Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 2:1
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
1. because he burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime ] A mark of unrelenting hate and vindictiveness: the Moabites pursued their fallen adversary even into the rest of the grave; they not only violated the sanctity of his tomb, but even removed his bones, and treated them with an unwonted and shocking indignity (cf. 2Ki 23:16). The reverence with which, in ancient times, the tomb was regarded, is well known: and ancient sepulchral inscriptions often invoke terrible maledictions upon those who disturb the remains deposited within [141] . The prophet displays a high-souled superiority to distinctions of race: he reprobates an indignity offered to Israel’s rival not less sternly than one offered to Israel itself. In illustration of the fact, Wellhausen quotes the Kitb al-’Aghni xii. 21, 11; Ibn Athir v. 178. 12, 203. 23; Ma. v. 471. Nothing further is known of the deed referred to: it may be conjectured to have been one of recent occurrence which sent a thrill of horror through all who heard of it. The Edomites were neighbours of Moab not less than of Judah; and perhaps similar rivalries were prevalent between them. On the occasion of the joint expedition undertaken by Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom, for the purpose of coercing the Moabites to obedience, after their revolt under Mesha, the Moabite king is represented (2Ki 3:26) as actuated by a peculiar animosity against the king of Edom. According to Jerome, it was a Hebrew tradition that this was the king whose bones, after burial, were treated for vengeance in this manner.
[141] Comp. the quotation in the note on v. 9; and see also the inscription from el ‘Ol (S.E. of Edom) translated in Studia Biblica, vol. i. p. 212 (= Euting, Nabatische Inschriften, 1885. No. 2: see also Nos. 3, 4).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Amo 2:1-3 . Moab. The Moabites inhabited the elevated and fertile table-land (Heb. Mshr, “level plain,” Deu 3:10 &c.), on the east of the Dead Sea. By the Israelites, the deep chasm formed by the torrent Arnon was regarded as the northern boundary of Moab: for shortly before Israel’s arrival on the east of Jordan, Sihon, king of the Amorites, had forced the Moabites to retire from their possessions north of the Arnon; and the Israelites, defeating Sihon, occupied his territory, which was afterwards allotted to the pastoral tribe of Reuben (Num 21:24-25; Num 32:37 f.). Reuben, however, was not strong enough to retain possession of the region thus assigned to it; and hence many of the cities mentioned in Jos 13:15-21, as belonging to Reuben, are alluded to by Isaiah (ch. 15, 16), and other later writers, as in the occupation of Moab. Moab, like the Ammonites, was subdued by David (2Sa 8:1-2), though it must have recovered its independence, probably at the division of the kingdom. From the Inscription of Mesha (2Ki 3:4), found in 1869 at Dibon, and known commonly as the ‘Moabite Stone,’ we learn that Omri re-subjugated Moab, but that during the reign of his son Ahab it revolted, and regained its independence (cf. 2Ki 1:1; 2Ki 3:5). The Inscription states particulars of the revolt: Mesha, for instance, expelled the men of Gad from ‘Arth, took N bo by storm, and reb uilt (or fortified) the principal cities of Moab (see a translation of the Inscription in R.P [139][140] ii.194 ff., or in the present writer’s Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, p. lxxxv ff.). The language of Moab differed only dialectically from Hebrew. From the allusions in the O.T. the Moabites appear to have been a wealthy and prosperous people, hardly inferior in civilization to Israel itself. The abundant vineyards of Moab are noticed by Isaiah (Isa 16:8-10): the fertility of its pastures may be inferred from the large tribute of wool paid annually to Israel before its revolt (2Ki 3:4; cf. Isa 16:1). The prophets allude to the independent, encroaching temper shewn by Moab in its relations with Israel (Isa 16:6; Zep 2:10; Jer 48:29; Jer 48:42): no doubt attempts were frequently made by the Moabites to gain possession of the cities claimed by Reuben or Gad.
[139] .P. Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.
[140] Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Moab – The relation of Moab to Israel is only accidentally different from that of Ammon. One spirit actuated both, venting itself in one and the same way, as occasion served, and mostly together (see the note at Amo 1:13). Beside those more formal invasions, the history of Elisha mentions one probably of many in-roads of bands of the Moabites. It seems as though, when the year entered in, and with it the harvest, the bands of the Moabites entered in too, like the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east Jdg 6:3-4, Jdg 6:11 in the time of Gideon, or their successors the Bedouins, now. This their continual hostility is related in the few words of a parenthesis. There was no occasion to relate at length an uniform hostility, which was as regular as the seasons of the year, and the years produce, and the temptation to the cupidity of Moab, when Israel was weakened by Hazael.
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom – The deed here condemned, is unknown. Doubtless it was connected with that same hatred of Edom, which the king of Moab showed, when besieged by Israel. People are often more enraged against a friend or ally who has made terms with one whom they hate or fear, than with the enemy himself. Certainly, when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him 2Ki 3:26-27, his fury was directed personally against the king of Edom. He took with him 700 chosen men to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not. Escape was not their object. They sought not to cut through the Edomite contingent into the desert, but to the king of Edom. Then he took his oldest son, that is, probably the oldest son of the king of Edom whom he captured, and offered him up as a burnt offering on the wall.
Such is the simplest structure of the words; He strove to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not, and he took his oldest son, etc., and there was great indignation against Israel. That indignation too on the part of Edom (for there was no other to be indignant against Israel) is best accounted for, if this expedition, undertaken because Moab had rebelled against Israel, had occasioned the sacrifice of the son of the king of Edom, who took part in it only as a tributary of Judah. Edom would have had no special occasion to be indignant with Israel, if on occasion of an ordinary siege, the king of Moab had, in a shocking way, performed the national idolatry of child-sacrifice. That hatred the king of Moab carried beyond the grave, hatred which the pagan too held to be unnatural in its implacableness and unsatiableness. The soul being, after death, beyond mans reach, the hatred, vented upon his remains, is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengeance.
It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it. Its impotence evinces its fierceness, since, having no power to wreak any real revenge, it has no object but to show its hatred. Hatred, which death cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. With this hatred Moab hated the king of Edom, seemingly because he had been, though probably against this will, on the side of the people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, and directed against God Himself. The single instance, which we know, of any feud between Moab and Edom was, when Edom was engaged in a constrained service of God. At least there are no indications of any conquest of each other. The Bozrah of Moab, being in the Mishor, the plain Jer 48:21, Jer 48:24, is certainly distinct from the Bozrah of Edom, which Jeremiah speaks of at the same time, as belonging to Edom Jer 49:13. Each kingdom, Edom and Moab, had its own strong city, Bozrah, at one and the same time. And if the rock, which Isaiah speaks of as the strong hold of Moab Isa 16:1, was indeed the Petra of Edom, (and the mere name, in that country of rock-fortresses is not strong, yet is the only, proof,) they won it from Judah who had taken it from Edom, and in whose hands it remained in the time of Amos (2Ki 14:7; see above the note at Amo 1:12), not from Edom itself. Or, again, the tribute may have been only sent through Petra, as the great center of commerce. Edoms half-service gained it no good, but evil; Moabs malice was its destruction.
The proverb, speak good only of the dead, shows what reverence human nature dictates, not to condemn those who have been before their Judge, unless He have already openly condemned them. Death, says Athanasius in relating the death of Arius on his perjury, is the common end of all people, and we ought not to insult the dead, though he be an enemy, for it is uncertain whether the same event may not happen to ourselves before evening.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Amo 2:1
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.
Burning the bones of the dead
Amos says that the Moabites were wholly perverse, that no repentance would be hoped for, as they had added crimes to crimes, and reached the highest pitch of wickedness. He mentions one thing in particular–that they had burnt the bones of the king of Edom. Some take bones here for courage, as though the prophet had said, that the whole strength of Edom had been reduced to ashes: but this is a strained exposition; and its authors themselves confess that they are forced into it by necessity, when yet there is none. The comment given by the rabbins does not please them,–that the body of a certain king had been burnt, and then that the Moabites had strangely applied the ashes for making a cement instead of lime. Thus the rabbins trifle in their usual way, for when an obscure place occurs, immediately they invent some fable; though there be no history, yet they exercise their wit in fabulous glosses. What need is there of running to allegory, when we may simply take what the prophet says–that the body of the king of Edom had been burnt: for the prophet simply charges the Moabites with barbarous cruelty. To dig up the bodies of enemies, and to burn their hones,–this is an inhuman deed, and wholly barbarous. But it was more detestable in the Moabites, who had some connection with the people of Edom. If any humanity existed in them, they ought to have restrained their passions, so as not to treat so cruelly their brethren. When they exceeded all moderation in war, and raged against dead bodies, and burnt the bones of the dead, it was extremely barbarous conduct. The meaning of the sentence is this: The Moabites could no longer be borne with, for, in this one instance, they gave an example of savage cruelty. Their treatment of their brethren, the Idumaeans, proved that they had forgotten all humanity and justice. (John Calvin.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Amo 1:13-15; Amo 2:1-8
I will not turn away the punishment thereof.
Gods dealing with nations
I. The opportunity for repentance which all possess. The punishment of the six heathen nations, as of Judah and Israel, opens with a picture of the forbearance of God which had preceded this hour of wrath. For three transgressions of–, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. The cup of iniquity was not full till the fourth transgression. Gods dealing with individuals is such–Who hath hardened himself against Him, and hath prospered? (Pro 29:1.)
II. Persistence in course of sin has only one end. I will not turn away the punishment thereof. Men may put far away the evil day, but all history, all prophecy, all strivings of conscience point to the certainty of ruin.
III. The causes of the divine indignation vary according to human light. In the fate of Tyrus, for instance (Amo 1:9), we see that a brotherly covenant (the league of Hiram with David and Solomon) formed no barrier to the grasping spirit of the mercantile nation. Edom (Amo 1:11) did pursue his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity. The heathen nations were to suffer because they had offended against those eternal principles of compassion and of truth which are written on the hearts of all men alike. Judah (Amo 2:4) and Israel (Amo 1:6-8) were judged by a higher standard, for the light had been greater. In Judah is God known; His name is great in Israel.
IV. The vindication of Gods ways to men which these pictures of national sin furnish is complete. The preservation of truth and purity is of far higher moment than the fate of one nation, for human society can only be founded on the eternal principles of right and wrong. The detail of Israels sin makes us shrink back with horror. Their law gave no power to sell an insolvent debtor, but they were ready to sell the righteous man (one in trouble through no fault of his own) for silver; and the poor (whom there was none to succour), to provide for themselves a pair of luxurious sandals. They panted after the very dust which the poor spread on their head in token of mourning, and by the vilest sin they profaned the name of God which was called on them as His people. Even their altars witnessed their extortions (Amo 1:8; Deu 24:12-13) and banquetings. Application–The prophet would have the people clearly understand the equity of the judgments which he foretold. Men can be impartial in estimating the sin of others (David and Nathans parable). To study Gods dealings with others will often open our eyes to our own future. (J. Telford, B. A.)
