WOE TO THEM THAT ARE AT EASE - The word always means such as are recklessly at their ease, “the careless ones,” such as those whom Isaiah bids Isaiah 32:9, “rise up, tremble, be troubled, for many days and years shall ye be troubled.” It is that luxury and ease, which sensualize the soul, and make i... [ Continue Reading ]
PASS OVER TO CALNEH - He bids them behold, east, north, and west, survey three neighboring kingdoms, and see whether God had not, even in the gifts of this world, dealt better with Israel. Why then so requite Him? “Calneh” (which Isaiah calls “Calno” Isaiah 10:9, Ezekiel, “Canneh Ezekiel 27:23), was... [ Continue Reading ]
YE THAT PUT FAR AWAY - Probably “with aversion.” They bade that day as it were, be gone. The Hebrew idiom expresses, how they would put it off, if they could; as far as in them lay, they “assigned a distance to it, , although they could not remove the day itself. The “evil day” is that same “day of... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT LIE UPON BEDS (THAT IS, SOFAS) OF IVORY - that is, probably inlaid with ivory. The word might, in itself, express either the bed, in which they slept by night, or the divan, on which the Easterns lay at their meals; “and stretch themselves,” literally, “are poured” out , stretching their listle... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT CHANT TO THE VOICE OF THE LYRE - Accompanying “the voice of the lyre” with the human voice; giving vocal expression and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without words. The word, which Amos alone uses in this one place, describes probably a hurried flow of unmeaning, unconsidered w... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT DRINK WINE IN BOWLS - (Literally, as the English margin, “drink in bowls,” literally, “sprinkling vessels, of wine”). The word is elsewhere used only of the “bowls,” out of which the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled. Probably Amos was referring to the first offering of the Princes in the wi... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE NOW (THAT IS, SHORTLY) SHALL THEY GO CAPTIVE WITH THE FIRST (AT THE HEAD) OF THOSE WHO GO CAPTIVE - They had sought eminence; they should have it. Jerome: “Ye who are first in riches, shall, the first, endure the yoke of captivity, as it is in Ezekiel, ‘begin from My sanctuary’ Ezekiel 9:6... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LORD GOD - He who alone is and who alone hath power, “hath sworn by Himself,” literally, “by His soul;” as our “self” comes from the same root as “soul.” Jerome: “So God saith in Isaiah, “Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth” Isaiah 1:14; not that God hath a soul, but that He... [ Continue Reading ]
IF THERE SHALL REMAIN TEN MEN - He probably still denounces the punishment of the rich inhabitants of the palaces, since in these only, of old, would there be found “ten men.” They died, it seems, at once, and so probably through the plague, the common companion. of the siege. The prophet had before... [ Continue Reading ]
AND A MAN’S UNCLE ... AND HE THAT BURNETH HIM - Literally, “and there shall take him up his uncle and his burner,” that is, his uncle who, as his next of kin, had the care of his interment, was himself the burner. Burial is the natural following out of the words, “dust thou art and unto dust thou sh... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LORD COMMANDETH AND HE WILL SMITE - Jerome: “If He commandeth, how doth He smite? If He smiteth, how doth He command? In that thing which He “commands” and enjoins His ministers, He Himself is seen to “smite.” In Egypt the Lord declares that He killed the first-born, who, we read, were slain by... [ Continue Reading ]
The two images both represent a toil, which people would condemn as absurd, destructive, as well as fruitless. The horse’s hoofs or his limbs would be broken; the plowing-gear would be destroyed. The prophet gains the attention by the question. What then? they ask. The answer is implied by the for,... [ Continue Reading ]
WHO REJOICE - (Literally, “the rejoicers!” Amos, as is his wont, speaks of them with contempt and wonder at their folly, “the rejoicers!” much as we say, the cowards! the renegades!) “in a thing of nought,” literally, “a non-thing,” (“no-whit, nought”) not merely in a thing valueless, but in a “non-... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT - (For,) - it was a non-thing, a nonexistent thing, a phantom, whereat they rejoiced; “for behold I raise up a nation.” God is said to “raise up,” when, by His Providence or His grace, He calls forth those who had not been called before, for the office for which He designs them. Thus, He raised... [ Continue Reading ]