate and stupefy them, that they might not feel their pain and misery, than to cheer; and is thought to be the potion which was offered to Christ, and he refused, Mar 15:23; but whether such a custom obtained in the times of the prophet is a question; nor does it seem very likely that these men would choose such sort of wine; wherefore rather wine bought with the money they received by the fines and amercements of those they unjustly condemned is intended. The Targum renders it the wine of rapine; and this they were not content to drink only in their own houses, but drank it at their festivals in the temples of their idols, such as were built for the calves of Dan and Bethel, and other idols.

Gill: Amo 2:9

Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them,.... Here the Lord by the prophet reckons up the many favours and blessings he had bestowed upon Israel, which was an aggravation of their sins, and showed them to be guilty of great ingratitude, and a justification of him in his punishment of them he drove out the seven nations of Canaanites from before them, to make way for them, and destroyed them, of which the Amorite was a principal, and is here put for all the rest:

whose height was like the height of the cedars; being both tall of stature, and in great honour and dignity with the other nations, and in very opulent and flourishing circumstances:

and he was strong as the oaks: not only like the tall cedars of Lebanon for their height and largeness of stature, but like the sturdy oaks for the strength of their bodies, being of the race of the giants, Num 13:28;

yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath; that is, utterly destroyed him, root and branch, so that nothing of him remained; still persisting in the metaphor of a tree. Jarchi interprets it of their superior and inferior princes; but it seems best to understand it of children with their parents, the one being the fruit, the other the root; and, both being destroyed, there must be utter ruin.

Gill: Amo 2:10

Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt,.... Where they were bond slaves, and in great affliction and distress, and unable to help themselves; but the Lord wrought deliverance for them, and brought them out of this house of bondage with a high hand and a mighty arm:

and led you forty years through the wilderness: going before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night; providing them with all things necessary, with food and raiment, and protecting them from all their enemies:

to possess the land of the Amorite; the whole land of Canaan, so called from a principal nation of it.

Gill: Amo 2:11

And I raised up of your sons for prophets,.... Such as Moses, Joshua, and the seventy elders, and others; not only to foretell things to come, but to teach and instruct the people in the doctrines and duties of religion, and to warn them of their sins, and the danger of them:

and of your young men for Nazarites: as Samson, Samuel, and others; whose vow not only obliged them from shaving their hair, but to abstain from drinking wine, and eating grapes, which the youthful age is inclined unto; but such grace was given them, as enabled them to deny themselves sensual gratifications, and to be examples of piety and constant attendance on the service of God, and instructing the people. The Targum is,

"of your young men for teachers;''

these were the spiritual mercies, as the former were the temporal ones, the Lord bestowed on these people, for the truth of which he appeals to them:

is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord? can ye deny it? the thing was too notorious to be contradicted.

Gill: Amo 2:12

But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink,.... Contrary to their vow and calling, and in contempt of it, and to make them like themselves; they either persuaded them, or forced them to it:

and commanded the prophets, saying, prophesy not; hard and heavy things, judgments and denunciations of vengeance, only smooth things; by this authoritative language it appears that this is said of the rulers and governors of the people, as king, princes, and priests; see Amo 7:12.

Gill: Amo 2:13

Behold, I are pressed under you,.... With the weight of their sins, with which they had made him to serve, and had wearied him; his patience was quite wore out, he could bear them no longer:

as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves; as a cart in harvest time, in which the sheaves of corn are carried home; when one sheaf is laid upon another, till they can lay no more, and the cart is loaded and overloaded with them, and ready to break, or be pressed into the earth with them: thus. Jehovah represents himself as loaded and burdened with the sins of these people, and therefore would visit for them, and inflict deserved punishment. Some render it actively, "behold, I press" ^z, or "am about to press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth" ^a; the horse or horses which draw it, especially the last; or the ground it goes upon; or as a cart stuck with iron spikes, and loaded with stones, being drawn over a corn floor, presses the full sheaves, and beats out the grain, which was their way of pressing it: so the Lord signifies he would afflict and distress this people, bring them into strait circumstances, by a close siege, and other judgments, which should ruin and destroy them; and which was first begun by Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and finished by Shalmaneser, who carried away the ten tribes captive. So the Targum,

"behold, I bring distress upon you, and it shall straiten you in your place, as a cart is straitened which is loaded with sheaves.''

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Amo 2:1

¹ tn Traditionally, “transgressions” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV) or “sins” (NIV). For an explanation of the atrocities outlined in this oracle as treaty violations of God’s mandate to Noah in Gen 9:5-7, see the note on the word “violations” in 1:3.

² tn Heb “Because of three violations of Moab, even because of four.”

sn On the three…four style that introduces each of the judgment oracles of chaps. 1-2 see the note on the word “four” in 1:3.

³ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

⁴ sn The Moabites apparently desecrated the tomb of an Edomite king and burned his bones into a calcined substance which they then used as plaster (cf. Deut 27:2, 4). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 72. Receiving a proper burial was very important in this culture. Desecrating a tomb or a deceased individual’s bones was considered an especially heinous act.

NET Notes: Amo 2:2

¹ sn The destruction of Moab by fire is an example of a judgment in kind – as the Moabites committed the crime of “burning,” so the Lord will punish them by setting them on fire.

² sn Kerioth was an important Moabite city. See Jer 48:24, 41.

³ tn Or “die” (KJV, NASB, NRSV, TEV); NAB “shall meet death.”

⁴ tn Or “in the tumult.” This word refers to the harsh confusion of sounds that characterized an ancient battle – a mixture of war cries, shouts, shrieks of pain, clashes of weapons, etc.

⁵ tn Heb “sound” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV).

⁶ sn The ram’s horn (used as a trumpet) was blown to signal the approaching battle.

NET Notes: Amo 2:3

¹ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “root out”; NCV “bring to an end.”

² tn Heb “the leader [traditionally, “judge”] from her midst.”

³ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Moab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Or “princes” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT); TEV, CEV “leaders.”

NET Notes: Amo 2:4

¹ tn This is the same Hebrew term that is translated “crimes” in the previous oracles (see at 1:3). The change to “covenant transgressions” reflects the probability that the prophet is condemning the nation of Israel for violating stipulations of the Mosaic Law.

² tn Heb “Because of three violations of Judah, even because of four.”

sn On the three…four style that introduces each of the judgment oracles of chaps. 1-2 see the note on the word “four” in 1:3.

³ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

⁴ tn Or “instruction”; NCV “teachings.”

⁵ tn Heb “lies.” This may very well be a derogatory term for idols (perhaps also at Ps. 40:4 [Heb 40:5]). Elsewhere false gods are called “vanities” (Deut 32:21; 1 Kgs 16:13, 26) and a delusion (Isa 66:3). In no other prophetic passages, however, are they called “lies.” The term could refer to the deceptions of false prophets (note Ezek 13:6-9; cf. Hab 2:3). See F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB), 301-6.

⁶ tn Heb “after which their fathers walked.” The expression “to walk after” is an idiom meaning “to be loyal to.” See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 75-76.

sn Here the idolatry of the parents carried over to the children, who persisted in worshiping the idols to which their fathers were loyal.

NET Notes: Amo 2:5

¹ map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

NET Notes: Amo 2:6

¹ tn For this translation see the note at 2:4.

² tn Heb “Because of three violations of Israel, even because of four.”

sn On the three…four style that introduces each of the judgment oracles of chaps. 1-2 see the note on the word “four” in 1:3. Only in this last oracle against Israel does one find the list of four specific violations expected based on the use of a similar formula elsewhere in wisdom literature (see Prov 30:18-19, 29-31). This adaptation of the normal pattern indicates the Lord’s focus on Israel here (he is too bent on judging Israel to dwell very long on her neighbors) and emphasizes Israel’s guilt with respect to the other nations (Israel’s list fills up before the others’ lists do). See R. B. Chisholm, “‘For three sins...even for four’: the numerical sayings in Amos,” BSac 147 (1990) 188-97.

³ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

⁴ tn Or “honest” (CEV, NLT). The Hebrew word sometimes has a moral-ethical connotation, “righteous, godly,” but the parallelism (note “poor”) suggests a socio-economic or legal sense here. The practice of selling debtors as slaves is in view (Exod 21:2-11; Lev 25:35-55; Deut 15:12-18) See the note at Exod 21:8 and G. C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup). Probably the only “crime” the victim had committed was being unable to pay back a loan or an exorbitant interest rate on a loan. Some have suggested that this verse refers to bribery in legal proceedings: The innocent are “sold” in the sense that those in power pay off the elders or judges for favorable decisions (5:12; cf. Exod 23:6-7).

⁵ tn Perhaps the expression “for a pair of sandals” indicates a relatively small price or debt. Some suggest that the sandals may have been an outward token of a more substantial purchase price. Others relate the sandals to a ritual attached to the transfer of property, signifying here that the poor would be losing their inherited family lands because of debt (Ruth 4:7; cf. Deut 25:8-10). Still others emend the Hebrew form slightly to נֶעְלָם (ne’lam, “hidden thing”; from the root עָלַם, ’alam, “to hide”) and understand this as referring to a bribe.

NET Notes: Amo 2:7

¹ tn Most scholars now understand this verb as derived from the root II שָׁאַף (sha’af, “to crush; to trample”), an alternate form of שׁוּף (shuf), rather than from I שָׁאַף (sha’af, “to pant, to gasp”; cf. KJV, ASV, NASB).

² tn Heb “those who stomp on the dirt of the ground on the head of the poor.” It is possible to render the line as “they trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground,” thereby communicating that the poor are being stepped on in utter contempt (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 79-80). The participial form הַשֹּׁאֲפִים (hasho’afim) is substantival and stands in apposition to the pronominal suffix on מִכְרָם (mikhram, v. 6b).

sn The picture of the poor having dirt-covered heads suggests their humiliation before their oppressors and/or their sorrow (see 2 Sam 1:2; 15:32).

³ tn Heb “they turn aside the way of the destitute.” Many interpreters take “way” to mean “just cause” and understand this as a direct reference to the rights of the destitute being ignored. The injustice done to the poor is certainly in view, but the statement is better taken as a word picture depicting the powerful rich pushing the “way of the poor” (i.e., their attempt to be treated justly) to the side. An even more vivid picture is given in Amos 5:12, where the rich are pictured as turning the poor away from the city gate (where legal decisions were made, and therefore where justice should be done).

⁴ sn Most interpreters see some type of sexual immorality here (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT), even though the Hebrew phrase הָלַךְ אֶל (halakh ’el, “go to”) never refers elsewhere to sexual intercourse. (The usual idiom is בוֹא אֶל [bo’ ’el]. However, S. M. Paul (Amos [Hermeneia], 82) attempts to develop a linguistic case for a sexual connotation here.) The precise identification of the “girl” in question is not clear. Some see the referent as a cultic prostitute (cf. NAB; v. 8 suggests a cultic setting), but the term נַעֲרָה (na’arah) nowhere else refers to a prostitute. Because of the contextual emphasis on social oppression, some suggest the exploitation of a slave girl is in view. H. Barstad argues that the “girl” is the hostess at a pagan מַרְזֵחַ (marzeakh) banquet (described at some length in 6:4-7). In his view the sin described here is not sexual immorality, but idolatry (see H. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos [VTSup], 33-36). In this case, one might translate, “Father and son go together to a pagan banquet.” In light of this cultic context, F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman argue that this is a reference to a specific female deity (“the Girl”) and correlate this verse with 8:14 (Amos [AB], 318-19).

⁵ tn Or “pollute”; “desecrate”; “dishonor.”

⁶ tn Heb “my holy name.” Here “name” is used metonymically for God’s moral character or reputation, while “holy” has a moral and ethical connotation.

NET Notes: Amo 2:8

¹ tn The words “They do so right” are supplied twice in the translation of this verse for clarification.

² tn Heb “house.”

³ tn Or “gods.” The Hebrew term אֱלֹהֵיהֶם (’elohehem) may be translated “their gods” (referring to pagan gods), “their god” (referring to a pagan god, cf. NAB, NIV, NLT), or “their God” (referring to the God of Israel, cf. NASB, NRSV).

NET Notes: Amo 2:9

¹ tn Heb “I destroyed the Amorites from before them.” The translation takes מִפְּנֵי (mippÿney) in the sense of “for the sake of.” See BDB 818 s.v. פָּנֻה II.6.a and H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos (Hermeneia), 134. Another option is to take the phrase in a spatial sense, “I destroyed the Amorites, [clearing them out] from before them [i.e., Israel]” (cf. NIV, NRSV).

² tn Heb “whose height was like the height of cedars.”

³ tn Heb “his fruit from above.”

⁴ tn Heb “and his roots from below.”

