Amos 6:13

Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought Lit. in a no-thing, a non-entity, what has no substantial existence, and is destined to pass away when the hour of trial comes, i.e. their boasted, but unreal, material prosperity. Hebrew poets, by prefixing to a term the negative lô, sometimes express the pointed and emphatic negation of an idea: cf. a not-people, a not-god, Deuteronomy 32:17; Deuteronomy 32:21, a not-man, Isaiah 31:8, i.e. something as different as possible from a people, a god, or a man. See Kautzsch's edition of Gesenius's Heb. Grammar, § 152. 1 note.

which say, Have we not, &c. The Israelites are represented as priding themselves on the power which they had newly acquired under Jeroboam II., and the acquisition of which they attribute to their own exertions. For a similar overweening speech, placed in the mouth of the people of Ephraim, see Isaiah 9:10. The hornis a figure often used in Hebrew poetry to denote the strength which repels and tosses away whatever is opposed to it: cf. Deuteronomy 33:17 (of the double tribe of Joseph); Psalms 75:5; Psalms 75:10; Psalms 89:17 [180].

[180] Wellhausen, following Grätz, takes the Hebrew expressions rendered respectively a thing of noughtand hornsas two proper names, viz. Lo-debar(2 Samuel 9:4 f., 2 Samuel 17:27) and Ḳarnaim(1Ma 5:26, and perhaps in the -Ashteroth-Karnaim, i. e. " -Ashtaroth of (or near) Ḳarnaim," of Genesis 14:5), two towns, both on the east of Jordan, the conquest of which by Jeroboam II. he supposes to be the subject of the Israelites" boast: so G. A. Smith, p. 176 f. But these towns (though Ḳarnaim was strongly situated) hardly seem to have been places of great importance; nor is it the manner of the Hebrew prophets to mention specially such successes; lâḳaḥ, also, is not the word properly used of taking a town (lâkhad), whereas to take for oneself(with the reflexive ל) is an idiom constantly used in the sense of providing oneself with(Leviticus 23:40; Isaiah 8:1; Jeremiah 36:2; Jeremiah 36:28; Ezekiel 4:1; Ezekiel 5:1; Zechariah 11:15 &c.). At most the conquests of these places may be alluded to, in the words used.