Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 2:10
Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
10. Also I brought you up, &c.] as before, “And I (emph.)” &c. The providential guidance in the wilderness is instanced as a further motive to obedience, the appeal to it being made the more forcible and direct, by the change from the 1st to the 2nd person. Comp. the same motive, Deu 6:12, Hos 13:4 (R.V. marg.), and elsewhere.
forty years ] Deu 2:7; Deu 8:2; Deu 29:5 (in nearly the same phrase) &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Also I – (Literally, And I, I, emphatic; thus and thus did ye to Me; and thus and thus, with all the mercy from the first, did I to you,) I brought you up from the land of Egypt It is this language in which God, in the law, reminded them of that great benefit, as a motive to obedience; I brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage Exo 20:2; Deu 5:6; Deu 6:12; only there, since God has not as yet brought them up into the land which He promised them, but they were yet in the wilderness, He says, brought them forth; here, brought them up, as to a place of dignity, His own land.
And led you forty years through the wilderness – These are the very words of the law (Deu 29:4, (5 English), and reminded them of so many benefits during the course of those forty years, which the law rehearsed; the daily supply of manna, the water from the rock, the deliverance from the serpents and other perils, the manifold forgivenesses. To be led forty years through the wilderness, alone, had been no kindness, but a punishment. It was a blending of both. The abiding in the wilderness was punishment or austere mercy, keeping them back from the land which they had shown themselves unqualified to enter: Gods leading them was, His condescending mercy. The words, taken from the law, must have re-awakened in the souls of Israelites the memory of mercies which they did not mention, how that same book relates He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about; He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone did lead him Deu 32:10, Deu 32:12. In the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went until ye came to this place Deu 1:31; or that minute tender care, mentioned in the same place (Deu 29:4, (5, English)), your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. But unless Israel had known the law well, the words would only have been very distantly suggestive of mercy, that it must have been well with them even in the wilderness, since God led them. They had then the law in their memories, in Israel also , but distorted it or neglected it.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
You did not rescue yourselves out of the hands of your enemies, I did in mere mercy with a mighty arm save and rescue you, and brought you up from the land of Egypt, where you were oppressed servants, and exposed to ruin.
Led you, as a shepherd leads his flock: nay, miraculously conducting by the pillar of a cloud and fire, and feeding with manna from heaven.
Forty years, reckoning from their coming out of Egypt.
Through the wilderness: they passed through many wildernesses, named in Scripture according as they were then called, but all these lay so contiguous to each other, that they all made up one great wilderness, as the many names given to parts of the sea make us know what particular part is spoken of, but all make one sea.
To possess, as an heir possesseth that he hath a hereditary right to, the land of the Amorite, including all the rest of the accursed and dispossessed nations.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. brought you up from . . .Egypt“brought up” is the phrase, as Egypt was lowand flat, and Canaan hilly.
to possess the land of theAmoriteThe Amorites strictly occupied both sides of the Jordanand the mountains afterward possessed by Judah; but they here, as inAm 2:9, stand for all theCanaanites. God kept Israel forty years in the wilderness, whichtended to discipline them in His statutes, so as to be the betterfitted for entering on the possession of Canaan.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt,…. Where they were bond slaves, and in great affliction and distress, and unable to help themselves; but the Lord wrought deliverance for them, and brought them out of this house of bondage with a high hand and a mighty arm:
and led you forty years through the wilderness: going before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night; providing them with all things necessary, with food and raiment, and protecting them from all their enemies:
to possess the land of the Amorite; the whole land of Canaan, so called from a principal nation of it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He afterwards subjoins, I have made you to ascend from the land of Egypt; I have made you to walk in the desert for forty years, in order to possess the land of the Amorite. The circumstances here specified are intended to confirm the same thing, that God had miraculously redeemed his people. Men, we know, for the most part extenuate the favors of God; nay, this evil is innate in us. This is the reason why the Prophet so largely describes and extols the redemption of the people. Hence he says now that they had been led out of the land of Egypt. And they ought to have remembered what had been their condition in Egypt; for there they were most miserably oppressed. When therefore that coming out was set before them, it was the same as if God had reminded them how shamefully they had been treated, and how hard had been their bondage in Egypt. That beginning ought to have humbled them, and also to have stimulated them to the cultivation of piety. When now they proudly exulted against God, when no recollection of their deliverance laid hold on them, this vice is justly laid to their charge by the Prophet: “See,” he says, “ I have brought you forth from the land of Egypt; what were ye then? what was your nobility? what was your wealth or riches? what was your power? For the Egyptians treated you as the vilest slaves; your condition then was extremely ignominious; ye were as lost, and I redeemed you: and now buried is the recollection of so illustrious a kindness, which deserved to be for ever remembered.”