NET Notes: Amo 2:11

¹ tn Or perhaps “religious devotees” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term נָזִיר (nazir) refers to one who “consecrated” or “devoted” to God (see Num 6:1-21).

NET Notes: Amo 2:12

¹ sn Nazirites were strictly forbidden to drink wine (Num 6:2-3).

NET Notes: Amo 2:13

¹ tn The precise meaning of this verse is unclear. Various suggested meanings have been proposed (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 94): (1) One option is to relate the verb to an Arabic verb, meaning “to hinder; to hamper,” and translate, “I am making you immobile, like a cart filled with grain is immobile.” In this case, the Lord refers to Israel’s inability to escape his coming judgment (see vv. 14-16; NJPS). (2) Another view relates the verb to a different Arabic verb meaning “to cut in pieces,” translating “I will cut you in pieces as a cart cuts in pieces [the earth],” referring to the ruts and rifts in the ground caused by an earthquake. (3) Some relate the verb to an Arabic root meaning “to groan” with the idea that the Lord causes the ground underneath Israel to groan (cf. NLT). (4) The translation connects the verb to an Aramaism signifying to “press down” (cf. NIV, NRSV). Some English versions translate the verb in an intransitive sense as “I am weighted down” (cf. NASB, NKJV) or “I groan beneath you” (NEB). For this last option, see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB), 334.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:1

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because he burned the ^{( a )} bones of the king of Edom into lime:

^{( a )} For the Moabites were so cruel against the King of Edom, that they burnt his bones after he was dead: which declared their barbarous rage, that they would avenge themselves upon the dead.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:4

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, ^{( b )} I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

^{( b )} Seeing that the Gentiles who did have as much knowledge were punished in this way, Judah which was so fully instructed by the Lord's will, should not think that they would escape.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:6

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of ^{( c )} Israel, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of ^{( d )} shoes;

^{( c )} If he did not spare Judah unto whom his promises were made, much more he will not spare this degenerate kingdom.

^{( d )} They esteemed most vile bribes more than men's lives.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:7

That pant after the ^{( e )} dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the [same] maid, to profane my holy name:

^{( e )} When they have robbed him and thrown him to the ground, they open wide their mouths for his life.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:8

And they lay [themselves] down upon clothes laid to pledge ^{( f )} by every altar, and they ^{( g )} drink the wine of the condemned [in] the house of their god.

^{( f )} Thinking that by these ceremonies, that is, by sacrificing, and by being near my altar, they may excuse all of their other wickedness.

^{( g )} They rob others and offer it to God, thinking that he will exempt them, when he is made partaker of their iniquity.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:9

Yet destroyed I the ^{( h )} Amorite before them, whose height [was] like the height of the cedars, and he [was] strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

^{( h )} The destruction of their enemies and his mercy toward them, should have caused their hearts to melt because of love toward him.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:11

And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of ^{( i )} your young men for Nazarites. [Is it] not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.

^{( i )} You condemned my benefits, and abused my graces, and craftily went about to stop the mouths of my Prophets.

Geneva Bible: Amo 2:13

Behold, I am ^{( k )} pressed under you, as a cart is pressed [that is] full of sheaves.

^{( k )} You have wearied me with your sins; (Isa 1:14).

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Amo 2:1-16

1 God's judgments upon Moab,

4 upon Judah,

6 and upon Israel.

9 God complains of their ingratitude.

MHCC: Amo 2:1-8

The evil passions of the heart break out in various forms; but the Lord looks to our motives, as well as our conduct. Those that deal cruelly, shall be cruelly dealt with. Other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men; Judah is reckoned with for dishonour done to God. Judah despised the law of the Lord; and he justly gave them up to strong delusion; nor was it any excuse for their sin, that they were the lies, the idols, after which their fathers walked. The worst abominations and most grievous oppressions have been committed by some of the professed worshippers of the Lord. Such conduct leads many to unbelief and vile idolatry.

MHCC: Amo 2:9-16

We need often to be reminded of the mercies we have received; which add much to the evil of the sins we have committed. They had helps for their souls, which taught them how to make good use of their earthly enjoyments, and were therefore more valuable. Faithful ministers are great blessings to any people; but it is God that raises them up to be so. Sinners' own consciences will witness that he has not been wanting to them in the means of grace. They did what they could to lead believers aside. Satan and his agents are busy to corrupt the minds of young people who look heavenward; they overcome many by drawing them to the love of mirth and pleasure, and into drinking company. Multitudes of young men who bade fair as professors of religion, have erred through strong drink, and have been undone for ever. The Lord complains of sin, especially the sins of his professing people, as a burden to him. And though his long-suffering be tired, his power is not, and so the sinner will find to his cost. When men reject God's word, adding obstinacy to sin, and this becomes the general character of a people, they will be given up to misery, notwithstanding all their boasted power and resources. May we then humble ourselves before the Lord, for all our ingratitude and unfaithfulness.

Matthew Henry: Amo 2:1-8

Here is, I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three transgressions and for four, as those before. Now, 1. Moab's fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the bar, was cruelty. The instance given refers not to the people of God, but to a heathen like themselves: The king of Moab burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime. We find there was war between the Edomites and the Moabites, in which the king of Moab, in distress and rage, offered his own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity, 2Ki 3:26, 2Ki 3:27. And it should seem that afterwards he, or some of his successors, in revenge upon the Edomites for bringing him to that extremity, having an advantage against the king of Edom, seized him alive and burnt him to ashes, or slew him and burnt his body, or dug up the bones of their dead king, of that particularly who had so straitened him, and, in token of his rage and fury, burnt them to lime. and perhaps made use of the powder of his bones for the white-washing of the walls and ceilings of his palace, that he might please himself with the sight of that monument of his revenge. Est vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa - Revenge is sweeter than life itself. It is barbarous to abuse human bodies, for we ourselves also are in the body; it is senseless to abuse dead bodies, nay, it is impious, for we believe and look for their resurrection; and to abuse the dead bodies of kings (whose persons and names ought to be in a particular manner respected and had in veneration) is an affront to majesty; it is an argument of a base spirit for those to trample upon a dead lion who, were he alive, would tremble before him. 2. Moab's doom for this transgression is, (1.) A judgment of death. Those that deal cruelly shall be cruelly dealt with (Amo 2:2): Moab shall die; the Moabites shall be cut off with the sword of war, which kills with tumult, with shouting, and with sound of trumpet, circumstances that make it so much the more terrible, as the lion's roaring aggravates his tearing. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, Isa 9:5. (2.) It is a judgment upon their judge, who had passed the sentence upon the bones of the king of Edom that they should be burnt to lime: I will cut him off, says God (Amo 2:3); he shall know there is a judge that is higher than he. The king, the chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall not escape, Jer 48:47. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.

II. Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and therefore, now that justice is riding the circuit, that shall not be passed by; that nation has made itself like the heathen and mingled with them, and therefore the indictment here runs against them in the same form in which it had run against all the rest: For these transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; their sins are as many as the sins of other nations, and we find them huddled up with them in the same character, Jer 9:26, "As for Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, jumble them together; they are all alike;"the sentence here also is the same (Amo 2:5): " I will send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where God is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, though it is the holy city, and God has formerly been known in its palaces for a refuge, "Psa 48:3. But the sin here charged upon Judah is different from all the rest. The other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men, but Judah is reckoned with for indignities done to God, Amo 2:4. 1. They put contempt upon his statutes and persisted in disobedience to them: They have despised the law of the Lord, as if it were not worth taking notice of, nor had any thing in it valuable; and herein they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as the authority and sovereignty, of the Lawmaker; this they did, in effect, when they kept not his commandments, made no conscience of them, took no care about them. 2. They put honour upon his rivals, their idols, here called their lies which caused them to err; for an image is a teacher of lies, Hab 2:18. And those that are led away into the error of idolatry are by that led into a multitude of other errors, Uno dato absurdo mille sequuntur - One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an infinite eternal Spirit; but, when the truth of God is by idolatry changed into a lie, all his other truths are in danger of being so changed likewise; thus their idols caused them to err, and God justly gave them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse for their sin that they were lies after which their father walked, for they should rather have taken warning than taken pattern by those that perished with these lies in their right hand.

III. We now at length come to the words which Amos saw concerning Israel. The reproofs and threatenings having walked the round, here they centre, here they settle. He begins with them as with the rest: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; it all these nations must be punished for their iniquities, shall Israel go unpunished? Observe here what their sins were, for which God would reckon with them. 1. Perverting justice. This was the sin of those who were entrusted with the administration of justice, the judges and magistrates, and all parties concerned. They made nothing of selling a righteous man, and his righteous cause when it came to be tried before them, for a piece of silver; sentence was passed, not according to the merits of the cause, but the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment was set to sale by auction to the highest bidder. They would sell the life and livelihood of a poor man for a pair of shoes, for the least advantage to themselves that could be proposed to them; give them but a pair of shoes, and the cause of a poor man, who could not give them as much as that, should be betrayed, and left at the mercy of those that will have no mercy. They will rather play at small game that sit out. For a piece of bread such a man will transgress. Note, Those who will wrong their consciences for any thing will come at length to do it for next to nothing; those who begin to sell justice for silver will in time be so sordid as to see it for a pair of shoes, for a pair of old shoes. 2. Oppressing the poor, and seeking to benefit themselves by doing them a mischief: They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; they swallow up the poor with the utmost greediness, and make a prey of those that are in sorrow with dust on their heads, poor orphans that are in mourning for their parents; they catch at them to get their estates into their hands; they never rest till they have got the heads of the poor in the dust, to be trodden on. Or, They pant after the dust of the earth, that is, silver and gold, white and yellow dust; they covet it earnestly, and levy it upon the head of the poor by their unjust exactions. Note, Men's seeking to enrich themselves by the impoverishing of others is a transgression which God will not long turn away the punishment of. This is turning aside the way of the meek, contriving to do injury to those who, they know, are mild and patient and will bear injury. They invade their rights, break their measures, and obstruct the course of justice in favour of them, not suffering them to go on with their righteous cause; this is turning aside their way. Note, The more patiently men bear injuries that are done them the greater is the sin of those that injure them, and the more occasion they have to expect that God will give them redress, and take vengeance for them. I, as a deaf man, heard not, and then thou wilt hear. 3. Abominable uncleanness, even incest itself, such as it not named among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father's wife (1Co 5:1), his father's concubine: A man and his father will go in unto the same young woman, as black an instance as any other of an unbounded promiscuous lust; and yet where the former iniquities of oppression and extortion are this also is found; for laws of modesty seldom hold those that have broken the bands of justice and cast away its cords from them. This wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the profession of it, that those who are guilty of it are looked upon as designing thereby to profane God's holy name, and to render it odious among the heathen, as if he countenanced the villainies which those who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and were altogether such a one as they. 4. Regaling themselves and yet pretending to honour their God with that which they had got by oppression and extortion, Amo 2:8. They add idolatry to their injustice, and then think to atone for their injustice with their idolatry. (1.) They make merry with that which they have unjustly squeezed from the poor. They lay themselves down at ease, and in state, and stretch themselves upon clothes laid to pledge, which they ought to have restored the same night, according to the law, Deu 24:12, Deu 24:13. And they drink the wine of the condemned, of such as they have fined and laid heavy mulcts upon, spending that in sensuality which they have got by injustice. (2.) They think to make atonement for this by feasting on the gains of oppression before their altars, and drinking this wine in the house of their God, in the temples where they worshipped their calves, as if they would make God a partner in their crimes by making him a partner of the profits of them - service good enough for false gods; but the true God will not thus be mocked; he has declared that he hates robbery for burnt-offerings, and cannot be served acceptably but with that which is got honestly.

Matthew Henry: Amo 2:9-16

Here, I. God puts his people Israel in mind of the great things he has done for them, in putting them into possession of the land of Canaan, the greatest part of which these ten tribes now enjoyed, Amo 2:9, Amo 2:10. Note, We need often to be reminded of the mercies we have received, which are the heaviest aggravations of the sins we have committed. God gives liberally, and upbraids us not with our meanness and unworthiness, and the disproportion between his gifts and our merits; but he justly upbraids us with our ingratitude, and ill requital of his favours, and tells us what he has done for us, to shame us for not rendering again according to the benefit done to us. " Son, remember; Israel, remember, 1. That God brought thee out of a house of bondage, rescued thee out of the land of Egypt, where thou wouldst otherwise have perished in slavery."2. That he led thee forty years through a desert land, and fed thee in a wilderness, where thou wouldst otherwise have perished with hunger. Mercies to our ancestors were mercies to us, for, if they had been cut off, we should not have been. 3. That he made room for them in Canaan, by extirpating the natives by a series of wonders little inferior to those by which they were redeemed out of Egypt: I destroyed the Amorite before them, here put for all the devoted nations. Observe the magnificence of the enemies that stood in their way, which is taken notice of, that God may be the more magnified in the subduing of them. They were of great stature ( whose height was like the height of the cedars ) and the people of Israel were as shrubs to them; and they were also of great strength, not only tall, but well-set: He was strong as the oaks. Their kingdom was eminent among the nations, and over-topped all its neighbours. The supports and defences of it seemed impregnable; it was as fine as the stately cedar; it was as firm as the sturdy oak; yet, when God had a vine to plant there (Psa 80:8, Psa 80:9), this Amorite was not only cut down, but plucked up: I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath, so that the Amorites were no more a nation, nor ever read of any more. Thus highly did God value Israel. He gave men for them and people for their life, Isa 43:4. How ungrateful then were those who put such contempt upon him! 4. That he made them possess the land of the Amorite, not only put it into their hands, so that they became masters of it jure belli - by right of conquest, but gave them a better title to it, so that it became theirs by promise.