Great sufferings following great sins
This passage illustrates three truths.
1. That the sins of all the people on the earth, whatever the peculiarities of their character or conduct, are under the cognisance of God.
2. That of all the sins of the people, that of persecution is peculiarly abhorrent to the Divine nature.
I. Great sins entail great sufferings. The calamities threatened to these different tribes of different lands are of the most terrible description. But they are all such as to match their crimes.
1. The connection between great sins and great sufferings is inevitable. The Moral Governor of the world has so arranged matters that every sin brings with its own punishment, and it is only when the sin is destroyed the suffering ceases. Thank God this sin can be destroyed through faith in the mediation of Him who came to put away sin by faith in the sacrifice of Himself.
2. Tim connection between great sins and great sufferings is universal. All these sinful peoples had to realise it from their own bitter experience. It does not matter where, when, or how a man lives, his sins will find him out.
II. Great sins often entail great sufferings upon people who are not the actual offenders. The fire, which is here the instrument of Gods retribution to us sinners, would not only scathe the persons and consume the property of the actual offenders, but others. The fact is patent in all history and in all experience, that men here suffer for the sins of others. Two facts may reconcile our consciences to this.
1. That few, if any, suffer more than their consciences tell them they deserve.
2. That there is to come a period when the whole will appear to be in accord with the justice and goodness of God. (Homilist.)
The atrocities of barbarism and the sins of civilisation
The sins Amos condemns in the heathen are at first sight very different from those which he exposes within Israel. Not only are they sins of foreign relations, of treaty and war, while Israels are all civic and domestic; but they are what we call the atrocities of barbarism–wanton war, massacre and sacrilege; while Israels are rather the sins of civilisation–the pressure of the rich upon the poor, the bribery of justice, the seduction of the innocent, personal impurity, and other evils of luxury. So great is this difference that a critic more gifted with ingenuity than insight, might plausibly distinguish, in the section before us, two prophets with two very different views of national sin–a ruder prophet, and of course an earlier, who judged nations only by the flagrant drunkenness of their war; and a more subtle prophet, and of course a later, who exposed the masked corruptions of their religion and their peace. Such a theory would be as false as it would be plausible. For not only is the diversity of the objects of the prophets judgment explained by this, that Amos had no familiarity with the interior life of other nations, and could only arraign their conduct at those points where it broke into light in their foreign relations, while Israels civic life he knew to the very core. But Amos had besides a strong and a deliberate aim in placing the sins of civilisation as the climax of a list of the atrocities of barbarism. He would recall what men are always forgetting, that the former are really more cruel and criminal than the latter; that luxury, bribery, and intolerance, the oppression of the poor, the corruption of the innocent and the silencing of the prophet–what Christ calls offences against His little ones–are even more awful atrocities than the wanton horrors of barbarian warfare. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)
That they might enlarge their borders.–
Enlarging our borders
The message that comes from the old Hebrew prophet is the injunction to make our lives broader, larger, richer than they already are. Men are enlarged by travel, but the best part of that enlargement comes from intercourse with other human beings. The world of physical nature can do much to enlarge a man, but the world of human minds and hearts can do more. A man is like a planet; he is in the field of two forces, the centrifugal and the centripetal. As he grows, two methods are open to him. His idea of perfect manhood may be reached by pruning away excrescences. This is the conventional way: it produces a Chesterfield. The other is the educating of all his faculties to their full limit: this produces a Gladstone or a Browning. It exhibits many faults in a man; but it enlarges his borders, and gives magnitude and grandeur. Every one of us desires, or thinks he desires, breadth of thought, range of sympathy. Yet at our best we are never full, rounded circles. We may openly resent any imputation of narrowness, but in our hearts we must plead guilty. Let us learn to measure ourselves. How intolerant is youth of the methods of age! Let youth learn to enlarge its borders, and include the thoughts and feelings and methods of age. Every man, if he devotes himself earnestly to his lifes calling, must be, in some degree, narrowed by it. At least, he must give so much time to it that but little remains, and but little strength, for other things. This in itself is not an evil; but it frequently happens that such a man becomes wilfully narrow, and underrates or despises pursuits and faculties which are quite as high as his own. Enlarge your borders, is the command of our text. Broaden your sympathies! Extend your range of observation and understanding! Pierce through to the realities of things, and do not be deceived by externals! We all sadly need this injunction. Herein lies much of the inefficiency of our modern charitable work. The visitor and visited are not in touch, and never can be until both shall have their borders enlarged. In another field our text finds ready application. It is the field of theology, Men of broad religions views are so rare in our time, that the Sodom of our modern denominational life hardly seems worthy to be saved. There is a want of intellectual capacity to see the other side of things. There is such a radical difference in the very texture of mens minds, that the same facts, especially in art, in poetry, and in religion, will lead equally good and able men to widely different conclusions. Many are the forces which serve to enlarge our borders, as often without our consciousness as with it. Whatever opens up the minds and hearts of men to each other, whether it be joy or sorrow, is a blessing to them. The lessons which God teaches us through the varied experiences of life are, many of them, hard and bitter, but the wayward human heart needs deep probing. But the grandest enlargement of life is that which comes through the thought of God. It can enlarge your life by putting into your hand the key of love and compassion, which can open the doors of human hearts as can nothing else on this broad earth. A consciousness of God is the greatest broadening and deepening power which can come into any life. (Bradley Gilman.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER II
The prophet goes on to declare the judgments of God against
Moab, 1-3;
against Judah, 4, 5;
and then against Israel, the particular object of his mission.
He enumerates some of their sins, 6-8,
aggravated by God’s distinguishing regard to Israel, 9-12;
and they are in consequence threatened with dreadful
punishments, 13-16.
See 2Kg 15:19; 2Kg 17:6.
NOTES ON CHAP. II
Verse 1. For three transgressions of Moab and for four] See an explanation of this form Am 1:2. The land of the Moabites lay to the east of the Dead Sea. For the origin of this people, see Ge 19:37.
He burned the bones on the king of Edom into lime] Possibly referring to some brutality; such as opening the grave of one of the Idumean kings, and calcining his bones. It is supposed by some to refer to the fact mentioned 2Kg 3:26, when the kings of Judah, Israel, and Idumea, joined together to destroy Moab. The king of it, despairing to save his city, took seven hundred men, and made a desperate sortie on the quarter where the king of Edom was; and, though not successful, took prisoner the son of the king of Edom; and, on their return into the city, offered him as a burnt-offering upon the wall, so as to terrify the besieging armies, and cause them to raise the siege. Others understand the son that was sacrificed to be the king of Moab’s own son.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: in this form the prophet began, Amo 1:3, which see. Here he doth threaten a nation of some kin to Israel, &c., as was Ammon, and almost as much an enemy: they appeared early enemies to Israel, and took most wicked ways to ruin Israel; first hired Balaam to curse them, Num 22; Num 23; when this did not succeed, he next acts a vile part, and by lewd harlots draws Israel to sin, Num 25:1,2, &c., that so he might do against sinful Israel what could not be done against innocent Israel. Moab also was the second oppressor of Israel, who for their sins were delivered into the hands of Eglon king of Moab, who oppressed them eighteen years, Jdg 3:14; for which, and other hostile carriages, they are here threatened; yet their inhuman cruelty to Edoms king is only expressed, the other hostilities to Israel are implied.
He; the king of Moab; who particularly this was is not here nor elsewhere mentioned, though some say it was Mesha, and refer this to 2Ki 3:4; yet it is not very likely that this was the king who acted such cruelty.
Burned the bones; it had been barbarous to have burned the flesh and nerves of an enemy, but to make the fire so hot, and continue it so long, as to burn bones into ashes, is much more barbarous.
Of the king of Edom: this somewhat aggravates the cruelty, he was no common man, but a king, who was so used: his name, and the time when it was done, whether it were some king alive or dead, and his bones digged up, is not mentioned, but every way it was barbarous, though it were done to bones digged out of the grave, as some conjecture.
Into lime, or ashes, calcined the bones, reduced them by fire into fine dust, and (as others conjecture) used these ashes instead of lime to plaster the walls and roofs of his palace; and this was done in hatred and contempt of the king of Edom.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. burned . . . bones of . . . kingof Edom into limeWhen Jehoram of Israel, Jehoshaphat of Judah,and the king of Edom, combined against Mesha king of Moab, the latterfailing in battle to break through to the king of Edom, took theoldest son of the latter and offered him as a burnt offering on thewall (2Ki 3:27) [MICHAELIS].Thus, “king of Edom” is taken as the heir to thethrone of Edom. But “his son” is rather the king ofMoab’s own son, whom the father offered to Molech [JOSEPHUS,Antiquities, 9.3]. Thus the reference here in Amos is not tothat fact, but to the revenge which probably the king of Moab took onthe king of Edom, when the forces of Israel and Judah had retiredafter their successful campaign against Moab, leaving Edom withoutallies. The Hebrew tradition is that Moab in revenge tore from theirgrave and burned the bones of the king of Edom, the ally of Jehoramand Jehoshaphat, who was already buried. Probably the “burningof the bones” means, “he burned the king of Edom alive,reducing his very bones to lime” [MAURER].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Moab,…. Or the Moabites, who descended from the eldest son of Lot, by one of his daughters; and, though related, were great enemies to the Israelites; they sent for Balaam to curse them when on their borders, and greatly oppressed them in the times of the judges:
and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof;
[See comments on Am 1:3]. Idolatry, as well as the sin next charged, must be one of these four transgressions: the idols of Moab were Chemosh and Baalpeor; of the former [See comments on Jer 48:7]; and of the latter
[See comments on Ho 9:10];
because he burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime; either like “to lime”, or “for lime”; he burnt them thoroughly, till they came to powder as small and as white as lime, and used them instead of it to plaster the walls of his palace, by way of contempt, as the Targum; and so Jarchi and Kimchi: this is thought probable by Quinquarboreus m, for which he is blamed by Sanctius, who observes, there is no foundation for it in Scripture; and that the ashes of the bones of one man would not be sufficient to plaster a wall; and, besides, could never be brought to such a consistence as to be fit for such a purpose; yet, if it only means bare burning them, so as that they became like lime, as the colour of it, it could not be thought so very barbarous and inhuman, since it was the usage of some nations, especially the Romans, to burn their dead: no doubt something shocking is intended, and which usage to the dead is resented by the Lord. Sir Paul Rycaut n relates a piece of barbarity similar to this, that the city of Philadelphia was built with the bones of the besieged, by the prince that took it by storm. Kimchi thinks, as other interpreters also do, that it refers to the history in 2Ki 3:27; where the king of Moab is said to offer his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead for a burnt offering; which he understands, not of the king of Moab’s son, but of the king of Edom’s son, here called a king, because he was to have succeeded his father in the kingdom; but it seems rather to be the king of Moab’s own son that he offered; nor is it likely that the king of Edom’s son was in his lands; for he would have broke through into the king of Edom, but could not; and then did this rash action; not in wrath and fury, but in a religious way. The prophet here refers to some fact, notorious in those times, the truth of which is not to be questioned, though we have no other account of it in Scripture; very probably it was the same king of Moab that did it, and the same king of Edom that was so used, mentioned in the above history; the king of Moab being enraged at him for joining with the kings of Israel and Judah against him, who afterwards falling into his hands, he used him in this barbarous manner; or very likely being possessed of his country after his death, or however of his grave, he took him out of it, and burnt his bones to lime, in revenge of what he had done to him. This was a very cruel action thus to use a human body, and this not the body of a private person, but of a king; and was an act of impiety, as well as of inhumanity, to take the bones of the dead out of his grave, and burn them; and which though done to a Heathen prince. God, who is the Creator of all, and Governor of the whole world, and whose vicegerents princes are, resented; and therefore threatened the Moabites with utter destruction for it.
