3:9 Amos called for announcements to be made to the large buildings (i.e., to the people living in them) of Ashdod in Philistia and to those in Egypt.39Amos may have chosen these nations because they had previously oppressed the Israelites. People who lived in citadels were the wealthy and the leaders of those areas.40They should come and stand on the mountains surrounding Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom. There they would witness great tumults, not the peace and order that should have prevailed, and oppressions within Samaria. The Israelites were assaulting and robbing one another; the rich were taking advantage of the poor.
3:10 Yahweh announced that the Israelites had plundered, looted, and terrorized each other so long that they no longer knew how to do right (Heb. nekohah, straightness). The Israelites were different from their aggressors because they plundered and looted their own fortresses rather than those of a foreign enemy. It was as though the Israelites hoarded up violence and devastation as others, and they, did material wealth. Now the wealthy foreigners, infamous for their own similar sins, would see that the Israelites behaved even worse in their citadels.