II. He likewise upbraids them with the spiritual privileges and advantages they enjoyed as a holy nation, Amo 2:11. They had helps for their souls, which taught them how to make good use of their temporal enjoyments and were therefore more valuable. It is true the ten tribes had not God's temple, altar, and priesthood, and it was their own fault that they deserted them, and for that they might justly have been left in utter darkness; but God left not himself without witness, nor them without guides to show them the way. 1. They had prophets that were powerful instructors in piety, divinely inspired, and commissioned to make known the mind of God to them, to show them what is pleasing to God and what displeasing, to reprove them for their faults and warn them of their dangers, to direct them in their difficulties and comfort them in their troubles. God raised them up prophets, animated them for that work and employed them in it. He raised them up of their sons, from among themselves, as Moses and Christ were raised up from among their brethren, Deu 18:15. It was an honour put upon their nation, and upon their families, that they had children of their own to be God's messengers to them, of their own language, not strangers sent from another country, whom they might suspect to be prejudiced against them and their land, but those who, they knew, wished well to them. Note, Faithful ministers are great blessings to any people, and it is God that raises them up to be so, that they may justly be reckoned an honour to the families they are of. 2. They had Nazarites that were bright examples of piety: I raised up of your young men for Nazarites, men that bound themselves by a vow to God and his service, and, in pursuance of that, denied themselves many of the lawful delights of sense, as drinking wine and eating grapes. There were some of their young men that were in their prime for the enjoyment of the pleasures of this life and yet voluntarily abridged themselves of them; these God raised up by the power of his grace, to be monuments of his grace, to his glory, and to be his witnesses against the impieties of that degenerate age. Note, It is as great a blessing to any place to have eminent good Christians in it as to have eminent good ministers in it; for so they have examples to their rules. We must acknowledge that it bodes well to any people when God raises up numbers of hopeful young people among them, when he makes their young men Nazarites, devout, and conscientious, and mortified to the pleasures of sense; and those that are such Nazarites are purer than snow, whiter than milk; they are indeed the polite young men, for their polishing is of sapphires, Lam 4:7. Those that have such men, such young men, among them, have therein such an advantage, both for direction and encouragement, to be religious, as they will be called to an account for another day if they do not improve. Israel is here reckoned with, not only for the prophets, but for the Nazarites, raised up among them. Concerning the truth of this, he appeals to themselves: " Is it not even thus, O you children of Israel? Can you deny it? Have not you yourselves been sensible of the advantage you had by the prophets and Nazarites raised up among you?"Note, Sinners' own consciences will be witnesses for God that he has not been wanting to them in the means of grace, so that, if they perish, it is because they have been wanting to themselves in not improving those means. The men of Judah shall themselves judge between God and his vineyard, whether he could have done more for it, Isa 5:3, Isa 5:4.

III. He charges them with the abuse of the means of grace they enjoyed, and the opposition they gave to God's designs in affording them those means, Amo 2:12. They were so far from walking in the light that they rebelled against it, and did what they could to extinguish it, that it might not shine in their faces, to their conviction. 1. They did what they could to debauch good people, to draw them off from their seriousness in devotion and their strictness in conversation: You gave the Nazarites wine to drink, contrary to their vow, that, having broken it in that instance, they might not pretend to keep it in any other. Some they surprised, or allured into it, and with their much fair speech caused them to yield; others they forced and frightened into it, reproached and threatened them if they were more precise than their neighbours; and, by drawing them in to drink wine, they spoiled them for Nazarites. Note, Satan and his agents are very busy to corrupt the minds of young people that look heavenward; and many that we thought would have been Nazarites they have overcome by giving them wine to drink, by drawing them in to the love of mirth and pleasure, and drinking company. Multitudes of young men that bade fair for eminent professors of religion have erred through wine, and been undone for ever. And how do the factors for hell triumph in the debauching of a Nazarite! 2. They did what they could to silence good ministers, and to stop their mouths: " You commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not, and threatened them if they did prophesy (Amo 7:12), as if God's messengers were bound to observe your orders, and might not deliver their errand unless you gave them leave, and so you not only received the grace of God, in raising up those prophets, in vain, but put the highest affront imaginable upon that God in whose name the prophets spoke."Note, Those have a great deal to answer for that cannot bear faithful preaching, and those much more that suppress it.

IV. He complains of the wrong they did him by their sins (Amo 2:13): " I am pressed under you, I am straitened by you, and can no longer bear it, and therefore I will ease myself of my adversaries, Isa 1:24. I am pressed under you and the load of your sins as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves, is loaded with corn, in the midst of the joy of harvest, as long as any will lie on."Note, The great God complains of sin, especially the sins of his professing people, as a burden to him. He is grieved with this generation (Psa 95:10), is broken with their whorish heart (Eze 6:9), a consideration which, if it make not the sinner's repentance very deep, will make his ruin very great. The great God that upholds the world, and never complains that his is pressed under the weight of it (he fainteth not, neither is weary ), yet complains of the sins of Israel, yea, and of their hypocritical services too, that he is weary of bearing them, Isa 1:14. No wonder the creature groans being burdened (Rom 8:22), when the Creator says, I am pressed under them.

V. He threatens them with unavoidable ruin. And so some read, Amo 2:13, " Behold I will press, or straiten, your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses; they shall be loaded with judgments till they shall sink under them, and shall make a noise, as a cart overloaded does."Those that will not submit to the convictions of the word, that will neither be won by that nor by the conversation of those about them, shall be made to sink under the weight of God's judgments. If God load us daily with his benefits, and we, notwithstanding that, load him with our sins, how can we expect any other than that he should load us with his judgments? And it is here threatened in the last three verses that, when God comes forth to contend with this provoking people, they shall not be able to stand before him, to flee from him, nor to make their part good with him; for when God judges he will overcome. Though his patience be tired out, his power is not, and so the sinner shall find, to his cost. When the Assyrian army comes to lay the country waste by sword and captivity none shall escape, but every one shall have his share in the common desolation. 1. It will be in vain to think of fleeing from the enemy that comes armed with a commission to make all desolate: The flight shall perish from the swift; those that have been famed for happy escapes and happy retreats shall now find their arts fail them; they shall have no time to flee, or shall find no way to take, or they shall have no strength or spirit to attempt it; they shall be at their wits' end, and then they are soon at their flight's end. Are they, as Asahel, as swift of foot as a wild roe? (2Sa 2:18), yet, like him, they shall run the faster upon their own destruction: He that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself, Amo 2:15. Or do they say (as those, Isa 30:16), We will flee upon horses, and we will ride upon the swift? Yet they shall be overtaken: Neither shall he that rides the horse deliver himself from his pursuers. A horse is a vain thing for safety. 2. It will be in vain to think of fighting it out. God is at war with them; and are they stronger than he? Is there any military force that can pretend to be a match for Omnipotence? No: The strong shall not strengthen his force. He that has a habit of strength shall not be able to exert it when he has occasion for it. And the mighty, whose should protect and deliver others, shall not be able to deliver himself, to deliver his soul (so the word is), shall not save his life. Let not the strong man then glory in his strength, nor trust in it, but strengthen himself in the Lord his God, for in him is everlasting strength. And, as the bodily strength shall fail, so shall the weapons of war. The armour as well as the arm shall become insufficient: Neither shall he stand that handles the bow, though he stand at a distance, but shall betake himself to flight, and not trust to his own bow to save him. Though the arm be ever so strong, and the armour ever so well fixed, neither will avail when the spirit fails (Amo 2:16): He that is courageous among the mighty, that used to look danger in the face, and not be dismayed at it, shall flee away naked in that day, not only disarmed, having thrown away his weapons both offensive and defensive, but plundered of his treasure, which he thought to carry away with him, and he shall think it as much as he could expect that he has his life for a prey. Thus when God pleases he takes away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causes those who used to boast of their courage, and their daring enterprises in the field, to wander and sneak in a wilderness where there is no way, Job 12:24.

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:1-3

Moab. - Amo 2:1. "Thus saith Jehovah: for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it has burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime, Amo 2:2. I send fire into Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab will perish in the tumult, in the war-cry, in the trumpet-blast. Amo 2:3. And I cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and all its princes do I strangle with it, saith Jehovah." The burning of the bones of the king of Edom is not burning while he was still alive, but the burning of the corpse into lime, i.e., so completely that the bones turned into powder like lime (D. Kimchi), to cool his wrath still further upon the dead man (cf. 2Ki 23:16). This is the only thing blamed, not his having put him to death. No record has been preserved of this event in the historical books of the Old Testament; but it was no doubt connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom; so that the Jewish tradition found in Jerome, viz., that after this war the Moabites dug up the bones of the king of Edom from the grace, and heaped insults upon them by burning them to ashes, is apparently not without foundation. As Amos in the case of all the other nations has mentioned only crimes that were committed against the covenant nation, the one with which the Moabites are charged must have been in some way associated with either Israel or Judah, that is to say, it must have been committed upon a king of Edom, who was a vassal of Judah, and therefore not very long after this war, since the Edomites shook off their dependence upon Judah in less than ten years from that time (2Ki 8:20). As a punishment for this, Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and Keriyoth with its palaces to be burned down. הקּריּות is not an appellative noun ( τῶν πόλεων αὐτῆς , lxx), but a proper name of one of the chief cities of Moab (cf. Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41), the ruins of which have been discovered by Burckhardt ( Syr . p. 630) and Seetzen (ii. p. 342, cf. iv. p. 384) in the decayed town of Kereyat or Körriât . The application of the term מת to Moab is to be explained on the supposition that the nation is personified. שׁאון signifies war tumult, and בּתרוּעה is explained as in Amo 1:14 by בּקול שׁופר , blast of the trumpets, the signal for the assault or for the commencement of the battle. The judge with all the princes shall be cut off miqqirbâh , i.e., out of the land of Moab. The feminine suffix refers to Moab as a land or kingdom, and not to Keriyoth. From the fact that the shōphēt is mentioned instead of the king, it has been concluded by some that Moab had no king at that time, but had only a shōphēt as its ruler; and they have sought to account for this on the ground that Moab was at that time subject to the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hitzig and Ewald). But there is no notice in the history of anything of the kind, and it cannot possibly be inferred from the fact that Jeroboam restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom as far as the Dead Sea (2Ki 14:25). Shōphēt is analogous to tōmēkh shēbhet in Amo 1:5, and is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the מלך , who is so called in the threat against Ammon, and simply used for the sake of variety. The threatening prophecies concerning all the nations and kingdoms mentioned from Amo 1:6 onwards were fulfilled by the Chaldeans, who conquered all these kingdoms, and carried the people themselves into captivity. For fuller remarks upon this point, see at Jeremiah 48 and Eze 25:8.

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:4-5

Judah. - Amo 2:4. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His ordinances, and their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked, Amo 2:5. I send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem." With the announcement that the storm of the wrath of God will also burst upon Judah, Amos prepares the way for passing on to Israel, the principal object of his prophecies. In the case of Judah, he condemns its contempt of the law of its God, and also its idolatry. Toorâh is the sum and substance of all the instructions and all the commandments which Jehovah had given to His people as the rule of life. Chuqqı̄m are the separate precepts contained in the thōrâh , including not only the ceremonial commands, but the moral commandments also; for the two clauses are not only parallel, but synonymous. כּזביהם , their lies, are their idols, as we may see from the relative clause, since "walking after"( bâlakh 'achărē ) is the standing expression for idolatry. Amos calls the idols lies , not only as res quae fallunt (Ges.), but as fabrications and nonentities ( 'ĕlı̄hı̄m and hăbhâlı̄m ), having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them. The "fathers"who walked after these lies were their forefathers generally, since the nation of Israel practised idolatry even in the desert (cf. Amo 5:26), and was more or less addicted to it ever afterwards, with the sole exception of the times of Joshua, Samuel, David, and part of the reign of Solomon, so that even the most godly kings of Judah were unable to eradicate the worship upon the high places. The punishment threatened in consequence, namely, that Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar.