m Scholia in Targum in loc. n The Present State of the Greek Church, c. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Moab. – Amo 2:1. “Thus saith Jehovah: for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it has burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime, Amo 2:2. I send fire into Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab will perish in the tumult, in the war-cry, in the trumpet-blast. Amo 2:3. And I cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and all its princes do I strangle with it, saith Jehovah.” The burning of the bones of the king of Edom is not burning while he was still alive, but the burning of the corpse into lime, i.e., so completely that the bones turned into powder like lime (D. Kimchi), to cool his wrath still further upon the dead man (cf. 2Ki 23:16). This is the only thing blamed, not his having put him to death. No record has been preserved of this event in the historical books of the Old Testament; but it was no doubt connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom; so that the Jewish tradition found in Jerome, viz., that after this war the Moabites dug up the bones of the king of Edom from the grace, and heaped insults upon them by burning them to ashes, is apparently not without foundation. As Amos in the case of all the other nations has mentioned only crimes that were committed against the covenant nation, the one with which the Moabites are charged must have been in some way associated with either Israel or Judah, that is to say, it must have been committed upon a king of Edom, who was a vassal of Judah, and therefore not very long after this war, since the Edomites shook off their dependence upon Judah in less than ten years from that time (2Ki 8:20). As a punishment for this, Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and Keriyoth with its palaces to be burned down. is not an appellative noun ( , lxx), but a proper name of one of the chief cities of Moab (cf. Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41), the ruins of which have been discovered by Burckhardt ( Syr. p. 630) and Seetzen (ii. p. 342, cf. iv. p. 384) in the decayed town of Kereyat or Krrit. The application of the term to Moab is to be explained on the supposition that the nation is personified. signifies war tumult, and is explained as in Amo 1:14 by , blast of the trumpets, the signal for the assault or for the commencement of the battle. The judge with all the princes shall be cut off miqqirbah , i.e., out of the land of Moab. The feminine suffix refers to Moab as a land or kingdom, and not to Keriyoth. From the fact that the shophet is mentioned instead of the king, it has been concluded by some that Moab had no king at that time, but had only a shophet as its ruler; and they have sought to account for this on the ground that Moab was at that time subject to the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hitzig and Ewald). But there is no notice in the history of anything of the kind, and it cannot possibly be inferred from the fact that Jeroboam restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom as far as the Dead Sea (2Ki 14:25). Shophet is analogous to tomekh shebhet in Amo 1:5, and is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the , who is so called in the threat against Ammon, and simply used for the sake of variety. The threatening prophecies concerning all the nations and kingdoms mentioned from Amo 1:6 onwards were fulfilled by the Chaldeans, who conquered all these kingdoms, and carried the people themselves into captivity. For fuller remarks upon this point, see at Jeremiah 48 and Eze 25:8.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Judgment of Moab and of Judah; The Judgment of Israel. | B. C. 790. |
1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime: 2 But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet: 3 And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD. 4 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked: 5 But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. 6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; 7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: 8 And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.
Here is, I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three transgressions and for four, as those before. Now, 1. Moab’s fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the bar, was cruelty. The instance given refers not to the people of God, but to a heathen like themselves: The king of Moab burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime. We find there was war between the Edomites and the Moabites, in which the king of Moab, in distress and rage, offered his own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity, 2Ki 3:26; 2Ki 3:27. And it should seem that afterwards he, or some of his successors, in revenge upon the Edomites for bringing him to that extremity, having an advantage against the king of Edom, seized him alive and burnt him to ashes, or slew him and burnt his body, or dug up the bones of their dead king, of that particularly who had so straitened him, and, in token of his rage and fury, burnt them to lime. and perhaps made use of the powder of his bones for the white-washing of the walls and ceilings of his palace, that he might please himself with the sight of that monument of his revenge. Est vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa–Revenge is sweeter than life itself. It is barbarous to abuse human bodies, for we ourselves also are in the body; it is senseless to abuse dead bodies, nay, it is impious, for we believe and look for their resurrection; and to abuse the dead bodies of kings (whose persons and names ought to be in a particular manner respected and had in veneration) is an affront to majesty; it is an argument of a base spirit for those to trample upon a dead lion who, were he alive, would tremble before him. 2. Moab’s doom for this transgression is, (1.) A judgment of death. Those that deal cruelly shall be cruelly dealt with (v. 2): Moab shall die; the Moabites shall be cut off with the sword of war, which kills with tumult, with shouting, and with sound of trumpet, circumstances that make it so much the more terrible, as the lion’s roaring aggravates his tearing. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, Isa. ix. 5. (2.) It is a judgment upon their judge, who had passed the sentence upon the bones of the king of Edom that they should be burnt to lime: I will cut him off, says God (v. 3); he shall know there is a judge that is higher than he. The king, the chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall not escape, Jer. xlviii. 47. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.
II. Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and therefore, now that justice is riding the circuit, that shall not be passed by; that nation has made itself like the heathen and mingled with them, and therefore the indictment here runs against them in the same form in which it had run against all the rest: For these transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; their sins are as many as the sins of other nations, and we find them huddled up with them in the same character, Jer. ix. 26, “As for Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, jumble them together; they are all alike;” the sentence here also is the same (v. 5): “I will send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where God is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, though it is the holy city, and God has formerly been known in its palaces for a refuge,” Ps. xlviii. 3. But the sin here charged upon Judah is different from all the rest. The other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men, but Judah is reckoned with for indignities done to God, v. 4. 1. They put contempt upon his statutes and persisted in disobedience to them: They have despised the law of the Lord, as if it were not worth taking notice of, nor had any thing in it valuable; and herein they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as the authority and sovereignty, of the Lawmaker; this they did, in effect, when they kept not his commandments, made no conscience of them, took no care about them. 2. They put honour upon his rivals, their idols, here called their lies which caused them to err; for an image is a teacher of lies, Hab. ii. 18. And those that are led away into the error of idolatry are by that led into a multitude of other errors, Uno dato absurdo mille sequuntur–One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an infinite eternal Spirit; but, when the truth of God is by idolatry changed into a lie, all his other truths are in danger of being so changed likewise; thus their idols caused them to err, and God justly gave them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse for their sin that they were lies after which their father walked, for they should rather have taken warning than taken pattern by those that perished with these lies in their right hand.
III. We now at length come to the words which Amos saw concerning Israel. The reproofs and threatenings having walked the round, here they centre, here they settle. He begins with them as with the rest: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; it all these nations must be punished for their iniquities, shall Israel go unpunished? Observe here what their sins were, for which God would reckon with them. 1. Perverting justice. This was the sin of those who were entrusted with the administration of justice, the judges and magistrates, and all parties concerned. They made nothing of selling a righteous man, and his righteous cause when it came to be tried before them, for a piece of silver; sentence was passed, not according to the merits of the cause, but the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment was set to sale by auction to the highest bidder. They would sell the life and livelihood of a poor man for a pair of shoes, for the least advantage to themselves that could be proposed to them; give them but a pair of shoes, and the cause of a poor man, who could not give them as much as that, should be betrayed, and left at the mercy of those that will have no mercy. They will rather play at small game that sit out. For a piece of bread such a man will transgress. Note, Those who will wrong their consciences for any thing will come at length to do it for next to nothing; those who begin to sell justice for silver will in time be so sordid as to see it for a pair of shoes, for a pair of old shoes. 2. Oppressing the poor, and seeking to benefit themselves by doing them a mischief: They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; they swallow up the poor with the utmost greediness, and make a prey of those that are in sorrow with dust on their heads, poor orphans that are in mourning for their parents; they catch at them to get their estates into their hands; they never rest till they have got the heads of the poor in the dust, to be trodden on. Or, They pant after the dust of the earth, that is, silver and gold, white and yellow dust; they covet it earnestly, and levy it upon the head of the poor by their unjust exactions. Note, Men’s seeking to enrich themselves by the impoverishing of others is a transgression which God will not long turn away the punishment of. This is turning aside the way of the meek, contriving to do injury to those who, they know, are mild and patient and will bear injury. They invade their rights, break their measures, and obstruct the course of justice in favour of them, not suffering them to go on with their righteous cause; this is turning aside their way. Note, The more patiently men bear injuries that are done them the greater is the sin of those that injure them, and the more occasion they have to expect that God will give them redress, and take vengeance for them. I, as a deaf man, heard not, and then thou wilt hear. 3. Abominable uncleanness, even incest itself, such as it not named among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father’s wife (1 Cor. v. 1), his father’s concubine: A man and his father will go in unto the same young woman, as black an instance as any other of an unbounded promiscuous lust; and yet where the former iniquities of oppression and extortion are this also is found; for laws of modesty seldom hold those that have broken the bands of justice and cast away its cords from them. This wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the profession of it, that those who are guilty of it are looked upon as designing thereby to profane God’s holy name, and to render it odious among the heathen, as if he countenanced the villainies which those who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and were altogether such a one as they. 4. Regaling themselves and yet pretending to honour their God with that which they had got by oppression and extortion, v. 8. They add idolatry to their injustice, and then think to atone for their injustice with their idolatry. (1.) They make merry with that which they have unjustly squeezed from the poor. They lay themselves down at ease, and in state, and stretch themselves upon clothes laid to pledge, which they ought to have restored the same night, according to the law, Deu 24:12; Deu 24:13. And they drink the wine of the condemned, of such as they have fined and laid heavy mulcts upon, spending that in sensuality which they have got by injustice. (2.) They think to make atonement for this by feasting on the gains of oppression before their altars, and drinking this wine in the house of their God, in the temples where they worshipped their calves, as if they would make God a partner in their crimes by making him a partner of the profits of them–service good enough for false gods; but the true God will not thus be mocked; he has declared that he hates robbery for burnt-offerings, and cannot be served acceptably but with that which is got honestly.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
AMOS – CHAPTER 2
JUDGMENTS ON HEATHEN NATIONS (Cont.)
