II. CURSE ON MOAB. (1) Comp. Isaiah 15, 16, Isaiah 25:10, and Jeremiah 48 Translate “burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom.” The historical reference is obscure. (See 2 Kings 3:26.) Whether Moab was guilty of desecrating royal tombs, or offering the heir of the king of Edom in sacrifice, can... [ Continue Reading ]
KIRIOTH. — This properly signifies a group of towns, but here refers to a single large town in Moab, the modern _Kureiât._ (Comp. Jeremiah 48:24.) CURSE ON JUDAH. Great privileges have met with mad and foolish despite. Exalted to the highest heaven of possibility, Judah has despised the “Law of th... [ Continue Reading ]
JUDAH. — Such high privilege does not involve immunity from punishment. Judah shall be chastised with the same penalty as Edom, Philistia, Ammon, and Moab.... [ Continue Reading ]
CURSE ON ISRAEL. (6) TRANSGRESSIONS OF ISRAEL. — The storm of Divine threatening which had swept over the whole political horizon gathers, at last, over Israel. The sins and ingratitude of the people are aggravated by a recital of the Divine Mercy. By comparing this verse with Amos 8:6, it is clear... [ Continue Reading ]
DUST OF THE EARTH ON THE HEAD OF THE POOR. — Can only mean, as Ewald and Keil interpret: they long to see the poor reduced to such distress that dust is thrown on their heads in token of grief. The meek are defrauded as being too weak to claim their own. The latter part of the verse points to the se... [ Continue Reading ]
Rapacity and cruelty follow on pride, selfishness, and lust. With this verse compare the provisions of the Mosaic law (Exodus 22:25). Render, _And upon garments received in pledge they stretch themselves,_ and for “condemned” adopt the marginal translation _mulcted._ The money that had been wrung fr... [ Continue Reading ]
DESTROYED I. — Emphasis belongs to the pronoun “I.” The Amorites proper occupied the S.W. coast of the Dead Sea. Their formidable stature and power were attributed occasionally to all the inhabitants of the land. (Joshua 24:18; Judges 6:10.) They were absorbed before the time of Amos.... [ Continue Reading ]
FORTY YEARS. — The forty years’ wandering was a punishment for fickleness and cowardice, but during the incidence of this judgment, of which we have only one or two events recorded in the Book of Numbers, God was disciplining and organising a tribe of restless wanderers into a nation. (Deuteronomy 3... [ Continue Reading ]
God added to the mercies of His providence, the transcendent blessings of special revelation. The prophets of Israel were numerous, and renowned, and exposed to frequent persecution, _e.g.,_ the cases of Micaiah, Elijah, and others. “The Nazarite vow to abstain from wine, which, in the earliest case... [ Continue Reading ]
I AM PRESSED. — Baur, Pusey, and _Speaker’s Commentary_ support this rendering of the Heb. _mç‘îq_, the corresponding form in the next clause also being taken in the intransitive (_i.e.,_ passive sense). But it is unlikely that God, in this passage, should declare Himself “crushed” under the weight... [ Continue Reading ]
This doom Amos darkly foreshadows to be invasion and military overthrow, with all its attendant calamities.... [ Continue Reading ]
Is omitted in some of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS., but without authority.... [ Continue Reading ]