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:6-8

After this introduction, the prophet's address turns to Israel of the ten tribes, and in precisely the same form as in the case of the nations already mentioned, announces the judgment as irrevocable. At the same time, he gives a fuller description of the sins of Israel, condemning first of all the prevailing crimes of injustice and oppression, of shameless immorality and daring contempt of God (Amo 2:6-8); and secondly, its scornful contempt of the benefits conferred by the Lord (Amo 2:9-12), and threatening inevitable trouble in consequence (Amo 2:13-16). Amo 2:6. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they sell the righteous for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes. Amo 2:7. They who pant after dust of the earth upon the head of the poor, and bend the way of the meek: and a man and his father go to the same girl, to desecrate my holy name. Amo 2:8. And they stretch themselves upon pawned clothes by every altar, and they drink the wine of the punished in the house of their God." The prophet condemns four kinds of crimes. The first is unjust treatment, or condemnation of the innocent in their administration of justice. Selling the righteous for silver, i.e., for money, refers to the judges, who were bribed to punish a man as guilty of the crime of which he was accused, when he was really tsaddı̄q , i.e., righteous in a judicial, not in a moral sense, or innocent of any punishable crime. Bakkeseph , for money, i.e., either to obtain money, or for the money which they had already received, viz., from the accuser, for condemning the innocent. בּעבוּר , on account of, is not synonymous with ב pretii ; for they did not sell the poor man merely to get a pair of sandals for him, as the worst possible slave was certainly worth much more than this (cf. Exo 21:32); but the poor debtor who could not pay for a pair of shoes, i.e., for the merest trifle, the judge would give up to the creditor for a salve, on the strength of the law in Lev 25:39 (cf. 2Ki 4:1).

As a second crime, Amos reproves in v. 7 a their thirst for the oppression of the quiet in the land. דּלּים , ταπεινοί , and ענוים , πραεῖς . The address is carried on in participles, in the form of lively appeal, instead of quiet description, as is frequently the case in Amos (cf. Amo 5:7; Amo 6:3., 13, Amo 8:14), and also in other books (cf. Isa 40:22, Isa 40:26; Psa 19:11). In the present instance, the article before the participle points back to the suffix in מכרם , and the finite verb is not introduced till the second clause. שׁאף , to gasp, to pant, to long eagerly for earth-dust upon the head of the poor, i.e., to long to see the head of the poor covered with earth or dust, or to bring them into such a state of misery, that they scatter dust upon their head (cf. Job 2:12; 2Sa 1:2). The explanation given by Hitzig is too far-fetched and unnatural, viz., that they grudge the man in distress even the handful of dust that he has strewn upon his head, and avariciously long for it themselves. To bend the way of the meek, i.e., to bring them into a trap, or cast them headlong into destruction by impediments and stumblingblocks laid in their path. The way is the way of life, their outward course. The idea that the way refers to the judgment or legal process is too contracted. The third crime is their profanation of the name of God by shameless immorality ( Amo 2:7 ); and the fourth , desecration of the sanctuary by drinking carousals (Amo 2:8). A man and his father, i.e., both son and father, go to the girl, i.e., to the prostitute. The meaning is, to one and the same girl; but 'achath is omitted, to preclude all possible misunderstanding, as though going to different prostitutes was allowed. This sin was tantamount to incest, which, according to the law, was to be punished with death (cf. Lev 18:7, Lev 18:15, and Lev 20:11). Temple girls ( q^e dēshōth ) are not to be thought of here. The profanation of the name of God by such conduct as this does not indicate prostitution in the temple itself, such as was required by the licentious worship of Baal and Asherah (Ewald, Maurer, etc.), but consisted in a daring contempt of the commandments of God, as the original passage (Lev 22:32) from which Amos took the words clearly shows (cf. Jer 34:16). By l^e ma‛an , in order that (not "so that"), the profanation of the holy name of God is represented as intentional, to bring out the daring character of the sin, and to show that it did not arise from weakness or ignorance, but was practised with studious contempt of the holy God. B^e gâdı̄m chăbhulı̄m , pawned clothes, i.e., upper garments, consisting of a large square piece of cloth, which was wrapt all around, and served the poor for a counterpane as well. If a poor man was obliged to pawn his upper garment, it was to be returned to him before night came on (Exo 22:25), and a garment so pawned was not to be slept upon (Deu 24:12-13). But godless usurers kept such pledges, and used them as cloths upon which they stretched their limbs at feasts ( yattū , hiphil , to stretch out, sc. the body or its limbs); and this they did by every altar, at sacrificial meals, without standing in awe of God. It is very evident that Amos is speaking of sacrificial feasting, from the reference in the second clause of the verse to the drinking of wine in the house of God. עמוּשׁים , punished in money, i.e., fined. Wine of the punished is wine purchased by the produce of the fines. Here again the emphasis rests upon the fact, that such drinking carousals were held in the house of God. 'Elōhēhem , not their gods (idols), but their God; for Amos had in his mind the sacred places at Bethel and Dan, in which the Israelites worshipped Jehovah as their God under the symbol of an ox (calf). The expression col - mizbēăch (every altar) is not at variance with this; for even if col pointed to a plurality of altars, these altars were still bāmōth , dedicated to Jehovah. If the prophet had also meant to condemn actual idolatry, i.e., the worship of heathen deities, he would have expressed this more clearly; to say nothing of the fact, that in the time of Jeroboam II there was no heathenish idolatry in the kingdom of the ten tribes, or, at any rate, it was not publicly maintained.

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:9-10

And if this daring contempt of the commandments of God was highly reprehensible even in itself, it became perfectly inexcusable if we bear in mind that Israel was indebted to the Lord its God for its elevation into an independent nation, and also for its sacred calling. For this reason, the prophet reminds the people of the manifestations of grace which it had received from its God (Amo 2:9-11). Amo 2:9. "And yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was strong as the oaks; and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. Amo 2:10. And yet I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the desert, to take possession of the land of the Amorite." The repeated ואנכי is used with peculiar emphasis, and serves to bring out the contrast between the conduct of the Israelites towards the Lord, and the fidelity of the Lord towards Israel. Of the two manifestations of divine grace to which Israel owed its existence as an independent nation, Amos mentions first of all the destruction of the former inhabitants of Canaan (Exo 23:27., Exo 34:11); and secondly, what was earlier in point of time, namely, the deliverance out of Egypt and guidance through the Arabian desert; not because the former act of God was greater than the latter, but in order to place first what the Lord had done for the nation, that he may be able to append to this what He still continues to do (Amo 2:11). The nations destroyed before Israel are called Amorites, from the most powerful of the Canaanitish tribes, as in Gen 15:16; Jos 24:15, etc. To show, however, that Israel was not able to destroy this people by its own strength, but that Jehovah the Almighty God alone could accomplish this, he proceeds to transfer to the whole nation what the Israelitish spies reported as to their size, more especially as to the size of particular giants (Num 13:32-33), and describes the Amorites as giants as lofty as trees and as strong as trees, and, continuing the same figure, depicts their utter destruction or extermination as the destruction of their fruit and of their roots. For this figure of speech, in which the posterity of a nation is regarded as its fruit, and the kernel of the nation out of which it springs as the root, see Eze 17:9; Hos 9:16; Job 18:16. These two manifestations of divine mercy Moses impressed more than once upon the hearts of the people in his last addresses, to urge them in consequence to hold fast to the divine commandments and to the love of God (cf. Deu 8:2., Deu 9:1-6; Deu 29:1-8).

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:11-12

But Jehovah had not only put Israel into possession of Canaan; He had also continually manifested Himself to it as the founder and promoter of its spiritual prosperity. Amo 2:11. "And I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as dedicated ones (Naziraeans). Ah, is it not so, ye sons of Israel? is the saying of Jehovah. Amo 2:12. But ye made the dedicated drink wine, and ye commanded the prophets, saying, Ye shall not prophesy." The institution of prophecy and the law of the Nazarite were gifts of grace, in which Israel had an advantage over every other nation, and by which it was distinguished above the heathen as the nation of God and the medium of salvation. Amos simply reminds the people of these, and not of earthly blessings, which the heathen also enjoyed, since the former alone were real pledges of the covenant of grace made by Jehovah with Israel; and it was in the contempt and abuse of these gifts of grace that the ingratitude of the nation was displayed in the most glaring light. The Nazarites are placed by the side of the prophets, who proclaimed to the nation the counsel and will of the Lord, because, although as a rule the condition of a Nazarite was merely the consequence of his own free will and the fulfilment of a particular vow, it was nevertheless so far a gift of grace from the Lord, that the resolution to perform such a vow proceeded from the inward impulse of the Spirit of God, and the performance itself was rendered possible through the power of this Spirit alone. (For a general discussion of the law of the Nazarite, see the commentary on Num 6:2-12, and my biblical Antiquities , §67.) The raising up of Nazarites was not only intended to set before the eyes of the people the object of their divine calling, or their appointment to be a holy nation of God, but also to show them how the Lord bestowed the power to carry out this object. But instead of suffering themselves to be spurred on by these types to strive earnestly after sanctification of life, they tempted the Nazarites to break their vow by drinking wine, from which they were commanded to abstain, as being irreconcilable with the seriousness of their sanctification (see my Bibl. Ant. §67); and the prophets they prohibited from prophesying, because the word of God was burdensome to them (cf. Amo 7:10.; Mic 2:6).

Keil-Delitzsch: Amo 2:13-16

This base contempt of their covenant mercies the Lord would visit with a severe punishment. Amo 2:13. "Behold, I will press you down, as the cart presses that is filled with sheaves. Amo 2:14. And the flight will be lost to the swift, and the strong one will not fortify his strength, and the hero will not deliver his soul. Amo 2:15. And the carrier of the bow will not stand, and the swift-footed will not deliver, and the rider of the horse will not save his soul. Amo 2:16. And the courageous one among the heroes will flee away naked in that day, is the saying of Jehovah." The Lord threatens as a punishment a severe oppression, which no one will be able to escape. The allusion is to the force of war, under which even the bravest and most able heroes will succumb. העיק , from עוּק , Aramaean for צוּק , to press, construed with tachath , in the sense of κατὰ , downwards, to press down upon a person, i.e., to press him down (Winer, Ges., Ewald). This meaning is established by עקה in Psa 55:4, and by מוּעקה in Psa 66:11; so that there is no necessity to resort to the Arabic, as Hitzig does, or to alterations of the text, or to follow Baur, who gives the word the meaning, "to feel one's self pressed under another,"for which there is no foundation in the language, and which does not even yield a suitable sense. The comparison instituted here to the pressure of a cart filled with sheaves, does not warrant the conclusion that Jehovah must answer to the cart; the simile is not to be carried out to this extent. The object to תּעיק is wanting, but may easily be supplied from the thought, namely, the ground over which the cart is driven. The להּ attached to המלאה belongs to the latitude allowed in ordinary speech, and gives to מלאה the reflective meaning, which is full in itself, has quite filled itself (cf. Ewald, §315, a ). In Amo 2:14-16 the effects of this pressure are individualized. No one will escape from it. אבד מנוס , flight is lost to the swift, i.e., the swift will not find time enough to flee. The allusion to heroes and bearers of the bow shows that the pressure is caused by war. קל בּרגליו belong together: "He who is light in his feet."The swift-footed will no more save his life than the rider upon a horse. נפשׁו .esroh in Amo 2:15 belongs to both clauses. אמּץ לבּו , the strong in his heart, i.e., the hearty, courageous. ערום , naked, i.e., so as to leave behind him his garment, by which the enemy seizes him, like the young man in Mar 14:52. This threat, which implies that the kingdom will be destroyed, is carried out still further in the prophet's following addresses.

Constable: Amo 1:3--7:1

II. Prophetic messages that Amos delivered 1:3--6:14

The Book of Amos consists of words (oracles, 1:3-6:14) and visions (chs. 7-9), though these sections also contain short sub-sections of other types of material.