Verses 1-3:
Verse 1 describes: certain indictments of wrong and pending judgment upon Moab. Like the Ammonites, the Moabites were an offspring nation from Moab, the incest son of Lot. Verse 1 pronounces a special judgment on the Moabites because they had burned the bones of the king of Edom, the heir-apparent to the throne, considered a revengeful act of cruelty, and an act of insult to the people of Edom. It is not known why, but believed it may have been because he had joined alliance with Jehoshaphat and Jehoram.
Verse 2 warns that fire shall be sent upon Moab to destroy the palaces (estates) of Kirioth, the chief city of Moab, called also KirMoab, Isa 15:1, as Moab dies with a tumult (uproar) shouting, and the sound of the trumpet of warfare, retreat, death, and defeat, Jer 48:24; Jer 48:41. It was later the home of Judas Iscariot.
Verse 3 describes the cutting off of the judge of Moab, and the slaying of all the princes, the civil rulers associated with him in all the land; Judges were their supreme magistrates, as indicated in the Law, Deu 27:9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Now Amos prophesies here against the Moabites, and proclaims respecting them what we have noticed respecting the other nations, — that the Moabites were wholly perverse, that no repentance would be hoped for, as they had added crimes to crimes, and reached the highest pitch of wickedness; for, as we have said, the number, seven, imports this. The Prophet then charges the Moabites here with perverseness: and hence we learn that God’s vengeance did not come hastily upon them, for their wickedness was intolerable since they thus followed their crimes. But he mentions one thing in particular, — that they had burnt the bones of the king of Edom.
Some take bones here for courage, as though the Prophet had said, that the whole strength of Edom had been reduced into ashes: but this is a strained exposition; and its authors themselves confess that they are forced to it by necessity, when yet there is none. The comment given by the Rabbis does not please them, — that the body of a certain king had been burnt, and then that the Moabites had strangely applied the ashes for making a cement instead of lime. Thus the Rabbis trifle in their usual way; for when an obscure place occurs, they immediately invent some fable; though there be no history, yet they exercise their wit in fabulous glosses; and this I wholly dislike: but what need there is of running to allegory, when we may simply take what the Prophet says, that the body of the king of Edom had been burnt: for the Prophet, I doubt not, charges the Moabites with barbarous cruelty. To dig up the bodies of enemies, and to burn their bones, — this is an inhuman deed, and wholly barbarous. But it was more detestable in the Moabites, who had some connection with the people of Edom; for they descended from the same family; and the memory of that relationship ought to have continued, since Abraham brought up Lot, the father of the Moabites; and thus the Moabites were under an obligation to the Idumeans. If then any humanity existed in them, they ought to have restrained their passions, so as not to treat so cruelly their brethren. Now, when they exceeded all moderation in war, and raged against dead bodies, and burnt the bones of the dead, it was, as I have said, an extremely barbarous conduct. The meaning then is, that the Moabites could no longer be borne with; for in this one instance, they gave an example of savage cruelty. Had there been a drop of humanity in them, they would have treated more kindly their brethren, the Idumeans; but they burnt into lime, that is, into ashes, the bones of the king of Edom, and thereby proved that they had forgotten all humanity and justice. We now understand the Prophet’s meaning.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
AMOSOR HEATHENISMANCIENT AND MODERN
Amo 1:1 to Amo 9:15
THE opening sentences of this Book give us briefly, and yet somewhat fully, the history of the Prophet whose name it wears. He belonged to the herdmen of Tekoa, and prophesied in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah, and Jeroboam, Son of Joash, sat upon the throne of Israel, and two years before the earthquake.
There are few Prophets the date of whose living is so definitely fixed. It is known that Uzziah and Jeroboam were contemporary kings in the period 809 to 784 B. C. It is certain, therefore, that sometime in these twenty-five seasons, Amos spoke. Some have thought to fix it accurately by referring to the history of this earthquake, which was one of the most terrible visitations the country had ever known of its kind. Josephus assigned, as the immediate occasion of this earthquake, the act of pride on the part of Uzziah in offering incense, for which God smote him with leprosy, and says, Meanwhile a great earthquake shook the ground and the Temple parting, a bright ray of the sun shone forth and fell upon the kings face, so that forthwith the leprosy came over him. And above the city, at the place called Eroge, the western half of a hill was broken off and rolled half a mile to the mountain Eastward, and there stayed, blocking up the ways, and the kings garden.
But it ought to be said, in all candor, that those people who swear by Josephus, but doubt the inspiration of the biblical writers, have poor occasion for their conduct. This ancient Jewish historian is so often writing down legend, tradition, and even his own imagination, for history, that one dare not receive his statement concerning this earthquake as authentic, and the very year of Amos writing remains undetermined.
The place of his residence is put past dispute, however. It was at Tekoa, a little village twelve to fourteen miles from Jerusalem, and six miles south of old Bethlehem, the very one whence Joab brought the wise woman to intercede for Absalom, and which the king Rehoboam made a fortified town.
His humble station was also affirmed; not even the owner of sheep, but a hireling, who as opportunity offered, followed the herds; and when there was no employment in that avocation, turned to the gathering and selling of sycamore fruit or figs.
The most of the Old Testament Prophets are the sons of honored fathers, descendants from famed families; but already God is beginning to manifest forth the fact, which finds so many illustrations in New Testament teachers, namely,
How that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in His presence? (1Co 1:27-29).
But in keeping with the humble station of this man, and his equally humble estimate of self, he spent only a single verse upon his personal history,
as if the man were of little moment; while Gods message to the people was the subject of supreme concern.
With what a sentence did he smite the ears of his auditorsThe Lord will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.
It is not difficult to imagine him a successful street preacher, for these words were doubtless uttered in the alley-like avenues of Jerusalem. When he had finished that first sentence, every Jew within hearing of it would be riveted in attention, and ready to give eager ear to all that followed. It is interesting now to note, either the consummate genius of the speaker, or else Gods evident inspiration for both arrangement and expression of his thought.
It seems to me that this Book, upon close study, falls naturally into four parts and considered as a sermon or discourse, is ideal in its arrangement.
The first of these divisions has to do with
THE PROPHETS NEIGHBORS
Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:3
From Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:3 Amos speaks solely concerning the heathen round about. He denounces Damascus; he condemns Gaza; he excoriates Tyrus; he reproves Edom, he censures Ammon; and delivers sentence against Moab. What an introduction for a street discourse in Jerusalem! Every Jewish auditor would be delighted, for these were their hated enemies, and to have a man whose very mien and tongue told of his Divine appointment to the order of Prophet, utter such excoriations, would arouse the smouldering hatred which the Jews held against these into a flame of enthusiasm for the man speaking such words.
Now, before passing from this subject, let us see some essential truths suggested in these sentences.
First of all, The Prophets ministry is predetermined. His speech was no trick of the elocutionist to catch his auditors by condemning their enemies. Amos disclaims all originality and responsibility for these words, introducing his deliverance by the sentence, Thus saith the Lord. There are people who seem to entertain an impression that a prophet has no right to interfere in any affairs of another, and no occasion to condemn even the bad doings of his neighbors. It is not unusual to hear it said, You belong in the Church; and at the most your ministry should spend itself within the circle of her membership. You may have a right to instruct her youth, and even admonish her adults, but what have you to do with others? Those politicians who live and move in another realm; those science Professors who instruct Truth in skepticism, those liquor sellers who lure you to debauch, that realm of commerce, created for barter, not to speak of other confessedly unchristian circleswhat business have you with them?
They recognize no allegiance to your views, no obligation to your opinions; they regard your speech, concerning their conduct, a presumption. Why, therefore, persist in taking upon yourself a service which is despised by the very ones of whom you speak?
Amos answer to all of this is sufficient! Thus saith the Lord.
That is the answer of every true prophet. He is not spying out his neighbors sins, and speaking against them because the sermon brings him either pleasure or profit, but because God has said,
Preach the Word; he instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
* * But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the Truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry? (2Ti 4:2-5).
Only a few years ago some nominal Christians all over this country were voicing a certain amount of sympathy with the Boxer movement; and taking their cue from the cry of these murderers Down with the foreign devils, asked, What right have we to force our views upon these people when they do not want them?a question which can be answered in two sentences. Christians never force their views upon any, only preach them; and their warrant for doing that is in His Word. He who created China and has never signed a quitclaim to His right in that land and that people, namely, Jesus Himself, says, Go ye therefore, and teach ail nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Gods Prophets who call the Chinese to repentance, are there, commissioned of God Himself. Who will object to His conduct? Shall the creature take issue with the Creator?
The Prophets message also is God-given. When Amos uttered these words concerning Damascus, and Gaza, and Tyrus, and Edom, and Ammon, and Moab, he was not speaking of himself, But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael and I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus and I will send a fire upon Teman, etc., etc. Such would have been utterly meaningless had it originated at the mouth of the Prophet.
There are many people who object to Gods fire, kindled against His enemies, consuming the wicked. But let us not quarrel with Gods Prophet. This blaze was not born of his breath. When the minister reads from Revelation, The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death, dont quarrel with John for the speech. Like Amos of old, his authority for the utterance is in the sentence Thus saith the Lord.
When Hugh Latimer, one New Years day, went along with the bishop and nobles, who were carrying their presents to the king, with a Bible in his hand, and presented that as His gift, and the king opening it read, Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge he was angry with Latimer; and, Herrick says, It is a wonder that bluff and fiery King Hall did not take off Hughs head.
Possibly the reason is found in the fact that even that fiery king knew that these were not Latimers words, and whatever quarrel he had was with God. The man who delivers Gods message is not to be blamed; and the man who does not present it is not Gods Prophet! How shall they preach except they be sent?
When Moses was called to be a Prophet for God he poorly apprehended the Prophets part. His answer was O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord answered him, Who hath made mans mouth * * Go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. The man, who, like Amos, gets his message from God is Gods minister.
This Prophets judgment represents Divine justice. When he says For three transgressions, and for four, of Damascus, Gaza, Tyrus, Edom, Ammon, Moab, I will send a fire, there is absolute justice in the sentence declared. Damascus must suffer because they have Threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; Gaza because they have carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom; Tyrus, for participating in the same, and forgetting the brotherly covenant; Edom because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever; Ammon because he ripped up the women with child * * that they might enlarge their border: and Moab because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Men did not object when houses, infected with the black plague, were burned. There are some infections that can only be consumed in the flame. And there are some sins which can never be removed away save by the fire of Divine judgment; and that judgment always represents Divine justice also.
