Amos, like Hosea, rebukes Israel directly, Judah indirectly. He had warned each nation separately. Now, ere he concentrates himself on Israel, he sums up what he had before said to Judah and in the Person of God. “Ye have been alike in My gifts to you, alike in your waste of them and your sins; alik... [ Continue Reading ]
YOU ONLY HAVE I KNOWN OF ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH; THEREFORE I WILL PUNISH YOU FOR ALL YOUR INIQUITIES - Such is the one law of God. The nearer anyone is brought unto God, the worse is his fall, and, his trial over, the more heavily is he punished. Nearness to God is a priceless, but an awesome... [ Continue Reading ]
Sacred parables or enigmas must have many meanings. They are cast on the mind, to quicken it and rouse it by their very mystery. They are taken from objects which in different lights, represent different things, and so suggest them. This series of brief parables have, all of them, this in common, th... [ Continue Reading ]
WILL A LION ROAR IN THE FOREST, WHEN HE HATH NO PREY? - Then, further, each question by itself suggests its own thought. Amos had already, in repeating Joel’s words, spoken of God’s Voice, under the image of a lion roaring (Amos 1:2; Hosea 11:10 (add Hosea 5:14; Hosea 6:1; Hosea 13:7); Jeremiah 25:3... [ Continue Reading ]
CAN A BIRD FALL IN A SNARE - Again, the bird taken in the snare is the image of those drawn down from heaven, where ‘our conversation is Philippians 3:20 and the soul may rise free toward its God , “drawn up by the Spirit to high and heavenly things.” Such souls being allured by the things of earth,... [ Continue Reading ]
IS THERE EVIL IN THE CITY AND THE LORD HATH NOT DONE IT? - Evil is of two sorts, evil of sin, and evil of punishment. There is no other; for evil of nature, or evil of fortune, are evils, by God’s Providence, punishing the evil of sin. Augustine, c. Adim. 26: “Evil, which is sin, the Lord hath not d... [ Continue Reading ]
SURELY THE LORD GOD WILL DO - For the Lord God “doeth” NOTHING, BUT HE REVEALETH HIS SECRET UNTO HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS - So our Lord saith, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe” (John 14:29; compare John 13:19). While it is yet a “secret”... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LION HATH ROARED: WHO WILL NOT FEAR? THE LORD GOD HATH SPOKEN: WHO CAN BUT PROPHESY? - that is, there is cause for you to fear, when the Lord “roareth from Zion;” but if ye fear not, God’s prophets dare not but fear. So Paul saith, “necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me if I preach not... [ Continue Reading ]
PUBLISH - “ye,” they are the words of God, commissioning His prophets IN (ON) THE PALACES OF ASHDOD - , that is, on the flat roofs of their high buidings, from where all can hear AND IN (ON) THE PALACES IN THE LAND OF EGYPT - Theodoret: “Since ye disbelieve, I will manifest to Ashdodites and Egypti... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR - (and) they know not to do right They “have not known,” they have least all sense and knowledge, how “to do right” (literally, what is “straight-forward”) because they had so long ceased to do it. It is part of the miserable blindness of sin, that, while the soul acquires a quick insight into e... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD - There was no human redress. The oppressor was mighty, but mightier the Avenger of the poor. Man would not help; therefore God would. “An adversary” there shall be, “even round about the land;” literally, “An enemy, and around the land!” The prophets speaks, as see... [ Continue Reading ]
AS THE SHEPHERD TAKETH - (Rather, rescueth) out of the mouth of the lion two legs (Properly, the shank, the lower part of the leg below the knee, which in animals is dry, and bone only and worthless) “or apiece” (the tip) “of an ear, so” (that is, so few and weak, so bared and spoiled, a mere remnan... [ Continue Reading ]
HEAR YE AND TESTIFY YE IN - (Rather unto or against ) the house of Israel; first “hear” yourselves, then “testify,” that is, solemnly “protest,” in the Name of God; and “bear witness unto” and “against” them, so that the solemn words may sink into them. It is of little avail to “testfy,” unless we f... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE DAY THAT I SHALL VISIT THE TRANSGRESSION OF ISRAEL UPON, HIM, I WILL ALSO VISIT (UPON) THE ALTARS OF BETHEL - Israel then hoped that its false worship of “nature” would avail it. God says, contrariwise, that when He should punish, all their false worship, so far from helping them, should itse... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I WILL SMITE THE WINTER HOUSE WITH THE SUMMER HOUSE - Upon idolatry, there follow luxury and pride. “So wealthy were they,” says Jerome, “as to possess two sorts of houses, “the winter house” being turned to the south, the “summer house” to the north, so that, according to the variety of the sea... [ Continue Reading ]