Constable: Amo 1:3--3:1

A. Oracles against nations 1:3-2:16

An oracle is a message of judgment. Amos proceeded to deliver eight of these, seven against Israel's neighbors including Judah (1:3-2:5) and one against Israel (2:6-6:14).¹² The order is significant. The nations mentioned first were foreign, but those mentioned next were the blood relatives of the Israelites, and Judah was its closest kin. Upon hearing this list the Israelites would have felt "a noose of judgment about to tighten round their [the Israelites' own] throats."¹³ This is the "rhetoric of entrapment."¹⁴

"The prophet began with the distant city of Damascus and, like a hawk circling its prey, moved in ever-tightening circles, from one country to another, till at last he pounced on Israel. One can imagine Amos's hearers approving the denunciation of these heathen nations. They could even applaud God's denunciation of Judah because of the deep-seated hostility between the two kingdoms that went as far back as the dissolution of the united kingdom after Solomon. But Amos played no favorites; he swooped down on the unsuspecting Israelites as well in the severest language and condemned them for their crimes."¹⁵

Each oracle follows the same basic pattern. First, Amos declared the judgment to come. Second, he defended the judgment by explaining the reason for it. Third, he described the coming judgment.¹⁶

Other collections of oracles against foreign neighbors appear in Isaiah (chs. 13-17, 19, 21, 23, 34) , Jeremiah (chs. 46-51), and Ezekiel (chs. 25-32). One might also consider Obadiah and Nahum as oracles against foreign nations as well.

Constable: Amo 2:1-3

6. An oracle against Moab 2:1-3

Yahweh promised not to revoke His punishment of Moab, another nation descended from Lot (cf. Gen. 19:30-38), because of its brutal treatment of an Edomite king's corpse (cf. 2 Kings 3:26-27). Burning the bones of a dead person dishonored that individual since there was then nothing substantial left of him. This was a despicable crime in the ancient Near East where a peaceful burial was the hope of every person. This treatment of a dead corpse reflected a lack of respect for human life, life made in the image of God.

"Highly significant is the fact that Amos here pronounced the punishment of Yahweh on a social crime involving a non-Israelite. In his other oracles the crimes were, for the most part, against the covenant people. Amos understood that an aspect of God's law transcended Israel."²⁷

"Crimes against humanity bring God's punishment. This observation is a powerful motivation for God's people to oppose the mistreatment and neglect of their fellow human beings."²⁸

Because of this sin Moab would perish in the tumult of battle, and its leaders would die. Kirioth was a major city in Moab (cf. Jer. 48:24). Nebuchadnezzar conquered Moab shortly after 598 B.C., which opened the way for Arab tribes to occupy its land.²⁹

Constable: Amo 2:4-5

7. An oracle against Judah 2:4-5

God would treat Judah with the same justice that He promised Israel's other neighbor nations. Judah's overflowing sin was her failure to live by the Torah, the instruction that Yahweh had given her, including the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Rom. 2:12-15). Listening to false prophets and worshipping idols (Heb. kazib, a lie, something deceptive) had been major evidences of this apostasy (cf. Deut. 6:14; 7:16; 8:19; 11:16, 28).³⁰ So Yahweh promised to destroy Judah and Jerusalem as He had promised to destroy her sinful neighbors. The fulfillment came with Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (2 Kings 25:1-12).

Constable: Amo 2:6-16

8. An oracle against Israel 2:6-16

The greater length of this oracle as well as its last position in the group of oracles points to its preeminent importance. Verse 10, by using the second person rather than the third, suggests that all these oracles were originally spoken to Israel.

There are four sections to this oracle: Israel's recent sins, God's past gracious activity on Israel's behalf, Israel's response, and Israel's punishment.

Constable: Amo 2:6-8

Israel's recent sins 2:6-8

Not all the sins that Amos identified appear in verses 6-8; two more appear in verse 12. Amos named seven sins of Israel all together rather than just one, as in the previous oracles, though he continued to use the "for three transgressions and for four" formula. Seven seems to be the full measure of Israel's sin. The idea of "the straw that broke the camel's back" carries over from the first seven oracles into the eighth with double force.

2:6 Israel's first sin was that the Israelites took advantage of righteous, needy people for their own personal, material advantage and sold them into slavery, perhaps into debt (cf. 2 Kings 4:1-7). They sold, for the price of what they owed, honest people who would have repaid their debts if given the opportunity. They would even sell into slavery someone who could not pay the small price of a pair of sandals. Another interpretation is that they would take as a bribe as little as what a pair of sandals cost. The Israelites should have been generous and openhanded toward the poor (Deut. 15:7-11). Sin often results in the devaluation of human life.

2:7 Second, the Israelites were perverting the legal system to exploit the poor. The courts were siding with creditors against their debtors; they were "stepping on" the poor. This was as painful and humiliating as having one trample on one's head as it lay in the dust. The oppressors longed to see the poor reduced to extreme anguish. They may have been so greedy that they craved even the dust that the poor threw on their heads in mourning. The Mosaic Covenant called for justice in Israel's courts (Exod. 23:4; Deut. 16:19).

Third, fathers and sons were having sexual intercourse with the same woman. The women in view may be temple prostitutes, servant girls taken as concubines, or female relatives (cf. Exod. 21:7-11; Lev. 18:8, 15). This showed contempt for Yahweh's holy character (cf. Exod. 3:13-15). The Law forbade fornication, including incest (Lev. 18:6-18; 20:11, 17-21).

2:8 Fourth, the Israelites failed to return garments taken as collateral for debts owed them. The Law specified that the Israelites could take a garment as a pledge, except the garment of a widow (Deut. 24:17), but they were to return it to the owner before nightfall (Exod. 22:26-27; Deut. 24:10-13; cf. Deut. 24:6; Job 22:6). The Israelites were even taking these garments with them and displaying them at the public feasts honoring whatever god they worshipped.

Fifth, the Israelites had worshipped other gods (cf. v. 4). They were using the wine that they had received as fines, or had extracted from the poor, to honor heathen gods. The proper course of action would have been to drink wine that the worshipper had paid for himself or present it in worship of the true God.

Constable: Amo 2:9-12

God's past grace 2:9-12

In this section Amos reminded the Israelites of Yahweh's past blessings on them. This made the heinousness of their sins even clearer. Israel's treatment of the poor had been destructive, but Yahweh's treatment of the poor Israelites had been constructive. The other nations that God pronounced judgment against in the previous oracles had not enjoyed these special blessings.

2:9 The Israelites had committed the previous breaches of covenant in spite of God's having driven the giant Amorites out of the Promised Land for them (cf. Num. 13:22-33). These enemies had been as strong and tall as cedar or oak trees (cf. Num. 13:28-33; Deut. 1:26-28), but the Lord destroyed them completely, from fruit above to root below.

"Destruction of his fruit' left no possibility of future life from seed. Destruction of roots' left no possibility of future life from the tree. God is able to deal decisively with the enemies of his people."³¹

Here the Amorites, the most formidable of the Canaanites, represent all the Canaanites, by metonymy (cf. Gen. 15:16). The defeat of these giants demonstrated Yahweh's superior power as well as His love for His people. By implication, if God drove the Amorites out of the land, He might also drive the Israelites out.

2:10 Going back even further in their history, Yahweh reminded His people that He had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and had led them safely through the wilderness for 40 years. He had preserved them so they could take possession of the Promised Land, the land of the Amorites. By shifting to the second person, Amos strengthened the force of God's appeal.

2:11 In the land, God had raised up prophets and godly Nazirites from among the Israelites' sons. Prophets relayed God's messages to them, and Nazirites were examples of ordinary citizens who dedicated themselves completely to the Lord. These individuals were blessings to the nation because by their words and deeds they encouraged the people to follow the Lord faithfully. Yahweh asked rhetorically if this was not indeed what He had done.

The order of these blessings is not chronological. Evidently Amos arranged them in this order to highlight the Exodus, the central of the three blessings mentioned and the single most important event in Israel's history.

Constable: Amo 2:12

Israel's response to God's grace 2:12

Even though God gave His people prophets and Nazirites, the Israelites had encouraged the Nazirites to compromise their dedication to Yahweh and the prophets to stop prophesying. These were the sixth and seventh sins of the Israelites that Amos enumerated. The people were uncommitted to God and unwilling to hear and obey His Word.

Constable: Amo 2:13-16

Israel's consequent punishment 2:13-16

In the previous oracles, Amos consistently likened God's judgment to fire (1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5). In this one he did not use that figure but described the judgment coming on Israel with other images, especially images of panic in battle.

2:13 The Lord said He felt burdened by the sinfulness of His people, as heavy as a wagon filled to its capacity with grain.³² Another interpretation understands Amos picturing Israel being crushed like an object under the wheels of a heavily laden cart.³³

2:14-16 Running fast would not provide escape from His coming judgment, resisting would not enable the Israelites to withstand it, and outstanding leaders could not deliver them from it. Archers opposing God would not be able to prevent His advancing against them, quick runners would not be able to flee, and riding a horse could not remove them from the scene of judgment. When Yahweh would judge the Israelites even the bravest among them would prove fearful and ashamed. This sevenfold description of Israel's panic balances the earlier sevenfold description of Israel's sin.

The fulfillment of this threatened judgment came when the Assyrians besieged and destroyed Samaria, Israel's capital, in 722 B.C. and carried many of the people of that land into captivity.

These oracles teach the modern reader that God is sovereign over all nations and holds them accountable for their conduct toward other human beings and for their response to special revelation (cf. Gen. 9:5-6). They also teach that God is patient with sinners and will only punish when the measure of human sin has overflowed His predetermined capacity. They also teach that God is impartial in His judgment; He will punish sin in His own people as well as sin in those with whom He has established no special relationship.

Guzik: Amo 2:1-16

Amos 2 - Judgment on God's People

A. Judgment on Moab and Judah.

1. (1-3) The word of the LORD against Moab.

Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime. But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting and trumpet sound. And I will cut off the judge from its midst, and slay all its princes with him," says the LORD.

a. Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime: Moab was a southern neighbor to Judah, and the last of the six judgments Amos pronounces against the Gentile nations in this section. God promises judgment against Moab because of their cruelty to Edom and her king.

i. We could say that Moab sinned against the past by desecrating the remains of an Edomite hero.

2. (4-5) The word of the LORD against Judah.

Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept His commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies which their fathers followed. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem."

a. For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment: It hurts to see the same judgment formula applied against Judah - the people of God - as was applied against the previous six Gentile nations. It shows that Judah piled "sin upon sin upon sin" just like the other nations.

i. We find it easy - and comfortable - to expose and rebuke the sins of those who aren't the followers of God. That is what Amos did with the first six pronouncements of judgment, but just as Amos went on to look at sin among God's people, we should do the same.

b. Because they have despised the law of the LORD: Judah's sin was that they despised and disobeyed the law of the LORD. This is a higher accountability than God required of any of the six Gentile nations previously mentioned in Amos. God blessed His people with His law and commandments, but He expected them to honor and obey His word.

c. Their lies lead them astray: Since the word of God brings us truth, when we despise and disobey God's word we naturally embrace and follow lies. You can't reject the truth without grabbing hold of a lie.

d. I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem: Because Judah sinned like the other nations, they will be judged as the other nations, with fire against them and their palaces (Amos 1:4, 1:7, 1:10, 1:12, 1:14, 2:2).

i. The repeated use of fire to express judgment is continued in the New Testament. Without doubt, Amos meant material fire coming against material walls and palaces, but the Bible also uses fire in a spiritual way, to describe the purifying work of God in the believer. The Bible says that God will test the works of each believer with fire, to burn away what is unworthy (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). The Bible says believers will be tested by fire (1 Peter 1:6-7).

ii. When we think of God's purifying fire, we should think the way Peter expressed in 1 Peter 4:17: For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. We should invite God to burn down whatever "walls" or "palaces" we build against Him, so His work can continue in us and through us without hindrance.

B. Judgment on Israel.

1. (6-8) The sins of Israel.

Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals. They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, and pervert the way of the humble. A man and his father go in to the same girl, to defile My holy name. They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge, and drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god."

a. For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment: The pattern continues. Israel has piled sin upon sin upon sin, just as the previous seven nations.

b. Because they sell the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals: Amos saw the injustice of rich against the poor, and how the rich took cruel advantage against the poor.

c. A man and his father go in to the same girl: Amos saw the sexual immorality and perversion of his day, and how standards once accepted were now disregarded.

i. This probably speaks of father and son using the same ritual, idolatrous prostitute. "They were licentious to the uttermost abomination; for in their idol feasts, where young women prostituted themselves publicly in honor of Astarte, the father and son entered into impure connections with the same female."

d. They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge: Amos saw the idolatry of his day, and how people worshipped idols even as they cruelly oppressed the poor. Exodus 22:26-27 commanded, If you ever take your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious. The prophecy of Amos shows that God has heard the cry of the oppressed in Israel and will bring judgment against Israel.

e. In combination, the whole picture is almost overwhelming. Amos pictures a man committing sexual immorality with a temple prostitute - the same girl his son visited the day before - keeping warm with a garment extorted from the poor, toasting his success with wine bought with money dishonestly gained.

2. (9-12) The goodness of God to Israel and how they despised it.

"Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is it not so, O you children of Israel?" says the LORD. "But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets saying, 'Do not prophesy!'"

a. It was I who destroyed the Amorite before them: God reminds Israel of His past power and faithfulness to them. When they first came into the Promised Land, they were afraid of the mighty nations like the Amorites. Yet God conquered them. How could they reject and despise a God who has done so much for them?

i. This principle - a walk with God based in gratitude for what He did for us - is important for the Christian, and shows why the believer must continually hear the message of the cross. We must live our lives in proper gratitude for what the LORD has done for us.

b. I raised up some of your sons as prophets: God reminds Israel of the great privilege they had in working together with God. Gratitude for this great honor should have kept them humble and obedient before the LORD, but they rejected and despised Him (commanded the prophets saying, "Do not prophesy!").

c. And some of your young men as Nazirites: The vow of a Nazirite was a special vow of dedication unto the LORD, and God gave the gift of this deeper opportunity to Israel. Instead of receiving this honor with gratitude and humility, the rejected and despised the LORD (you gave the Nazirites wine to drink).

i. The vow of the Nazirite is described in Numbers 6 and was used to express a special desire to draw close to God and to separate from the comforts and pleasures of this world. Under the Nazirite vow a man would eat or drink nothing from the grape vine, would not cut his hair, and would not go near any dead carcass.

3. (13-16) Judgment to come upon Israel.

"Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. Therefore flight shall perish from the swift, the strong shall not strengthen his power, nor shall the mighty deliver himself; he shall not stand who handles the bow, the swift of foot shall not escape, nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself. The most courageous men of might shall flee naked in that day," says the LORD.

a. I am weighed down by you: God regarded the people of Israel as a weary burden, not as a joy. It is the difference between the pleasure a parent feels in dealing with a obedient child and the drudgery a parent feels in dealing with a stubborn, rebellious child.

i. Any time justice is perverted - any time the rich receive preferential treatment, or the poor are oppressed - it burdens the God who sees from heaven and He promises to set it right.

ii. Any time people cheat and manipulate and make money off of others in questionable ways - even if it is legal - it burdens the God who sees from heaven and He promises to set it right.

iii. Any time people unfairly profit at the expense of the unfortunate, it burdens the God who sees from heaven and He promises to set it right.

iv. "Now, it is to be understood, dear friends, before we proceed farther, that our text is but a figure, since God is not to be oppressed by man; all the sin that man can commit can never disturb the serenity of his perfections, nor cause so much as a wave upon the sea of his everlasting calm. He doth but speak to us after the manner of man . . . so the Lord says that under the load of human guilt he is pressed down, until he crieth out, because he can bear no longer the iniquity of those that offend against him." (Spurgeon)

b. Flight shall perish from the swift, the strong shall not strengthen his power: One way the judgment of God would express itself against Israel was that they would find themselves unable to succeed in ways they previously thought they were strong. Without the blessing of God, the swift isn't fast enough, the strong isn't strong enough, and the mighty isn't mighty enough to succeed. Israel was far too confident in their own ability, but God would bring them low.

i. We can escape this judgment by realizing now that even our strength is nothing without the Lord. Paul communicated this idea in 1 Corinthians 10:12: Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We can become more vulnerable in our perceived strengths than in our acknowledged weaknesses.

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Amos (Book Introduction)

AMOS (meaning in Hebrew "a burden") was (Amo 1:1) a shepherd of Tekoa, a small town of Judah, six miles southeast from Beth-lehem, and twelve from Jerusalem, on the borders of the great desert (2Ch 20:20; compare 2Ch 11:6). The region being sandy was more fit for pastoral than for agricultural purposes. Amos therefore owned and tended flocks, and collected sycamore figs; not that the former was a menial office, kings themselves, as Mesha of Moab (2Ki 3:4), exercising it. Amos, however (from Amo 7:14-15), seems to have been of humble rank.

Though belonging to Judah, he was commissioned by God to exercise his prophetical function in Israel; as the latter kingdom abounded in impostors, and the prophets of God generally fled to Judah through fear of the kings of Israel, a true prophet from Judah was the more needed in it. His name is not to be confounded with that of Isaiah's father, Amoz.

The time of his prophesying was in the reigns of Uzziah king of Judea, and Jeroboam II, son of Joash, king of Israel (Amo 1:1), that is, in part of the time in which the two kings were contemporary; probably in Jeroboam's latter years, after that monarch had recovered from Syria "the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain" (2Ki 14:25-27); for Amos foretells that these same coasts, "from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness," should be the scene of Israel's being afflicted (Amo 6:14); also his references to the state of luxurious security then existing (Amo 6:1, Amo 6:4, Amo 6:13), and to the speedy termination of it by the Assyrian foe (Amo 1:5; Amo 3:12, Amo 3:15; Amo 5:27; Amo 8:2), point to the latter part of Jeroboam's reign, which terminated in 784 B.C., the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah's reign, which continued down to 759 B.C. He was contemporary with Hosea, only that the latter continued to prophesy in reigns subsequent to Uzziah (Hos 1:1); whereas Amos ceased to prophesy in the reign of that monarch. The scene of his ministry was Beth-el, where the idol calves were set up (Amo 7:10-13). There his prophecies roused Amaziah, the idol priest, to accuse him of conspiracy and to try to drive him back to Judah.

The first six chapters are without figure; the last three symbolical, but with the explanation subjoined. He first denounces the neighboring peoples, then the Jews, then Israel (from the third chapter to the end), closing with the promise or restoration under Messiah (Amo 9:11-15). His style is thought by JEROME to betray his humble origin; but though not sublime, it is regular, perspicuous, and energetic; his images are taken from the scenes in nature with which he was familiar; his rhythms are flowing, his parallelisms exact, and his descriptions minute and graphic. Some peculiar expressions occur: "cleanness of teeth," that is, want of bread (Amo 4:6); "the excellency of Jacob" (Amo 6:8; Amo 8:7); "the high places of Isaac" (Amo 7:9); "the house of Isaac" (Amo 7:16); "he that createth the wind" (Amo 4:13).

HENGSTENBERG draws an able argument for the genuineness of the Mosaic records from the evidence in Amos, that the existing institutions in Israel as well as Judah (excepting the calves of Jeroboam), were framed according to the Pentateuch rules.

Two quotations from Amos occur in the New Testament (compare Act 7:42-43, with Amo 5:25-26; and Act 15:16-17, with Amo 9:11).

PHILO, JOSEPHUS, MELITO'S catalogue, JEROME, JUSTIN MARTYR (Dialogue with Trypho, 22, quoting the fifth and six chapters of Amos as "one of the twelve minor prophets"), and the sixtieth canon of the Laodicean council support the canonicity of the book of Amos.

JFB: Amos (Outline)

• GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON SYRIA, PHILISTIA, TYRE, EDOM, AND AMMON. (Amo 1:1-15)
• CHARGES AGAINST MOAB, JUDAH, AND LASTLY ISRAEL, THE CHIEF SUBJECT OF AMOS' PROPHECIES. (Amos 2:1-16)
• GOD'S EXTRAORDINARY LOVE, BEING REPAID BY ISRAEL WITH INGRATITUDE, OF NECESSITY CALLS FOR JUDGMENTS, WHICH THE PROPHETS ANNOUNCE, NOT AT RANDOM, BUT BY GOD'S COMMISSION, WHICH THEY CANNOT BUT FULFIL. THE OPPRESSION PREVALENT IN ISRAEL WILL BRING DOWN RUIN ON ALL SAVE A SMALL REMNANT. (Amo 3:1-15)
• DENUNCIATION OF ISRAEL'S NOBLES FOR OPPRESSION; AND OF THE WHOLE NATION FOR IDOLATRY; AND FOR THEIR BEING UNREFORMED EVEN BY GOD'S JUDGMENTS: THEREFORE THEY MUST PREPARE FOR THE LAST AND WORST JUDGMENT OF ALL. (Amo 4:1-13)
• ELEGY OVER THE PROSTRATE KINGDOM: RENEWED EXHORTATIONS TO REPENTANCE: GOD DECLARES THAT THE COMING DAY OF JUDGMENT SHALL BE TERRIBLE TO THE SCORNERS WHO DESPISE IT: CEREMONIAL SERVICES ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE TO HIM WHERE TRUE PIETY EXISTS NOT: ISRAEL SHALL THEREFORE BE REMOVED FAR EASTWARD. (Amos 5:1-27)
• DENUNCIATION OF BOTH THE SISTER NATIONS (ESPECIALLY THEIR NOBLES) FOR WANTON SECURITY--ZION, AS WELL AS SAMARIA: THREAT OF THE EXILE: RUIN OF THEIR PALACES AND SLAUGHTER OF THE PEOPLE: THEIR PERVERSE INJUSTICE. (Amo 6:1-14)
• AMAZIAH'S CHARGE AGAINST AMOS: HIS DOOM FORETOLD. (Amo 7:10-17)
• VISION OF A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT SYMBOLICAL OF ISRAEL'S END. RESUMING THE SERIES OF SYMBOLS INTERRUPTED BY AMAZIAH, AMOS ADDS A FOURTH. THE AVARICE OF THE OPPRESSORS OF THE POOR: THE OVERTHROW OF THE NATION: THE WISH FOR THE MEANS OF RELIGIOUS COUNSEL, WHEN THERE SHALL BE A FAMINE OF THE WORD. (Amo 8:1-14)
• FIFTH AND LAST VISION. (Amo 9:1-15) None can escape the coming judgment in any hiding-place: for God is omnipresent and irresistible (Amo 9:1-6). As a kingdom, Israel shall perish as if it never was in covenant with Him: but as individuals the house of Jacob shall not utterly perish, nay, not one of the least of the righteous shall fall, but only all the sinners (Amo 9:7-10). Restoration of the Jews finally to their own land after the re-establishment of the fallen tabernacle of David; consequent conversion of all the heathen (Amo 9:11-15).

TSK: Amos 2 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Amo 2:1, God’s judgments upon Moab, Amo 2:4, upon Judah, Amo 2:6, and upon Israel; Amo 2:9, God complains of their ingratitude.

Poole: Amos (Book Introduction)

THE ARGUMENT

IF we might be allowed to make a conjecture at the quality of our prophet’ s sermons by the signification of his name, we must conclude that they contain heavy tidings and grievous judgments coming upon them to whom he is sent to preach; Amos in the Hebrew coming from a word which signifies to burden, to lay a weight or load on one. But we have a surer rule to judge the contents of his prophecy by. He is by some ancient writers, erring in this point, said to be the father of Isaiah; but besides that Isaiah was contemporary with Amos, which fairly argues it unlikely that Isaiah should be Amos’ s son, Amoz the father of Isaiah is quite another name, different from Amos, both in letters wherewith each is spelt, and in signification also. And if Isaiah were of the royal line, (as some say he was,) nephew to either Amaziah or Uzziah by a brother, it cannot be conceived how Amos, a plain herdsman of Tekoa, should be his father. It is certain he was either by birth, or education, or employment, or in all these respects, of the tribe of Judah, and as certain that by an immediate call from God he was taken off the herdsman’ s work and made a prophet, Amo 7:14,15 . He did in deed, as he professed in word, come from the Lord, and in his name delivered his message to all those whom God sent him unto. And pursuant hereto he preacheth first against those nations who were borderers, and had been bitter, oppressive, and old adversaries to Israel and Judah, Amo 1:3 , to the end, and Amo 2:1-3 . By this express course, declaring future just executions upon Syria, Palestine, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab, the prophet doth much prevent the prejudices which Israel and Judah might have had against his person and doctrine. Now he may more freely and plainly reprove and threaten the sins of God’ s own people, since he hath so plainly reproved and threatened their enemies; and they who easily believed him a prophet in his predictions against foreigners, must in reason as easily believe him a prophet in his reproofs and predictions against themselves. He doth bestow the far greater part of his discourses on Israel, or the kingdom of the ten tribes, to whom he was principally sent; yet he doth prophesy against Judah also; and to both he is very sharp in his reproofs, impartial in his censures, earnest in his persuasions to repent, very full in his encouragements to this duty, and demonstratively evident in his charging sin upon them. He had Isaiah, Joel, and Hosea contemporary with him, though it appear not how long.

He is in many places sententious and concise, which makes the passages the more obscure. Though he do bring with him many things from his country employment in his reproofs, allusions, and arguments, yet fitted with admirable skill, and beautified with an unimitable eloquence, and fortified with that loftiness of style that proclaims itself to be from Him who gave man both judgment, fancy, and tongue, which is an intrinsic character of divinity in our prophet’ s writing. He was a person of most undaunted resolution, of a prudent conduct, and of spotless integrity, as appears by the contest he had with Amaziah chief of the priests of Beth-el, Amo 7:10 , &c.

