In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins this his third appeal by a “dirge” over its destruction, mourning over those who were full of joy, and thought themselves safe and enviable. As if a living man, in the midst of his pride and luxury and buoyant recklessness of heart, could see his own... [ Continue Reading ]
SHE HATH FALLEN, SHE SHALL RISE NO MORE, THE VIRGIN OF ISRAEL; SHE HATH BEEN DASHED DOWN UPON HER LAND, THERE IS NONE TO RAISE HER UP - Such is the dirge, a dirge like that of David over Saul and Jonathan, over what once was lovely and mighty, but which had perished. He speaks of all as past, and th... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CITY THAT WENT OUT BY A THOUSAND - (that is, probably that sent out a thousand fighting men, as the word “went out” is often used for, “went out” to fight,) “shall have” literally, “shall retain, an hundred.” She was to be decimated. Only, the tenth alone was to be reserved alive; the nine-tenth... [ Continue Reading ]
SEEK YE ME AND YE SHALL LIVE - Literally, “seek Me; and live.” Wonderful conciseness of the word of God, which, in two words, comprises the whole of the creature’s duty and his hopes, his time and his eternity. The prophet users the two imperatives, inoneing both, man’s duty and his reward. He does... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT (AND) SEEK NOT BETHEL - Israel pretended to seek God in Bethel. Amos sets the two seeking, as incompatible. The god, worshiped at Bethel, was not the One God. To seek God there was to lose Him. “Seek not God,” he would say, “and a phantom, which will lead from God.” AND PASS NOT TO BEERSHEBA - J... [ Continue Reading ]
SEEK YE THE LORD AND YE SHALL LIVE - Literally, “seek the Lord and live;” being united to Him, the Fountain of life. He reimpresses on them the one simple need of the creature, “seek God,” the one true God as He revealed Himself, not as worldly people, or the politicians of Jeroboam’s court, or the... [ Continue Reading ]
YE WHO TURN - Those whom he calls to seek God, were people filled with all injustice, who turned the sweetness of justice into the bitterness of wormwood . Moses had used “gall” and “wormwood” as a proverb; “lest there be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; the Lord will not spare him,... [ Continue Reading ]
SEEK HIM THAT MAKETH THE SEVEN STARS - Misbelief effaces the thought of God as He Is. It retains the name God, but means something quite different from the One True God. So people spoke of “the Deity,” as a sort of First Cause of all things, and did not perceive that they only meant to own that this... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT STRENGTHENETH THE SPOILED - (Literally, “spoil” English margin) probably That “maketh devastation to smile on the strong.” . The “smile,” in anger, attests both the extremity of anger, and the consciousness of the ease, wherewith the offence can be punished. They were strong in their own streng... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HATE HIM THAT REBUKETH - “The gate” is the well-known place of concourse, where just or, in Israel now, unjust judgment was given Deuteronomy 25:7; Job 5:4; Job 31:21; 2 Samuel 15:2; Proverbs 22:22; Isaiah 29:21, where all was done which was to be done publicly Ruth 4:1, Ruth 4:11. Samaria ha [ Continue Reading ]
FORASMUCH THEREFORE - (Since they rejected reproof, he pronounces the sentence of God upon them,) “as your treading is upon the poor.” This expresses more habitual trampling on the poor, than if he had said, “ye tread upon the poor.” They were ever trampling on those who were already of low and depr... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR I KNOW - Literally, “I have known.” They thought that God did not know, because He did not avenge; as the Psalmist says, “Thy judgments are far above out of his sight” Psalms 10:5. People who do not act with the thought of God, cease to know Him, and forget that He knows them. “Your manifold tra... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THE PRUDENT SHALL KEEP SILENCE IN THAT TIME - The “time” may be either the time of the obduracy of the wicked, or that of the common punishment. For a time may be called “evil,” whether evil is done, or is suffered in it, as Jacob says, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life b... [ Continue Reading ]
SEEK GOOD AND NOT EVIL - that is, and “seek not evil.” Amos again takes up his warning, “seek not Bethel; seek the Lord.” Now they not only “did evil,” but they “sought” it diligently; they were diligent in doing it, and so, in bringing it on themselves; they sought it out and the occasions of it. P... [ Continue Reading ]
HATE THE EVIL AND LOVE THE GOOD - Man will not cease wholly to “seek evil,” unless he “hate” it; nor will he “seek good,” unless he “love” it. Jerome: “He ‘hateth evil,’ who not only is not overcome by pleasure, but hates its deeds; and he ‘loveth good,’ who, not unwillingly or of necessity or from... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THE LORD, THE GOD OF HOSTS, THE LORD - For the third time in these three last verses Amos again reminds them, by whose authority he speaks, His who had revealed Himself as “I am,” the self-existent God, God by nature and of nature, the Creator and Ruler and Lord of all, visible or invisibl... [ Continue Reading ]
AND IN ALL VINEYARDS SHALL BE WAILING - All joy should be turned into sorrow. Where aforetime was the vintage-shout in thankfulness for the ingathering, and anticipating gladness to come, there, in the source of their luxury, should be wailing, the forerunner of sorrow to come. it was a vintage, not... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO YOU THAT DESIRE - for yourselves. THE DAY OF THE LORD - There were “mockers in those days” 2 Peter 3:3; Jude 1:18, as there are now, and as there shall be in the last. And as the “scoffers in the last days” 2 Peter 3:3; Jude 1:18 shall say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” so these sai... [ Continue Reading ]
AS IF A MAN, DID FLEE FROM A LION - The Day of the Lord is a day of terror on every side. Before and behind, without and within, abroad under the roof of heaven, or under the shelter of his own, everywhere is terror and death. The Syrian bear is said to have been more fierce and savage than the lion... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL NOT THE DAY OF THE LORD BE DARKNESS? - He had described that Day as a day of inevitable destruction, such its man’s own conscience and guilty fears anticipate, and then appeals to their own consciences, “is it not so, as I have said?” People’s consciences are truer than their intellect. Howeve... [ Continue Reading ]
I HATE, I DESPISE YOUR FEASTS - Israel clave to its heart’s sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. It had its “feasts” of solemn “joy” and the “restraint” of its “solemn assemblies” , which all were constrained to keep,... [ Continue Reading ]
TAKE THOU AWAY FROM ME - Literally, “from upon Me,” that is, from being a burden to Me, a weight on Me. So God says by Isaiah, “your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth; they are a burden upon Me; I am weary to bear them” Isaiah 1:14. Their “songs” and hymns were but a confused, tumul... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT - (And) let judgment run down (Literally, “roll” English margin) “like water.” The duties of either table include both; since there is no true love for man without the love of God, nor any real love or duty to God without the love of man. People will exchange their sins for other sins. They will... [ Continue Reading ]
HAVE YE OFFERED - (better, “Did ye offer”) unto Me sacrifices and offerings? Israel justified himself to himself by his half-service. This had been his way from the first. “Their heart was not whole with God, neither abode they in His covenant” Psalms 78:37. He thought to be accepted by God, because... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT YE HAVE BORNE - Literally, “And ye bare the tabernacle of your Moloch” (literally, “your king,” from where the idol Moloch had its name.) He assigns the reason, why he had denied that they sacririced to God in the wilderness. “Did ye offer sacrifices unto Me, and ye bare?” that is, seeing that y... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE - (And) this being so, such having been their way from the beginning until now, will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus Syria was the most powerful enemy by whom God had heretofore chastened them 2 Kings 13:7. From Syria He had recently, for the time, delivered them, and had... [ Continue Reading ]