He afterwards adds, I have made you to walk, etc. The Prophet here reminds them of the desert, that the Israelites might know that God might have justly closed up against them an entrance into the land, though he had promised it for an inheritance to Abraham. For how was it that the Lord led them about for so long a time, except that they, as far as they could, had denied God, and rendered themselves unworthy of enjoying the promised land? Then the Prophet indirectly blames the Israelites here for having been the cause why God detained them for forty years without introducing them immediately into the promised land; which might have easily been done, had they not closed the door against themselves by their ingratitude. This is one reason why the Prophet now speaks of the forty years. And then, as God had in various ways testified his kindness towards the Israelites, he had thus bound them the more to himself; but an ungodly forgetfulness had buried all his favors. God daily rained manna on them from heaven; he also gave them drink from a dry rock; he guided them during the day by a pillar of cloud, and in the night by fire: and we also know how often God bore with them, and how many proofs he gave them of his forbearance. The Prophet, then, by speaking here of the forty years, meant to counsel the Israelites to call to mind the many favors, by which they were bound to God, while they were miraculously led by him for forty years in the desert.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) 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. (Deu. 32:9-13.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Amo 2:10 Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
Ver. 10. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt ] Which lies lower than Judea; as doth also mystical Egypt than Jerusalem, which is above, which is the mother of us all. To what great preferments and privileges God’s people are now brought up by Christ. See Heb 12:22-24 , and cry out, with that noble Athenian, , , from how great miseries to what great mercies are we advanced! Even from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God: that we may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among the saints, Act 26:18 . And shall we then again break God’s commandments? Ezr 9:14 , or say, “We are delivered to do all these abominations,” Jer 7:10 . Would not the heaven sweat over us, and the earth cleave under us, yea, hell gape for us upon such an entertainment of Divine bounty?
And led you forty years through the wilderness
To possess the land of the Amorite
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
I brought, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Exo 12:51. Deu 4:47 (Sihon)). App-92and led you &c. Ref to Pentateuch (Deu 2:7; Deu 8:2). App-92.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I brought: Exo 12:51, Neh 9:8-12, Psa 105:42, Psa 105:43, Psa 136:10, Psa 136:11, Jer 32:20, Jer 32:21, Eze 20:10, Mic 6:4
and led: Num 14:34, Deu 2:7, Deu 8:2-4, Neh 9:21, Psa 95:10, Act 7:42, Act 13:18
to possess: Num 14:31-35, Deu 1:20, Deu 1:21, Deu 1:39
Reciprocal: Jos 24:17 – General Amo 3:1 – which Amo 9:7 – Have not Mat 2:23 – He shall Act 13:17 – and with Heb 3:9 – forty
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Amo 2:10. Ingratitude is a very bad principle and is condemned in both sacred and profane literature. The Lord had done so much for Israel that it made their evil conduct all the more to be condemned, and they are being reminded of the subject In a number of verses. The one event of rescuing them from the Egyptians after four centuries of bondage should have bound them to God in a firm spirit of unmixed devotion. And their release from that country put them in a situation that would have been distressing from the unsettled state of the wilderness, yet the Lord took care of them miraculously for the entire journey of 40 years, so that they could come into possession of the land being held by these Amorites.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Going back even further in their history, Yahweh reminded His people that He had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and had led them safely through the wilderness for 40 years. He had preserved them so they could take possession of the Promised Land, the land of the Amorites. By shifting to the second person, Amos strengthened the force of God’s appeal.