He lived when Judah’ s affairs were tolerably well and prosperous, but when Israel’ s were in the highest meridian, when they thought themselves secure against all the dangers he foretold: Uzziah had pretty well recovered Judah, and settled it; Jeroboam had highly advanced Israel’ s fame, riches; and power. With their growth in these, sin grew as fast and as exorbitant, and called for judgments, which our prophet foretells very plainly in express words, Amo 7:11,17 , and in very significant hieroglyphics, Am 7 Am 8 Am 9 . He foretells the earthquake, Amo 1:1 ; an emblem of those civil dissensions which shook their foundations, and half ruined them before the Assyrian conquered and captivated them. Which miseries lasted through an interregnum of eleven years, say some; to be sure through the reign of Zachariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea, in whose time all these miseries were swallowed up in a greater, their perpetual captivity, which came upon them about fifty-four or sixty-five years after the death of Jeroboam the Second, near to whose court and within their hearing Amos preached many, perhaps most of his sermons; and therefore you may observe his reproofs, threats, and predictions seem to be calculated for that court, which was highly guilty of the sins he reproved, and were called to repent of them, which because they did not, they did deeply suffer both in the civil wars under those four usurpers and conspirators, Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea, and most deeply in the Assyrian captivity. In the annotations you will find there is some reference to those times, with somewhat more particular application of the prophetic text to the circumstances of times he aimed at, than hath been by any learned pen I have happened to peruse; and would the brevity to which these annotations are bound have borne a larger account of those times, and a fuller accommodation of them to the prophetic discourses, I do not doubt but the truth of the prophet’ s charge, reproof, threats, and predictions against Israel would appear to every reader. Lastly, our prophet, as others, closeth the sad tragedy of this fleshly, sinning Israel with promise of a spiritual state under the Messiah, full of grace and peace.

Poole: Amos 2 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 2

God’ s judgments upon Moab, Amo 2:1-3 upon Judah, Amo 2:4,5 , and upon Israel, Amo 2:6-8 . God complaineth of Israel’ s ingratitude for past kindnesses, and threateneth them for it, Amo 2:9-16 .

MHCC: Amos (Book Introduction)

Amos was a herdsman, and engaged in agriculture. But the same Divine Spirit influenced Isaiah and Daniel in the court, and Amos in the sheep-folds, giving to each the powers and eloquence needful for them. He assures the twelve tribes of the destruction of the neighbouring nations; and as they at that time gave themselves up to wickedness and idolatry, he reproves the Jewish nation with severity; but describes the restoration of the church by the Messiah, extending to the latter days.

MHCC: Amos 2 (Chapter Introduction)

(Amo 2:1-8) Judgments against Moab and Judah.

(Amo 2:9-16) The ingratitude and ruin of Israel.

Matthew Henry: Amos (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Prophecy of Amos

Though this prophet appeared a little before Isaiah, yet he was not, as some have mistaken, that Amos who was the father of Isaiah (Isa 1:1), for in the Hebrew their names are very different; their families too were of a different character, for Isaiah was a courtier, Amos a country-farmer. Amos signifies a burden, whence the Jews have a tradition that he was of a slow tongue and spoke with stammering lips; we may rather, in allusion to his name, say that his speech was weighty and his word the burden of the Lord. He was (as most think) of Judah, yet prophesied chiefly against Israel, and at Bethel, Amo 7:13. Some think his style savours of his extraction, and is more plain and rustic than that of some other of the prophets; I do not see it so; but it is plain that his matter agreed with that of his contemporary Hosea, that out of the mouth of these two witnesses the word might be established. It appears by his contest with Amaziah the priest of Bethel that he met with opposition in his work, but was a man of undaunted resolution in it, faithful and bold in reproving sin and denouncing the judgments of God for it, and pressing in his exhortations to repentance and reformation. He begins with threatenings against the neighbouring nations that were enemies to Israel, Amo 1:1-15 and 2. He then calls Israel to account, and judges them for their idolatry, their unworthy walking under the favours God had bestowed upon them, and their incorrigibleness under his judgments, Amo 3:1-15 and Amo 4:1-13. He calls them to repentance (ch. 5), rejecting their hypocritical sacrifices unless they did repent. He foretels the desolations that were coming upon them notwithstanding their security (Amo 6:1-14), some particular judgments (ch. 7), particularly on Amaziah; and, after other reproofs and threatenings (Amo 8:1-14 and Amo 9:1-15), concludes with a promise of the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom and the happiness of God's spiritual Israel therein, just as the prophecy of Joel concluded. These prophets, having opened the wound in their reproofs and threatenings, which show all wrong, in the promises of gospel-grace open the remedy, which alone will set all to rights.

Matthew Henry: Amos 2 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter, I. God, by the prophet, proceeds in a like controversy with Moab as before with other nations (Amo 2:1-3). II. He shows what quarrel he had with Judah (Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5). III. He at length begins his charge against Israel, to which all that goes before is but an introduction. Observe, 1. The sins they are charged with - injustice, oppression, whoredom (Amo 2:6-8). 2. The aggravations of those sins - the temporal and spiritual mercies God had bestowed upon them, for which they had made him such ungrateful returns (Amo 2:9-12). 3. God's complaint of them for their sins (Amo 2:13) and his threatenings of their ruin, and their utter inability to prevent it (Amo 2:14-16).

Constable: Amos (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The title of the book comes from its writer. The prophet's name means "burden-bearer" or "load-carrier."

Amos was a sheepherder (Heb. noqed; cf. 2 Kings 3:4) or sheep breeder, and he described himself as a herdsman (Heb. boqer; 7:14). He was more than a shepherd (Heb. ro'ah). He evidently owned or managed large herds of sheep and or goats and was probably in charge of shepherds. Amos also described himself as a grower of sycamore figs (7:14). Sycamore fig trees are not true fig trees but are a variety of the mulberry family, which produces fig-like fruit. Each fruit had to be scratched or pierced to let the juice flow out so the "fig" could ripen. These trees grew in the tropical Jordan Valley and around the Dead Sea to a height of 25 to 50 feet and bore fruit three or four times a year. They did not grow as well in the higher elevations such as Tekoa, Amos' hometown, so the prophet appears to have farmed at a distance from his home as well as ranching. Tekoa stood 10 miles south of Jerusalem in Judah. Thus Amos seems to have been a prosperous and influential Judahite, but there is no indication that he was a priest or had any connection with the royal family or the ruling classes in his land. Amos' natural surroundings had a profound effect on him and his writing (cf. 1:2; 2:9; 3:4-5; 5:19-20, 24; 6:12; 7:1-6; 8:1; 9:3-15).

Date

Amos ministered during the reigns of King Jeroboam II of Israel (793-753 B.C.) and King Uzziah (Azariah) of Judah (792-740 B.C.), specifically two years before "the earthquake" (1:1). Zechariah also referred to a notable earthquake during the reign of Uzziah (Zech. 14:5). Josephus wrote that an earthquake occurred when Uzziah entered the temple and was struck with leprosy (2 Chron. 26:16-20).¹ Archaeological excavations at Hazor and Samaria point to evidence of a violent earthquake in Israel about 760 B.C.² So perhaps Amos ministered about 760 B.C. This date may account for the omission of the name of King Jotham who ruled as coregent with Uzziah from 750-740 B.C. Thus Amos was a contemporary of the other eighth-century prophets: Hosea, Jonah, Micah, and Isaiah.

Place of Composition

Since Amos lived in the Judean town of Tekoa, he was a prophet from the Southern Kingdom.

Audience and Purpose

Amos prophesied against the Northern Kingdom of Israel (1:1). Yahweh raised him up to announce judgment on Israel because of her covenant unfaithfulness and rebellion against His authority. Amos announced the destruction of the Northern Kingdom, but he also predicted that the Lord would preserve a remnant that was repentant. He would restore this remnant to political prominence and covenant blessing and, through them, draw all nations to Himself. Amos announced a warning to the residents of the Northern Kingdom, but he also held out hope.

Historical Background

These were times of political stability, material prosperity, and geographical expansion for both the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms (cf. 1:6; 6:2, 13; 2 Kings 14:23-29; 2 Chron. 26:1-15). Jeroboam II and Uzziah were two of the most competent and effective kings that their respective kingdoms enjoyed. They brought their nations to heights of success second only to those in Solomon's golden age.³ The Northern Kingdom was at the height of its power during Jeroboam II's reign. Aramea had not recovered from its defeat by Adad-Nirari III of Assyria in 802 B.C., and Assyria had not yet developed into the superpower that it became under Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 B.C.).

"Commerce thrived (8:5), an upper class emerged (4:1-3), and expensive homes were built (3:15; 5:11; 6:4, 11). The rich enjoyed an indolent, indulgent lifestyle (6:1-6), while the poor became targets for legal and economic exploitation (2:6-7; 5:7, 10-13; 6:12; 8:4-6). Slavery for debt was easily accepted (2:6; 8:6). Standards of morality had sunk to a low ebb (2:7)."⁴

Religion flourished too. The Hebrews participated in the yearly festivals (4:4; 5:5; 8:3, 10) and offered their sacrifices enthusiastically (4:5; 5:21-23). They believed God was with them and considered themselves immune to disaster (5:14, 18-20; 6:1-3; 9:10). Yet they worshipped the native Canaanite deities along with Yahweh.

Unity

Almost all scholars agree that the Book of Amos was originally a single book that the prophet Amos wrote. Comparison with the writings of the other eighth-century prophets and the consistently vivid and forthright style of Amos make this conclusion virtually inescapable.⁵

Theology

Amos stressed the sovereignty of Yahweh over history. He controls the movements of peoples (9:7) and the order of nature (4:13; 5:8). The prophet also affirmed the ability of people to submit to or reject the Lord's authority. He reminded his hearers of Yahweh's election of Israel (3:2) but repudiated the popular idea of his day that God would not punish His people.

"Amos, more than any other prophet, urged the responsibility of elective privilege."⁶

Like many of the other prophets, Amos spoke of the day of the Lord. He saw it as a time when God would judge sin, even in His own people (5:18-20). Another day would come, however, when David's kingdom would be restored and would include both Jews and Gentiles (9:13-15).⁷

Message⁸

The Book of Amos is distinctive from the other prophetic books of the Old Testament in two respects.

First, the prophet Amos was not a prophet in the same sense that the other prophets were prophets. He was not recognized as a prophet among his contemporaries. He had not been to one of the schools of the prophets. He had not been discipled by another recognized prophet. He was what we would call today a "layman" and an untrained layman at that.

Second, the prophecy of Amos is not a prophecy in the same sense that the other prophetic books were prophecies. Amos' perspective was wider than most of the other prophets. One evidence of this is that he did not refer to God as the God of Israel, as the other prophets did. Instead he thought of Him and referred to Him as the God of the whole earth. Moreover, Amos grouped Judah and Israel with Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. He saw Yahweh as sovereign over all these city-states and nations, not just over Judah and Israel primarily. Whereas Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel all recorded messages of judgment against foreign nations, they focused on Judah and Israel particularly in their books. Amos viewed Judah and Israel as two among many nations that God would judge for the same sins.

In Amos we see God as detached from the prophetic order and from every nation yet directing through a man uniquely chosen as His prophet and directing over the affairs of all nations.

There are at least three permanent values of the Book of Amos. It reveals the philosophy, the practice, and the promise of divine government.

Amos gives us the philosophy of the divine government in the comprehensiveness of its outlook. The prophet did not argue for God's universal sovereignty nor did he even affirm it. He assumed it and applied it. In particular, he explained the standard by which God exercises His universal sovereignty, the principle by which He rules, and the patience that marks His governing.

The standard by which God measures nations is their treatment of other nations. God would judge the Arameans because they were cruel to their neighbors. He would judge the Philistines because they bought and sold other human beings. The Phoenicians traded in human lives in spite of a covenant in which they pledged to do otherwise. The Edomites were unforgiving and took revenge. The Ammonites were cruel. The Moabites were violent and vindictive. The Judahites had despised the Lord's word regarding what their treatment of others should be. And the Israelites had oppressed the poor and needy even within their own borders. These are all expressions of violations of human rights.

The principle that lies behind this standard is that privilege brings responsibility. God's harshest judgment fell on His own people who had the most light. The pagan nations were guilty of violating human rights too, but their punishment would be less because they did not have the privilege of having God's revealed will as the Israelites did. We see the same principle in operation in Romans 1-3. All people are under divine wrath because everyone has failed to respond positively to the light we have. But those who have more light fall under severer judgment because they sin with a greater knowledge of God's will. Similarly, national privilege determines national responsibility.

The patience that marks God's sovereign governing of the world comes out clearly in Amos too. The phrase "for three transgressions, yes, for four" reminds us that God does not judge nations for only one transgression. Every transgression will receive punishment from God, but judgment does not fall immediately. God could have judged these nations much sooner than He did, but He was patient and waited until they had sinned repeatedly. In Genesis we read that "the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete" (Gen. 15:16). God waited to judge all these nations until they had amassed so much sin that He could wait no longer to judge them. Fortunately, God deals with us the same way, or we all would have died long ago.

