Amos 4:11

The earthquake. This, the most terrible visitation, is reserved for the last. The earthquake is not only the most unfamiliar and the most mysterious of all the judgements enumerated; it is also the most sudden and startling, as well as the most formidable: it is as instantaneous in its operation as it is irresistible: the destruction which it works can never be guarded against, and seldom escaped.

as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah See Genesis 19:24-25; Genesis 19:28. The same stereotyped expression recurs Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40, to describe a disaster ending in a state of ruin and barren desolation. The word mahpçkhâh, -overturning," -overthrowing," is always used with reference to the Cities of the Plain, either directly, as here and in the passages quoted, or allusively (Isaiah 1:7): cf. hăphçkhâh, Genesis 19:29. The verb rendered -overthrow" (hâphakh) is cognate: see Genesis 19:21; Genesis 19:25; Genesis 19:29; and cf. Jeremiah 20:16; Lamentations 4:6. The -overthrow" of the Cities of the Plain was due, there is good reason to believe (see Tristram, Land of Israel, pp. 348 ff.; Dawson, Egypt and Syria, pp. 124 ff.), to an eruption of bitumen (which is abundant in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea); but this may well have been accompanied by an earthquake; and in any case the comparison here relates to the destructive effects of the calamity rather than to the particular agency by which it was brought about.

and yei.e. those of you who escaped were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning i.e. as something scorched, charred, and almost consumed: so near were you to complete destruction. For the figure, comp. Zechariah 3:2; for the thought, Isaiah 1:9.

The only earthquake in Palestine, mentioned in the O.T. (1 Kings 19:11 hardly coming into account), is the one in the reign of Uzziah, two years after Amos prophesied (Amos 1:1), which, to judge from the terms in which it is referred to long afterwards in Zechariah 14:5, must have been one of exceptional severity. Dr Pusey, in his Commentary, has collected, with great learning, from Ritter's Erdkunde(chiefly vol. xvii.) and other sources, notices of the principal earthquakes affecting Palestine on record. On the whole, the borders of Palestine, rather than central Palestine, appear to have been the regions mostly affected. "The line chiefly visited by earthquakes was along the coast of the Mediterranean, or parallel to it, chiefly from Tyre to Antioch and Aleppo. Here were the great historical earthquakes, which were the scourges of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Botrys, Tripolis, Laodicea on the sea; which scattered Litho-prosopon, prostrated Baalbek and Hamath, and so often afflicted Antioch and Aleppo, while Damascus was mostly spared. Eastward it may have reached to Safed, Tiberias, and the Hauran," all, especially the Hauran, volcanic regions. Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, 2) mentions an earthquake occurring b.c. 31 in Judaea, in which some 30,000 persons perished under the ruined houses. Ar-Moab was destroyed by an earthquake in the childhood of St Jerome. The terrible earthquake of Jan. 1, 1837, affected not only Palestine, as far south as Hebron, but also many places on the north, from Beirut on the west to Damascus on the east. Robinson (B.R[155] ii. 529 531, cf. 422 f.) cites a graphic account of the havoc wrought by it at Safed, a little N.W. of the Sea of Tiberias. "Up to this moment I had refused to credit the accounts; but one frightful glance convinced me that it was not in the power of language to overstate such a ruin … Safed was, but is not." The town was built around and upon a very steep hill; and hence when the shock came, the houses above were dashed down upon those below, causing an almost unprecedented destruction of life. "As far as the eye can reach, nothing was to be seen but one vast chaos of stones and earth, timber and boards, tables, chairs, &c. On all faces despair and dismay were painted; in numerous families, single members alone survived, in many cases mortally wounded. Eighteen days afterwards the earth continued to tremble and shake; and when a shock came more violent than the others, the people rushed out from the ruins in dismay, many began to pray with loud and lamentable cries, and females beat their bare breasts with all their strength, and tore their garments in despair."

[155] .R.… Edw. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine(ed. 2, 1856).