Amos 9:11

This promise I nothing doubt hath a double aspect, both to the return out of captivity, and to the Messiah's kingdom, and each part is to be considered by us: if we would duly explain this and the following verse, let us look first to the letter and historical reference, and next to the mystical and spiritual sense of the words. In that day; a very usual phrase in Scripture, whereby a time fixed and certain, yet unknown to us, is intended in the set time which God hath prefixed. I will raise up; lay the foundation and build up. reduce out of captivity and re-establish in their own land. The tabernacle of David; the house of David, and those that did adhere to David's family, which are here called a tabernacle, partly for that it never did after the captivity rise to a free and independent kingdom, and partly because he would distinguish the Jews from the apostate Israelites, who did wholly forsake David's house. That is fallen; by a revolt of ten tribes in twelve, whereby their state is low, and as fallen to the ground. And close up the breaches, which are in it by that long division, since Jeroboam the First's time, which breaches shall, upon the return out of captivity, be made up by the voluntary union of the remnant of the ten tribes which shall return with the two tribes out of the Babylonish captivity. I will raise up his ruins; disposing the minds of the kings of Persia to advance David's line to the government of the restored captives, and continuing it in the Supreme power till Messiah's coming; and by rebuilding Jerusalem, and the temple, and settling true religion amongst them. And I will build it as in the days of old; much what it was before the sack of the city and temple, and the carrying the people captive. All which, as far as they are temporal concerns, do suppose and did require a sound turning to God; as did the like promises made by other prophets. And how far soever they fell short of these promises, it was through unbelief and other sins, as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi complain in their prophecies. Now as it refers to Messiah's kingdom, it is a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles, as appears Acts 15:16,17; of which no more here, because our work is to give the literal sense of the text: who would see more may consult larger commentators on this place, and on Acts 15:16,17.