Not a few people have spoken to me concerning a sermon once delivered by my colleague, Dr. Frost, expressing their gratitude in that he made it clear that the innocent were never punished on account of the guilty; and that the guilty never suffered above their deserts; and that judgment was always tempered with mercy.
I confess to surprise that these things should strike any as new truths; they are as old as Revelation itself. Aye, they are inseparable from the very character of God.
John Watson, in his Mind of the Master tells us that what has filled many honorable minds with resentment and rebellion is not the fact of separation, but the principle of execution; not the dislike of an assortment, but the fear that it will not be into good and bad. And he continues, But Jesus rested judgment on the firm foundation of what each man is in the sight of the Eternal. He anticipated no protest in His parables against the justice of this evidence; none has ever been made from any quarter. The wheat is gathered into the garner. What else could one do with wheat? The tares are burned in the fire. What else could one do with tares? When the net comes to the shore, the good fish are gathered into vessels; no one would throw them away. The bad are cast aside; no one would leave them to contaminate the good. The supercilious guests who did not value the great supper were left severely alone. If men do not care for Heaven, they will not be forced into it. The outcasts, who had never dared to dream of such a supper, were compelled to come. If men hunger for the best, the best shall be theirs.
That is the truth of Gods judgment everywhere. And when He consumed these nations with the besom of destruction it was only because to continue them would be to condone sin by reproducing sinners, and stain the earth, calling into question His own wisdom by letting iniquity go unpunished. Say what you will of these judgments, you must commend their justice. Who art thou that repliest against God?
But from the Prophets neighbors we turn to
THE PROPHETS NATIONS
Amo 2:4 to Amo 6:14
To be sure Amos belonged by birth to Judah, but both these nations were his, by kinship, and by Divine appointment of Prophet to them. He came out of Judah, but he spake to Judah and to Israel. What a change must have come over the audience when this man, with eloquent speech, flaming with the evident enthusiasm of a Divine commission, turned suddenly from his denouncement of neighbors, to a kindred condemnation of the favored nations.
For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the Law of the Lord, and have not kept His Commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes (Amo 2:4-6).
Heathenism is not all with the heathen. You read the words of this Prophet from Amo 2:4 to Amo 6:14 and you will find the elect backsliders, and indulging in the abominations of their neighbors. It is a phrase employed too often, I fear, by those unwilling to go, or through their gold and silver to send, Why be interested in the heathen or foreign lands when there are so many heathen at home?
Such speak better than they desire. The heathen are at home; aye, the heathen, here, were the very company who called themselves saints. And this Prophets descriptions are not ancient; they are up to date!
No single discourse upon which my hand has fallen has been comparable in clearness of expression, and vigor of thought, to one, once delivered by my late loved friend, Dr. John O. Rust, on The New Heathenism, and printed in the Presbyterian Quarterly, October, 1902, and reprinted in pamphlet form by Whittet and Shepperson, of Richmond, Va. Rusts opening sentence is, We are prone to think that we have left heathenism far behind us in the centuries of the past; or that it is banished from our shores to hide its shame in the remote and darkened corners of the earth; and one is almost stung into a feeling of resentment when the charge is made that there is a lively revival of heathenism at our very doors, here in enlightened America, in this blessed day of grace.
Then Rust continues to show that commercialism has carried many a so-called Christian into heathen practices. The poet has written:
It is success that colors all in life;Success makes fools admired, makes villains honest;All the proud virtues of this vaunting world Fawns on success and power, howeer acquired.
Rust thinks stheticism also has been chosen as a term with which to clothe our cultured heathenism. He says, When the people get rich suddenly they wish to acquire culture quickly. The consequence is that elegant ladies and gentlemen, strong in the languor of luxury, lounge in dainty drawing-rooms, and cultivate an Attic difference to virtue, and a Roman contempt for enthusiasm of robust manhood.
Occultism has, within the last ten years, enjoyed a ridiculous revival. Teachers whose chief qualifications are long hair and soiled linen, profess an acquaintance with the mysteries of philosophy which would appall the real learning of the world. Hypnotists reveal the deep secrets of psychology on a months tuition which has been hidden from the wisdom of the world for ages. And the amazing thing about it is that thousands of people listen to the babble of these fellows who will not heed the oracles of God. A certain statistician has computed that there has been an increase of 300 per cent in fools in this country in the last fifty years, and one is half inclined to believe the estimate.
Socialism represents an extreme reaction against the proud, arrogant and esoteric tendencies, and by its very consciousness of wrong, it is attempting to get its rights by an attack upon all society.
Now I confess it was most interesting to me to take that address of Rusts, and compare his words with those of the Prophet Amos. Commercialism cursed Gods people in the times of Amos also, and they were called to judgment because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.
stheticism found then the same sensual expression which it is receiving today, They [stretched] themselves upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar. They [drank] the wine of the condemned in the house of their god. By their increased riches, through the oppression of the poor, they bought unto themselves beds of ivory, and stretched themselves upon their couches, and ate the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, and chanted to the sound of the viol, and invented to themselves instruments of music, defaming David, by saying they were the same as his; and setting aside the little glasses, emptied great bowls of wine.
And, by anointing themselves with the chief ointment imagined that they were a sweet incense to God, forgetting to grieve for the affliction of Joseph, until the drunkards of Ephraim came to be a byword in the streets of Jerusalem.
As to Occultism, they turned from the worship of the True God to such false shrines and sorcerers that a temple to Asherah was restored in Samaria; the gold and silver images to Baal were set up; the smoke of sacrifice to idols could be seen upon their mountain tops, and incense smelt in the shade of every grove until the word was Gilead was given to idols. They transgressed at Bethel, and multiplied transgressions at Gilgal.
And then the socialism that always attends oppression! Selfish and sensual living stirred in the breasts of the unsuccessful, and made it easy to bring against their divided forces nations that should afflict them from the entering of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness.
Beloved, what greater danger to the land in which we live than these same, before which the ancient people of God sadly fell? Is not the Church itself threatened by commercialism in which, as Rust puts it, The evangelist has become the finangelist? The denominations which twenty-five years ago existed on a creedal basis, today continue on a commercial basis. Are not our missionary treasuries pauper-stricken too often because even the people who wear the Name of God, have learned to love palatial residences, and expend upon person and pleasure the whole of their income. And, are not many being brought to the bar of judgment and condemned with the charge having been substantiated against them, by the Lord God Himself, In tithes and offerings ye have robbed Me?
Let us see another thing to be inferred from the language of the Prophet Amos. Sonship does not insure against chastisement. The true father may witness the most evil deeds upon the part of his neighbors child without speaking a word of correction, or claiming the right of chastisement. But not so when his own children go into sin. His very love of them compels their correction; while his past favors give him that paternal prerogative, God makes that the basis of Israels chastisement. He reminds the Children of Israel that He alone had brought them up from Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
It is an Old Testament illustration of the New Testament assertion, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. For those who have been the recipients of Divine favor in our day, the poets sentences speak this same truth.
But if your ears refuse The language of His grace,Your hearts grow hard, like stubborn Jews,That unbelieving race.
The Lord with vengeance drest,Shall lift His hand and swear,You that despised My promised restShall have no portion there.
Beastly conduct necessitates bitter correction. Sometime when you have looked upon people whose moral filth and sensual living was such that your whole nature reacted from the sight, you have been tempted to adopt the language of the street and call them cattle. Perhaps you did not know that it was also the language of Scripture, and that it is possible for men to go so deeply into sin that God looks upon their condition as that of a beast in an unclean stall.
To these ancient Israelites He said,
Hear this Word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.
The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that He will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord (Amo 4:1-3).
These are rude words of the Prophet; but let us remember that they were not his words, but Gods instead. It is an awful thing for one to come to that moral condition where his conduct reminds God of the cattle of the field!
Such a condition cannot be covered over by feasts, offerings and ceremonies. It is in vain for such to come to Bethel, which means the House of God, and to Gilgal to bring sacrifice every morning, and tithes after three years, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish a free offering. As Joseph Parker says, There is one thing wanting in all that elegant program, and for want of that one thing the whole arrangement dies in the air like a gilded bubble. What is omitted from this rehearsal? The sin offering, the trespass offering. They will come with sacrifices every morning as donor to God; they will come with service and sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven; they will throw money into the treasury, and announce the sum in plain figures. But where is penitence? Where is contrition? Where is heart-wringing? Where is the tearing conscience, the presence of tormenting agony in the innermost life? Most worship is partial; many will have a little partial religion. Some attention has to be paid to custom, to the habit, wont, and use of life; some mean coin must at least be thrown into the treasury, and thrown in with some ostentation; hymns must be sung, and fault must be found with the music, and judgment must be pronounced upon the rabbi, the priest, the teacher for the time being, and for a certain period there must be an odor of sanctity about what we say and do. All this trickery is possible; but it never reaches the Heaven of God. And God only answers it all by saying,
Seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba * *.
Seek the Lord, and ye shall live * *.
Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His Name (Amo 5:5-6; Amo 5:8).
But to pass on in our study of this Book, we come upon
THE PROPHETS OPPONENTS
Amo 7:1 to Amo 9:10
It would be a marvel indeed if such a man as this went on without opposition. They beheaded Paul; they killed James, the Just; they crucified Jesus, and Amos reveals no spirit of compromise. How then can he hope to pass on in peace?
The Prophet cannot escape the opponent. There is an Amaziah for every Amos. He will send to Jeroboam, the king, saying,
Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the House of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.
For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land (Amo 7:10-11).
It is not pleasant to be pricked by the truth; to be irritated by an inspired word; to feel the lash upon the conscience, quickened by Sacred Scripture; and men always have opposed it, and they always will.
Perhaps in modern times we have had no more faithful minister of the Gospel than was Charles Spurgeon. But he had to learn how to be slandered, he says, in order that he might be made useful to God. His statement is, Down on my knees I have often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; till at last I learned the art of bearing all and caring for none. * * If to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughing-stock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to His cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give.
That was exactly Amos answer when told to prophesy no more at Beth-el, since it was the kings chapel, and the kings court. He replied, confessing his humble estimate of himself,
I was no Prophet, neither was I a Prophets son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit:
And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord send unto me, Go, prophesy unto My people Israel.
Now therefore hear thou the Word of the Lord.