If cruelty to other nations makes God angry, it is because His heart is set upon kindness. If oppression stirs up His wrath, it is because He desires people to live in peace. If violations of human rights call down His judgment, it is because He longs that people experience happiness and well-being. His sovereign government always moves toward the best conditions for humanity. He resists what mars those conditions. Amos closes with a picture of the world order that God desires and will bring to pass eventually.

The second permanent value of this book is its presentation of Israel as a case study of Yahweh's government. No nation had so much light as Israel or a closer relationship to God than Israel did (3:1-2, 7). But in Israel privilege had borne the fruit of sin and would end with judgment.

When God wanted to convict His people of their sins, he described the luxury and wantonness of Israel's women (4:1). John Ruskin, the English poet, claimed that war would cease when enough pure women demanded it. Amos pictured the depravity of the Israelites by describing the evil women of the nation promoting it. He also described it this way: 4:4. The Israelites were going to places of worship to engage in sinful rituals, not to worship. A modern equivalent would be, "Let's go to church to meet someone of the opposite sex that we can sin with."

Israel had sinned in failing to yield to Yahweh's chastisement (4:6, 8, 9, 10, 11). None of God's judgments on His people had moved them to repent. The Israelites who longed to see "the day of the Lord" failed to realize that it would be a day of judgment for them (5:18-20). Those of them who never gave "the day of the Lord" a thought and were at ease in Zion needed to realize that this day was coming.

The terrible descriptions of Israel's sins in this book appear all the worse because of Israel's privileged position. These were His chosen people. He did nothing without revealing it to them through His servants the prophets. Yet the Israelites were guilty of the sins of wanton womanhood, of refusal to submit to discipline, of professing a desire for God to act, and of indifference to the fact that He would act in judgment.

In five visions Amos pronounced judgment that would fall on the Israelites. These were the visions of the locusts, the fire, the plumb line, the basket of summer fruit, and the coming of Yahweh by way of the altar of judgment. In all of them Amos pictured divine judgment determined, temporarily restrained, and finally executed. These prophecies of coming judgment must have sounded strange to the Israelites who were then living lives of ease and material prosperity. After all, had not God said He would bless the godly with prosperity? How could Amos then say that the Israelites were such great sinners? Furthermore, Amos was a nobody in society, a despised shepherd, a rural dolt.

Because Israel's light had been clear, her judgment would be pervasive. She had failed to take advantage of her privileges and had lived selfishly. Consequently her ruin would be complete.

The third permanent value of this book is the promise of ultimate restoration that it contains at the very end. This restoration would come in three stages. First, there would be preliminary restoration. God would restore the Davidic dynasty to power (9:11). Then progressive restoration of the nation would follow (9:12-14). Finally, there would be permanent restoration (9:15).

Amos, then, reveals the sovereign government of the God of all the earth. We discover His philosophy of government, we see a case study of His government, and we learn of the outcome of His government in this book.

The message of Amos is that God blesses people so they can be channels of blessing to others, not so they may simply squander His blessings selfishly.

This message is applicable mainly to national life because national life is the primary focus of the revelation in Amos.

God still rules over all nations, not just His chosen people. He still opposes nations that violate human rights, and He will judge them. The old order may pass away with the turning of the pages of the calendar, but the divine order does not change. God remains the same. God's methods change, His requirements for His people change, His dispensations (household rules) change, but His underlying attitudes toward people do not change. Cruelty is as hateful to God today as it ever has been.

Another major lesson of Amos is that people who have the light of God's truth live with greater responsibility than those who live in darkness. The light exposes our sins, and when we see our sins we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God or we will experience His judgment. Christians have a greater responsibility to judge themselves that we be not judged than the unsaved. And we will be judged, not with separation from God eternally but with separation from much future blessing.

Amos charged Israel with injustice, avarice, oppression, immorality, profanity, blasphemy, and sacrilege: seven deadly sins. These same sins mark believers today. We are in danger of doing what the Israelites in Amos' day of material prosperity did. We can conclude that our prosperity is a reward from God, that He is blessing us for our goodness. All the while we are preparing ourselves for judgment. It is only as we turn from our sins in profound repentance that we can live. Yet if judgment comes, its purpose is not to destroy us but to restore us to Himself.

We must distinguish between secular nations and the church of Jesus Christ. The principles that Amos reveals are applicable to both groups. The nations with greater light have greater responsibility. The church has greater light and has greater responsibility. When nations fail to take advantage of their light they become degraded. When the church fails to take advantage of its light it becomes degraded.

These principles are also applicable to individuals, as I'm sure you have seen by now. God's people are greatly blessed people. Unfortunately many Christians conclude that because there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus there is also no accountability to Christ Jesus. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive payment for what we have done with the light that God has given us. This is an awesome thought that should sober and humble us every day we live. We need to prepare for our "day of the Lord," when we will see our Savior, stand before Him, and give an account of our stewardship to Him. Amos spoke to the Israelites as the people of God. We are the people of God in our day and need to heed his strong words of warning as well.

Constable: Amos (Outline)

Outline

I. Prologue 1:1-2

A. Introduction 1:1

B. Theme 1:2

II. Prophetic messages that Amos delivered 1:3-6:14

A. Oracles against nations 1:3-2:5

1. An oracle against Aram 1:3-5

2. An oracle against Philistia 1:6-8

3. An oracle against Phoenicia 1:9-10

4. An oracle against Edom 1:11-12

5. An oracle against Ammon 1:13-15

6. An oracle against Moab 2:1-3

7. An oracle against Judah 2:4-5

8. An oracle against Israel 2:6-16

B. Messages of judgment against Israel chs. 3-6

1. The first message on sins against God and man ch. 3

2. The second message on women, worship, and stubbornness ch. 4

3. The third message on injustice 5:1-17

4. The fourth message on unacceptable worship 5:18-27

5. The fifth message on complacency and pride ch. 6

III. Visions that Amos saw chs. 7-9

A. Three short visions of impending judgment 7:1-9

1. The swarming locusts 7:1-3

2. The devouring fire 7:4-6

3. The plumb line 7:7-9

B. An intervening incident 7:10-17

1. The challenge 7:10-13

2. The response 7:14-17

C. Two more visions of impending judgment chs. 8-9

1. The basket of summer fruit ch. 8

2. The Lord standing by the altar ch. 9

Constable: Amos

Amos

Bibliography

Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic, 1985.

Andersen, F. I., and D. N. Freedman. Amos. Anchor Bible series. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "Does God Change His Mind'?" Bibliotheca Sacra 152:608 (October-December 1995):387-99.

_____. "A Theology of the Minor Prophets." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 397-433. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Constable, Thomas L. Talking to God: What the Bible Teaches about Prayer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995.

_____. "What Prayer Will and Will Not Change." In Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost. Edited by Stanley D. Toussaint and Charles H. Dyer. Chicago: Moody Press, 1986.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Edited by Michael Avi-Yonah and E. Stern. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978.

Finley, Thomas J. Joel, Amos, Obadiah. The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary series. Chicago: Moody Press, 1990.

Hammershaimb, E. The Book of Amos: A Commentary. Oxford: Blackwell, 1970.

Hayes, J. H. Amos. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988.

Hoffmon, Herbert B. "The Treaty Background of Hebrew Yada'." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 181 (February 1966):31-37.

Hubbard, David A. Joel and Amos. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1989.

Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Whiston. Antiquities of the Jews. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1866.

Kassis, H. "Gath and the Structure of Philistine' Society." Journal of Biblical Literature 84 (1965):259-71.

Limburg, J. "Sevenfold Structures in the Book of Amos." Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987):217-22.

Mays, J. Amos: A Commentary. Old Testament Library series. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969.

McComiskey, Thomas Edward. "Amos." In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985.

Motyer, J. A. The Day of the Lion: The Message of Amos. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1974.

Munro, John "Prayer to a Sovereign God." Interest 56:2 (February 1990):20-21.

Niehaus, Jeff. "Amos." In The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary. 3 vols. Edited by Thomas Edward McComiskey. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992.

Paul, S. Amos. Hermeneia series. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991.

Smith, Billy K., and Frank S. Page. Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. The New American Commentary series. N.c.: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995.

Smith, G. Amos: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1989.

Stuart, Douglas. Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary series. Waco: Word Books, 1987.

Sunukjian, Donald R. "Amos." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1425-52. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Amos (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF AMOS.

INTRODUCTION.

Amos prophesied in Israel about the same time as Osee, and was called from following the cattle to denounce God's judgments to the people of Israel and the neighbouring nations, for their repeated crimes, in which they continued with repentance. (Challoner) --- The kingdom was then almost free from idolatry, except that of the calves, yet dissolute and flourishing under Jeroboam II. The prophet spoke at Bethel, (chap. vii.) till the idolatrous priest, Amasias, forced him to flee to Thecua, four leagues south of Jerusalem, where he continued to prophesy against the various nations of Damascus, Juda, &c., but particularly against Israel, chap. i., &c. How long he continued is uncertain. St. Jerome and others account his style rustic; but St. Augustine (Doct. iv. 7.) as good a judge, pronounces that it was eloquent, and like that of the other inspired writers, suited to the speakers. (Calmet) --- Amos means "one carrying," or "a people torn away." (St. Jerome in Joel.) (Haydock) --- He deals in metaphors agreeably to his pastoral education, but is profound in sense. (St. Jerome, ep. ad Paulin.) --- After denouncing judgments on different nations, he foretells the coming of Christ and abundance of grace. (Worthington)

Gill: Amos (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS

This book in the Hebrew Bibles is called "Sepher Amos", the Book of Amos; and, in the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions, the Prophecy of Amos. This is not the same person with the father of Isaiah, as some have ignorantly confounded them; for their names are wrote with different letters; besides, the father of Isaiah is thought to have been of the royal family, and a courtier; whereas this man was a country farmer and herdsman. His name signifies "burdened": the Jews ^a say he was so called, because burdened in his tongue, or had an impediment in his speech, and stammered; but rather because his prophecies were burdens to the people, such as they could not bear, being full of reproofs and threatenings; however, his prophecy in this respect agrees with his name. What time he lived may be learned from Amo 1:1; by which it appears that he was, contemporary with Isaiah and Hosea; but whether he lived and prophesied so long as they did is not certain. The author of Seder Olam Zuta ^b makes him to prophesy in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. R. Abraham Zacut ^c, and R. David Ganz ^d, place him later than Hosea, and prior to Isaiah; they say that Amos received the law from Hosea, and Isaiah from Amos. Mr. Whiston ^e makes him to begin to prophesy in the year of the world 3231 A.M. or 773 B.C.; and Mr. Bedford ^f earlier, in 802 B.C.; and, from some passages in his prophecy, he appears to be of the land of Judah; see Amo 1:1; though he prophesied in the land of Israel, and against the ten tribes chiefly; the occasion of which was, Jeroboam had been very successful and victorious, and the people under him enjoyed great plenty and prosperity, and upon this grew wanton, luxurious, and very sinful; wherefore this prophet was sent to reprove them for their sins, to exhort them to repentance, and threaten them with captivity, in case of impenitence; and to comfort the truly godly with promises of the Messiah's coming and kingdom. The authenticity of this book is not to be questioned, since many passages out of it were taken by following prophets, as the words in Amo 1:2, by Joel, Joe 3:16, and by Jeremiah, Jer 25:30; Amo 4:9, by Haggai, Hag 2:17; Amo 9:13, by Joel, Joe 3:18; and others are quoted by the writers of the New Testament as divinely inspired, as Amo 5:25, in Act 7:42; nor is there any room to doubt of his being the writer of this book, as is manifest of his speaking of himself as the first person in it; though Hobbes ^g says it does not appear. Some have thought that his language is rustic, suitable to his former character and employment; but certain it is there are masterly strokes and great beauties of eloquence in it; and which shows that it is more than human. According to some writers, he was often beat and buffeted by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel; and at last the son of the priest drove a nail into his temples, upon which he was carried alive into his own country, and there died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his ancestors at Tekoa ^h.

Gill: Amos 2 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 2

In this chapter the prophet foretells the calamities that should come upon the Moabites for their transgressions, Amo 2:1; and the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for their iniquities, Amo 2:4; also the judgments of God that should come upon Israel the ten tribes for their sins, which sins are enumerated; their oppression of the poor, their lewdness and idolatry, Amo 2:6; and which are aggravated by the blessings of goodness bestowed upon them, both temporal and spiritual, Amo 2:9; wherefore they are threatened with ruin, which would be inevitable, notwithstanding their swiftness, strength, and courage, and their skill in shooting arrows, and riding horses, Amo 2:13.