Amos 9:1

standing stationed (Amos 7:7).

by the altar lit. over, i.e. leaning over, an idiomatic use of the preposition, found elsewhere, as Numbers 23:3; Numbers 23:6; 1 Kings 13:1 &c.: cf. ch. Amos 7:7. The altar meant is the altar at Beth-el, the chief Israelitish sanctuary and national religious centre (Amos 7:13).

Smite the chapiters that the thresholds may shake, and cut them off on to the head of all of them A violent blow is to be dealt out to the chapiters, or capitals at the top of the columns supporting the roof of the temple: the temple will quiver to its very foundations; the broken fragments of the capitals and no doubt, though this is not expressly mentioned, of the roof as well will fall down upon the heads of the worshippers assembled below, burying them beneath the ruins. It has been questioned who is addressed in the words smiteand cut. The same question has to be asked sometimes elsewhere in the prophets (Isaiah 13:2; Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 6:4; Isaiah 57:14; Isaiah 62:10 &c.); and the reply is always the same, viz. the agent (or agents) whom in each case the prophet pictures as naturally fitted to carry out the commission: here, probably, an angel. The chapiter, properly a knop, the word is used in Exodus 25:31 and elsewhere of a spherical ornament on the stem and branches of the golden candlestick, will have been the globular ornament at the top of a column (so Zephaniah 2:14). Comp. in Solomon's temple, 1 Kings 7:16-20 (where the word, however, is not the same).

and I will slay the last of them the residue of them(Amos 4:2): those who escaped at the time that the temple fell, should perish subsequently by the sword. The two last clauses of the verse, as well as the three following verses, emphasize further the same thought.