It is the only answer one needs to make to his opponent; and it is the only answer one can make that carries with it any assurance of success. Do you remember that when David, the lad, after being scoffed by his elder brother, and scorned by Goliath, the giant, said to that Philistine, Thou contest to me with a sword, and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of Hosts. Oh, beloved, whoever our opponents are, and whatever our opposition, that is the only Name in which we can stand; and that Name is sufficient!
Speaking in that Name we cannot be silenced by secular powers. Amaziah, in his inability to meet Amos single-handed, tried the trick of the pious politician, namely, arraying the secular powers against this servant of the Lord. It is an old trick; it was done in the days of Elisha; and repeated in the days of the Son of Man. He was charged with opposition to Caesar; as were His Apostles with rebellion against the civil government. It is most amazing how patriotic some men become, once the preaching of the truth reveals their personal sins, and those which they have in common with so-called statesmen, at one and the same time.
They are not welcomed by the fallen, and sometimes are most bitterly opposed by men who have proclaimed themselves children of the King. Be it remembered, however, that the same Amaziahs who rise to charge Gods Prophets with treason will be compelled to listen, eventually, to the Divine sentence of the Lord,
Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the House of Isaac.
Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land (Amo 7:16-17).
And yetThe Christians courage will accord with the Divine commission. Amos only needs to answer, The Lord took me as I followed the flock, and * * said unto me, Go, prophesy unto My people Israel. When you have spoken in the language of Scripture, and are conscious that your purpose was to help and not hinder; to reform and not deform; to convert and not divert, then fear will flee away, and like Peter and the other Apostles of Jesus, you can answer the command of silence, We ought to obey God rather than man, and We are His witnesses of these things.
S. E. Herrick, speaking of Savonarola, in the times when all Florence was ablaze, having been basely betrayed by their ruler, says that Savonarola remained the one calm spirit, and assigns as the reason, He is the man who dwells unmoved in (The secret place of the Most High, and under the shadow of the Almighty
Every man ought to dwell there who is consciously seeking the glory of God, and faithfully presenting the Truth of God. Paul seems to have entertained that opinion of the whole Christian life, when he wrote the Ephesians,
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with Truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace;
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked (Eph 6:10-16).
This Book concludes with the
PROPHETS PREDICTION
Amo 9:11-15
I want to make that also the conclusion of this chapter. This prediction is brief, but how blessed!
In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My Name, saith the Lord that doeth this.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
And I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amo 9:11-15).
Take the three points of this prediction and delight thyself in them.
The restitution of the House of David is pledged.
That day will I raise up the Tabernacle.
That promise is found in a hundred forms in this Old Testament, and was made the occasion of James appeal to missionary endeavor, when, at the council of Jerusalem, he stood before the people saying,
Men and brethren, hearken unto me:
Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name.
And to this agree the Words of the Prophets; as it is written,
After this I will return, and will build again the Tabernacle of David, which is fallen dawn.
Simeon did not see that Tabernacle rebuilt; James was not privileged to witness it; nor have we; and yet the Word of the Lord will not fail. The House of David is yet to be exalted in the earth.
Dr. Gordon tells us, There is a fragment of Jewish legend that has floated down to us, which represents two venerable rabbis as musing among the ruins of Jerusalem after its destruction. One is giving way to unrestrained lamentation, saying, Alas! alas! this is the end of all. Our beautiful city is no more; our Temple is laid waste, our brethren are driven away into captivity. The other, with greater cheerfulness, replies: True; but let us learn from the verity of Gods judgments, which we behold about us, the certainty of His mercies. He hath said, I will destroy Jerusalem, and we see that He hath done it. But hath He not also said, I will rebuild Jerusalem, and shall we not believe Him? The latter rabbi was right! The same God who, by His might, said to His people, I will sift the House of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; and speedily fulfilled the threat, also declared of one day in the future, In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen. He will fulfil His promise. And I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My Name, saith the Lord that doeth this (Amo 9:11-12).
There is your pledge of the gathering out of the Gentiles. The heathen which are called by Gods Name. Isaiah had long ago said, The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Jesus once reminded the multitudes of the promises of God concerning His SonIn His Name shall the Gentiles trust. But more explicit still is that other statement of His concerning the destiny of JerusalemJerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Beloved, this is your age and mine; the period in which we who were aliens, by nature, are being grafted into the True Vine. Arthur T. Pierson has at some time expressed the thought that he never succeeds in winning a soul to the Saviour without entertaining the hope that this may be the last man needful to the filling up of the time of the Gentiles. But, oh, how such a suggestion ought to stir apprehension in the breasts of all Gentile-unbelievers, lest we approach the day of the Lord, and the time of our opportunity will be past!
Finally:The Prophet also predicts the return of the Jews to their own land.
I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amo 9:14-15).
My brethren sometimes ask whether I see what appears clear evidences of the signs of the times; and if I do, there is something marvelous in this Zionist movement. Only a short time ago a clipping from your own paper here says that in the city of Milwaukee alone thousands of Jews have given their most ardent support to this Zionist movement to buy back again their own land, and make it the place of refuge to their persecuted people. So the movement has enlisted the Jews of St. Paul and Minneapolis. They do not see the significance of such a barter, but who knows but God is already beginning to fulfil literally those promises of His Word,
Surely the isles shall wait for Me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far * *.
And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in My wrath I smote thee, but in My favour have I had mercy on thee (Isa 60:9-10).
And again,
I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion (Jer 3:14).
The first-fruits of that final restoration which is fully pledged, and made emphatic by a hundred repetitions, and when, according to Jeremiah, God will gather the remnant of His scattered flock out of all countries into which He has driven them, and bring them again into their fold. And they shall be fruitful and increase, for in those days He will raise up unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and justice in the earth (Jer 23:3; Jer 23:5).
O then that I
Might live, and see the olive bear
Her proper branches, which now lie
Scattered each where,
And without root and sap decay,
Cast by the husbandman away,
And sure it is not far!
For surely He
Who loved the world so as to give
His only Son to make us free,
Whose Spirit, too, doth mourn and grieve
To see man lost, will, for old love,
From your dark hearts this veil remove.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.] Bones] An act of cruelty revenged; others, an insult to the remains of a dead king, probably the king joined in alliance with Jehoshaphat and Jehoram (2Ki. 3:9).
Amo. 2:2. Kir.] A principal city of Moab, the plural form indicates the acropolis and town (cf. Jer. 48:24; Jer. 48:41). Tumult] These expressions describe the city taken by storm. Trumpet] The signal for assault.
Amo. 2:3. Judge] Supreme magistrate (Deu. 17:9).
Amo. 2:4. Judah] condemned for idolatry and despising the law, i.e. the instructions and revelations given by God to his people. Command.] Separate precepts. Lies] Their idols, which not only deceive, but as fabrications and nonentities, having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them [Keil]. Fathers] Forefathers generally.
HOMILETICS
THE JUDGMENT ON MOAB.Amo. 2:1-3
I. The punishment of Moab. Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and its palaces to be destroyed.
1. A tumultuous destruction. Moab shall die with tumult. The sound of the trumpet would stir up the assailants. Noise and commotion would be heard in the streets, and as they had raised tumults themselves so they would perish by tumults. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise.
2. An entire destruction. God will cut off its rulers. The chief magistrate, the princes and the rulers of all ranks, shall be taken. Those who are high in rank and authority are bound to do justice to the people. Judges should learn that there is one above them, from whose judgment they cannot escape.
II. The reason of this punishment. Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. The king of Moab, either when he sought to avenge himself on Edom (after the raising of the siege, 2Ki. 3:27), or at some other time, let out his fury on the very dead. The malice which vents itself on the insensible corpse is the vindictive rage of one, that would never cease to hurt if possible. Hatred which death cannot extinguish, says Pusey, is the beginning of the eternal hate of hell. To rage against the living, or to express malignant spite against the remains of the dead, is odious to God. He is Lord of the living and the dead. His dominion and providence extend beyond the grave, and he will avenge insults to heathen or Christian.
THE JUDGMENT ON JUDAH.Amo. 2:4-5
I. The charge against Judah. The guilt here is not as in other cases. Other nations were judged for injuries done to man; but Judah for insults to God. They despised the law, deceived themselves and one another with false excuses and the customs of progenitors. Disregard to God is manifested in two chief forms.
1. Contempt for the law of God. They have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments. The law as a rule of life and the commandments in their special bearing were treated with contempt. The wisdom of God was despised by the pride of man. They first neglected, then set aside, the law. If men have no regard for the law, and make no conscience of its authority, they will soon resist it. If we do not keep we virtually despise Gods law.
2. Worship of idols. Man will either worship God or love a lie. If he tries to explain away the claims of God and to justify his sins, he will err by his lies and soon lose power to discriminate between good and evil. (a) Idolatry is a lie. The idols themselves are lies. They can do nothing, but lie and deceive. For an idol is nothing in the world (1Co. 8:4). The pretences under which men worship them are lies; snares to mislead and cause to err. (b) Lies lead men astray. Their lies caused them to err. Gods law is the truth, but when the truth is changed into a lie, there is danger of sin becoming hereditary. The word points the way to temporal and eternal safety; but if despised, men wander into darkness and idolatry. (c) Lies are sometimes defended by custom. After the which their fathers have walked. Men get accustomed to evils that are common. These evils acquire prominence and authority. The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. Human opinion is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as Gods truth. The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, and does not excuse it. Thus children walk in the steps and fill up the measure of the guilt of their fathers. Human opinion must not be exalted above Gods word. Scripture, and Scripture alone, is the law of truth, and the rule of life. False doctrines, delusive rites and idolatries, violate the word of God, perpetuate human tradition in the Church, and cause one generation after another to err from the truth.
II. The calamities upon Judah. In few words and little detail, the destruction by fire is said to extend not only to the cities of Judah, but to the palaces of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was burnt with fire by the Chaldans (2Ki. 25:9; 2Ch. 36:19), and afterwards by the Romans. Two centuries elapsed before the first fire destroyed the city, but God sent it. Let us beware of treating the word with contempt, of thinking because long delayed the judgment will never come. Gods anger will consume dead members in the Church, and purify it from all idolatry and abominations. Then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
1. A visible Church which does not keep up communion with God, nor improve her spiritual advantages, may fall into provocations nothing inferior in number and heinousness to the iniquities of nations about her.
2. And if God does not spare heathens without law and with but little knowledge of God, far less will he spare his people who are lewd as they [Hutcheson]. Man first in act despises Gods law (and whoso does not keep it, despises it), and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his god. He first chooses wilfully his own lie, i.e. whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own lie deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves [Pusey].
Judgments of God compared to fire.
1. Fire consumes (Psa. 18:8; Jer. 15:14).
2. Fire breaks out suddenly. The destruction of these cities is certain and inevitable.
3. Fire is violent. Sodom and the great fire in London.
4. Fire refines. The judgments of God are intended to try men, to purify churches and nations. The Lords fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9; Zec. 13:9).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Amo. 2:1-3. Bones burned. The wickedness appears to have consisted in a wanton violation of the sanctity of the tomb, by the disinterment and burning of the royal remains. It was indicative of an enmity which was not satisfied with inflicting every possible injury upon its victim while living, but pursued him even into the regions of the dead. To exhume, burn, and disperse the bones of the dead, has often been adopted as a way of showing indignity. The bones of Wycliffe were disinterred and burnt, and Cromwells remains were most indignantly treated.
Amo. 2:4-5. Evil examples. As companions are the objects of choice, admiration, and affection, the repulsiveness of vice is lost sight of amidst so much that is attractive. In short, though the vices of a companion be gross and palpable to others, yet, as Shakspeare says, a friendly eye cannot see such faults [Brewer].
Evil examples are like pestilential diseases
The virtuous son is ill at ease
When the lewd father gave the dire disease. [Pope.]
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PUNISHMENT PROMISED, THE HEATHEN NATIONSMOAB
TEXT: Amo. 2:1-3
1
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Moab, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
2
but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet;
3
and I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith Jehovah.
QUERIES
a.
Who were the Moabites?
b.
Why is God concerned that the king of Edoms bones were burned?
PARAPHRASE
This is the Lords word: For sin after sin of Moab, I will not leave her unpunished. Because these Moabites have in their proud arrogance burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime and have thus vented a depraved wrath upon one who at this time stands for Jehovah, I will consume Moab with the fire of My judgment and he shall die midst the shouting of warriors and blare of battle trumpets. I will slaughter Moabs king and other royal princes with him, says the Lord.
SUMMARY
For her unnatural hate and arrogance toward God, Moab will die as a nation.
COMMENT
Amo. 2:1-3 . . . FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF MOAB . . . BECAUSE HE BURNED THE BONES OF THE KING OF EDOM INTO LIME . . . I WILL SEND A FIRE UPON MOAB . . . AND MOAB SHALL DIE WITH TUMULT . . . AND I WILL CUT OFF THE JUDGE . . . Moab was a son of Lot (as was Ammon) (cf. Gen. 19:38). Moses and the Israelites had a run-in with the Moabites in their journey to the land of Promise (cf. Numbers 22-24). Balaam advised Balak to seduce the men of Israel by sending the Moabite girls into the camp of Israel (cf. Num. 31:16; Num. 25:1-9). The Moabites oppressed Israel for 18 years (Jdg. 3:12-14). When Israel repented God sent Ehud to deliver them from Moabite oppression. Ruth, the Moabitess came to Israel with Naomi, married Boaz and became an ancestress of David and consequently an ancestress of Jesus Christ, the Son of David according to the flesh,
Along with Amos death sentence upon Moab are those of Isaiah 15-16; Eze. 25:8-11; Jeremiah 48; Zep. 2:8-11. Isa. 16:6 says, We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogancy, and his pride and his wrath. The death knell of Isaiah upon Moab is fulfilled by Shalmanezer of Assyria or by his successor Sargon. From then on a succession of world conquerors subdued and, in the process, annihilated Moab as a nation. The land of Moab was bounded on the west by the Dead Sea, on the east by the desert, on the north by the Arnon, and on the south by Edom. It is about 3200 feet above the level of the sea, and is chiefly rolling, mountainous country
In Eze. 28:8-11 we are told that Moab and Seir are to be punished for likening the house of Judah to the other nations. Amos localizes his accusation against her by telling of an incident not recorded anywhere else in the O.T. K & D say, . . . no doubt it was connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom. Here the king of Edom was found on the side of the covenant people and when the king of Moab gained supremacy over Edom later, he burned the king of Edoms body until the bones turned into lime. It illustrates the depths of depravity to which a highly cultured people can descend if they reject the revelation of God (cf. Rom. 1:18 ff). Pusey says, The soul being, after death, beyond mans reach, the hatred, vented upon his remains, is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengence. It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it . . . Hatred, which death cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. With this hatred Moab hated the king of Edom, seemingly because he had been . . . on the side of the people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, and directed against God Himself. This reminds us of Wycliffe who was the first to translate the Bible into the English language. The Roman pope of that day excommunicated him and ordered that Wycliffes bones be dug up, burned, and cast into the river.
Kerioth is probably the capital city of Moab. It is not to be confused with the Kerioth in the south of Judah (Jos. 15:25) and otherwise known as Hazor. Some say the city lay in what is now Jebel Druz, nearly south of Damascus and in high country. Some have thought that Moab had no king at this time since Amos mentions a judge as the potentate. But there is no notice in the history of that time of any other type of potentate than a monarch. Judge is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the king and used simply for the sake of poetic variety.
QUIZ
1.
Who were the Moabites and where was their country?
2.
What is evidenced of their character in the burning of the king of Edoms bones?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
II.
CURSE ON MOAB.
(1) Comp. Isaiah 15, 16, Isa. 25:10-12, and Jeremiah 48 Translate burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom. The historical reference is obscure. (See 2Ki. 3:26-27.) Whether Moab was guilty of desecrating royal tombs, or offering the heir of the king of Edom in sacrifice, cannot be determined. When Moab took revenge upon Edom, the latter was subject to Jehoram.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1-3. The sin and punishment of Moab.
Moab The third nation east of the Jordan closely related to the Hebrews (Amo 1:11; Amo 1:13). The territory of the Moabites was to the south of Ammon, on the uplands east of the Dead Sea. It was well adapted to agriculture, for it contained many broad valleys and well-watered fields. As a result the Moabites became at a very early period a settled people with large cities. War was waged between Israel and Moab from an early time (Jdg 3:16; 1Sa 14:47 ; 2Sa 8:2; but compare Rth 1:4; 1Sa 22:3). After the division Moab seems to have secured its independence, for Omri was compelled to conquer it (2Ki 3:4; compare Moabite Stone, ll. 4, 5). Subsequently King Mesha revolted and secured his independence (2Ki 3:5 ff.; compare Moabite Stone, ll. 5ff.), which was never again lost to Israel.
Burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime The exact nature of this crime is uncertain. Was the king burned alive, or after he had died but before he had been buried, or was his body taken from the tomb and burned? To burn the king alive would be extreme cruelty, but to prevent proper burial by burning a corpse or to desecrate a tomb by removing the corpse would also be considered a heinous crime; for, according to ancient Semitic conception, the departed who received no proper burial (Jer 36:30) or whose resting place was disturbed found no rest in Sheol. Many sepulchral inscriptions contain awful curses upon disturbers of the resting places of the departed. Eshmunazar of Sidon, for example, prays that he who desecrates his tomb “may have no root beneath, or fruit above, or any beauty among the living under the sun.” Amos’ sentiments are not due to any heathenish superstition; he is aroused by the spirit of hatred and vindictiveness that manifests itself in the crime. The fact that Moab is condemned not for sins committed against Israel but against the very enemies of the Hebrews is another indication of the high ethical standards of Amos.
Of the crime mentioned nothing is known otherwise; it may have been committed after the joint attack upon Moab by Judah, Israel, and Edom (about 850 B.C.). According to 2Ki 3:26, the king of Moab seems to have harbored special hatred against the king of Edom. Perhaps he was unable to avenge himself while the king was alive, and therefore pursued him even after death.
Fire A sin \:4.
Kirioth R.V., “Kerioth.” Since it represents the whole country, it must have been a city of prominence. It is mentioned again in Jer 48:41, and on the Moabite Stone, 50. 13 . Its location is not certain. Some identify it with Kir (or Ar) of Moab (Isa 15:1), chiefly because of the similarity of the names and the fact that wherever Ar or Kir is mentioned no mention is made of Kirioth. Another name for the same locality is thought to be Kir-hareseth or Kir-heres (Isa 16:7; Isa 16:11). This, on the testimony of the Targum, is identified with the modern Kerak, about eleven miles east of the southern bay of the Dead Sea, eighteen miles south of the Arnon. Others think that Kerioth may be identified with the modern Kureiyat, north of the Arnon, which it has been customary to identify with the ancient Kiriathaim.
With tumult The noise and confusion of battle. Jeremiah calls the Moabites “sons of tumult” (Jer 48:45; compare Num 24:17) There is no warrant for Hoffmann’s suggestion that the Hebrew translated “tumult” is the name of the acropolis of Ar, and that the preposition should be rendered “in,” the name of the acropolis being used instead of the name of the city, as Zion is used sometimes in the place of Jerusalem.
With shouting See on Amo 1:14.
Sound of the trumpet Or, horn ( see on Hos 5:8). The sound is the signal to advance.
Judge Since Moab was governed by kings, the use of judge has been explained by assuming that Moab at the time of Amos had no independent king, that judge is equivalent to governor or viceroy, and that Jeroboam II had deposed the king and placed a governor upon the throne of Moab. However, 2Ki 14:25, is not a sufficient basis for this assumption, the verse does not prove even that Moab was subject to Jeroboam (see on Amo 6:14); besides, Mesha, who was a vassal of Omri, is called “ king” (2Ki 3:4). It is better to interpret judge as equivalent to king (compare Mic 5:1). The title is appropriate since one of the chief functions of the ancient king was the administration of justice (2Sa 8:15; 2Sa 15:2 ; 1Ki 7:7, etc.).
When this prophecy found its fulfillment it is impossible to say. The kings of Moab are mentioned as tributaries in the Assyrian inscriptions from the time of Tiglath-pileser III onward. Isaiah 15, 16; Jeremiah 48; Ezekiel 25 contain announcements of judgment and disaster upon Moab (compare also Zep 2:8-10).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6). YHWH’s Judgment On Moab ( Amo 2:1-3 ).
Unlike the remainder Moab are not condemned for any action against God’s people. Rather they are condemned for their deliberate desecration of the bones of the king of Edom. It was not honourable cremation that was being condemned, but an act of flagrant and vicious mistreatment of the dead (contrast 2Ki 9:34 even of Jezebel). The idea was probably in order to prevent the possibility for him of decent burial (compare Isa 14:19-20) or even possibly to prevent his dimly surviving in a shadowy form in the underworld (see Eze 32:18-32). We can compare Marcus Aurelius’ similar treatment of the Christian martyrs of Lyons, which was a foolish attempt to prevent their resurrection. It was an attempt to strike at the very root of YHWH’s final right to decide what became of men beyond the grave.
Amo 2:1-3
“Thus says YHWH.
For three transgressions of Moab, yes, for four,
I will not turn away his punishment,
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.
But I will send a fire on Moab,
And it will devour the palaces of Kerioth,
And Moab will die with tumult,
With shouting, and with the sound of the ram’s horn,
And I will cut off the judge from among him,
And will slay all his princes with him,
Says YHWH.”
So sixthly YHWH has spoken against Moab, Ammon’s brother tribe. The fact that they would be punished for ‘three transgressions, and for four’, indicated that more was in mind than the sole desecration of the king of Edom’s body. That was rather selected out as an indication of their basic inhumanity in their continual warfare against Edom and Israel. The line of fortresses built between Moab and Edom was a reminder of their constant enmity. The description was possibly seen as also indicating similar atrocious treatment meted out to Israelites who were on Moab’s northern border, but it would certainly appear to have in mind an outstanding crime which had become a byword around that time, something seen as depicting the callousness and hardheartedness of Moab (compare 2Ki 3:27 for another Moabite action which shocked Israel to the core) . Even the bloodthirsty Jehu had not been prepared to do anything like that to the body of a king’s daughter (2Ki 9:34), even one so depraved as Ahab’s wife Jezebel. For a description of further vicious treatment of Israelites by Moab see Mesha’s boasts in the Moabite Stone. It is, however, especially significant that it was YHWH’s concern over the treatment of the king of Edom that was focused on. It emphasised YHWH’s position in Amos’s eyes as ‘Judge of all the earth’ (Gen 18:25), and His watch over all the descendants of Abraham.
The consequence for Moab would be that the palaces in their capital city of Kerioth would be ‘devoured’, and Moab would be overwhelmed by a victorious army. This would include their king who as their ‘judge’ was responsible for ‘justice’ (an emphasis stressing the greatness of his subsequent crime) and all his princes. And this would be at the word of YHWH.
Thus as we come to the end of God’s dealings with the six nations on the borders of Israel/Judah we are presented with a picture of total judgment on the whole area, something largely carried out by the Assyrians, and finally fulfilled in later history. The delay in the coming of this judgment on these nations (for these transgressions had taken place over centuries) was presumably because their iniquity was not yet seen as ‘full’ (Gen 15:16). They were still therefore being given time to repent. From Amos’s point of view it was a description of a ‘universal’ conflagration over all the land personally allocated by YHWH. This is one reason why the oracles must all be seen as given together. They are intended to present a total picture.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Seven Judgments Against The Neighbouring Nations, Including Judah ( Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:5 ).
The announcing of YHWH’s judgments on seven nations (including Judah) can be looked at in two ways. First it was an assurance to Israel that YHWH was watching over their basic interests and had observed the behaviour of the nations round about. By this he was gaining their interest. But even more importantly, as the inclusion of Judah brings out, Amos was cleverly gaining Israel’s consent to his message as they approved of what God was doing to those nations (we can see them nodding their heads with approval as each judgment is pronounced), with the result that when he suddenly slid the knife in and showed them that they too were coming under YHWH’s judgment his words would have hit home.
Lest Israel think that they were alone in coming under YHWH’s judgment Amos first outlined the judgment coming on the surrounding nations. It was a poignant reminder to them that in spite of their behaviour YHWH had been watching over their interests, in that He had noted the ill-treatment meted out to them by their neighbours. These were depicted in a sevenfold group of prophecies, each one following a similar pattern. The judgments would come respectively on Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab and, last but not least, Judah, and it is apparent from this that it includes all the nations immediately surrounding Israel. They were also the nations who either dwelt in the original inheritance given to Israel (Philistia, Aram, Tyre and Judah), or had had their land specifically given to them by YHWH (Edom, Ammon and Moab). They all came within YHWH’s sphere of activity (compare Psa 60:8). Apart from Moab and Judah judgment was to come on them because of their continual bestial behaviour towards Israel. In the case of Moab it was for more general barbarism towards a related tribe. In the case of Judah it was because they had strayed from the Law of YHWH.
The nations in question were probably given in the order of the severity of the treatment that they meted out towards Israel and Judah, with Aram being the most severe, followed by Philistia and then Tyre, with Moab the least severe (nothing is in fact indicated about Moab’s behaviour towards Israel). Others have seen a geographical pattern commencing in the north east (Aram), moving to the south west (Philistia, with four cities involved), going up to the north east (Tyre), and finally dealing with the three small nations in the south east (Edom, Ammon, Moab). But all had to be included for the point of the oracles was of YHWH’s concern for the whole land that had been originally promised to Abraham and allocated to Israel, combined with the land of their acknowledged relatives, Edom, Moab and Ammon, which had specifically been given to those nations by YHWH for Lot’s sake (Deu 2:5; Deu 2:9; Deu 2:19). And the point was that that whole area was to be devastated because it had come short of YHWH’s most basic requirements. That is why all the nations bordering on Israel were included. YHWH’s judgments would not be restricted. They would be ‘universal’ to the whole area.
It will be noted that each description dealing with a nation commences with the refrain ‘thus says YHWH’. Nothing of what Amos warns about will come about accidentally Rather he is stressing that because YHWH has spoken, His word will actively go forth to accomplish His purpose (Isa 55:11) This declaration is then in each case followed by the reason why YHWH was acting. It was because of their multiplied transgressions. ‘For three transgressions, and for four, of — I will not turn away their punishment because —’. Three transgressions (three is the number of completeness) would be seen as fullness of transgression. To add a fourth was therefore to be excessive. It represented overflowing and continual transgression. The pattern then goes on to outline what they are being punished for (‘because –’), and in each case it is for some particularly heinous act of inhumanity of a type which would be condemned by all decent nations. This is then followed up with the threat of ‘fire’ on the transgressor, accompanied in all cases except Tyre, Edom and Judah by a further threat and a further assurance that it was what YHWH had spoken. The exception in the case of Tyre and Edom was probably in order to link Philistia, Tyre and Edom together because they were involved together in their inhuman slave-trading. Judah was excepted because it would still have a future. YHWH would not forget His covenant with David, therefore those who ‘held the sceptre’ would not finally be cut off in Judah’s case. ‘Fire’ was a regular means of divine judgment (Deu 16:13; Jos 6:24; Jos 8:8; Jos 11:9), and may have included the thought that they were being ‘devoted as offerings to YHWH’ (compare Num 31:10; Deu 7:25-26; Deu 12:3; Jdg 1:8).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Amo 2:1 Prophecy Against Moab – Amo 2:1-3 is a prophecy against the people of Moab.
Amo 2:1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
Amo 2:2 Amo 2:2
Amo 2:3 And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.
Amo 2:4-5
Amo 2:4 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
Amo 2:5 Amo 2:5
Amo 2:6-16 Prophecy Against Israel – Amo 2:6-16 is an initial prophecy against the people of Israel.
Amo 2:6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
Amo 2:7 Amo 2:7
[26] David Allen, “Calling Church Members ‘Fat Cows’: The Art of Velvet Brick Preaching from Amos,” in “Preaching Through Amos,” in Advance Expository Workshop, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, 5 October 2007.
1. The creditors begrudge the poor, even the dust, which they as mourners, cast on their heads.
2. The ungodly tread the poor in the dust of the earth under their feet.
3. The wicked bring the poor so low by oppression that the poor cast dust upon their heads in mourning.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Oracles Against Eight Nations Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:6 makes up a series of similar eight oracles against Judah, Israel and six adjacent Syro-Palestinian nations. Amos included all of Israel’s bordering neighbours in this list, leaving none out. There appears to be no geographical order to the list of eight oracles found in this opening passage. Several suggestions have been made to identify a logical order. (1) The Degree of Aggression Against Israel – Perhaps it can be said that Syria, which heads this list, was Israel’s worst enemy during the time of the northern kingdom, while Judah, which ends the list of Israel’s neighbours, was least aggressive against the northern kingdom of Israel. However, Stuart says there is no historical documentation that mentions the attacks that these pagan nations inflicted upon Judah and Israel, suggesting they were primarily border skirmishes that took place after Solomon’s reign. (2) The Degree of Blood Kin to Israel – More obvious is the fact that the first three countries (Syria, Philistia, Tyre) are the most distant relatives of the Jews, while Edom, Ammon, and Moab are more closely related by blood. (3) Israel’s Sins are the Climax to a List of Testimonies of Divine Judgment Against All Nations The most logical order suggests that the sins of Israel are deliberately placed at the end of a list of testimonies of divine judgment against all nations, meaning that God’s people are not excluded. Stuart notes that final oracle against Israel is longer, serving as a climax to this collection of oracles. G. A. Smith suggests Amos uses the strategy of declaring the sins of Israel’s surrounding nations before declaring to them similar sins, thus proving their guilt through the prophetic testimonies of divine judgment preceding her list of sins. Smith notes that although the nations have sinned in the areas of war and broken treaties, while Israel’s sins were internal civic violations of the Law, Amos declares a worse doom upon Israel than upon her neighbours. As barbaric as are the sins of the nations, Israel’s sin of pride and backsliding just as evil in God’s eyes. Thus, God judges the nations for violating their conscience, where the law of God is written (Rom 2:12; Rom 2:14-16), but He judges His people for violating their covenant with Him. [14]
[14] George A. Smith, Amos, in The Expositor’s Bible, ed. William R. Nicoll and Oscar L. Joseph (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), in Ages Digital Library, v. 1.0 [CD-ROM] (Rio, WI: Ages Software, Inc., 2001), “Introduction.”
Amo 1:3-5 Oracle against Syria
Amo 1:6-8 Oracle against Philistia
Amo 1:9-10 Oracle against Tyre
Amo 1:11-12 Oracle against Edom
Amo 1:13-15 Oracle against Ammon
Amo 2:1-3 Oracle against Moab
Amo 2:4-5 Oracle against Judah
Amo 2:6-16 Oracle against Israel
These oracles contain similar content. The prophet Amos introduces his message as a word from the Lord, reveals the sins of the nation, pronounces an appropriate judgment, and confirms its certainty with the closing phrase “says the (Sovereign) Lord.”
Stuart says one theological insight to these eight oracles is the fact that God rules over all nations, whether they acknowledge it or not, and He does not put up with sinful deeds from any of them without penalty. He holds each one accountable for their deeds. [15] In Rom 2:12-16 Paul explains that God judges the deeds of the nations by their conscience, in which God has written His divine law. Stuart calls this “a basic sort of international law”.
[15] Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, in Word Biblical Commentary: 58 Volumes on CD-Rom, vol. 31, eds. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Inc., 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), 308.
Rom 2:12-16, “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
G. A. Smith notes that although Assyria is not mentioned in these eight oracles, these divine judgments reflect this empire’s style of destroying cities and conquering nations. Thus, God will use Assyria to punish these nations in the second half of the eighth century. [16]
[16] George A. Smith, Amos, in The Expositor’s Bible, ed. William R. Nicoll and Oscar L. Joseph (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), in Ages Digital Library, v. 1.0 [CD-ROM] (Rio, WI: Ages Software, Inc., 2001), “Introduction.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Against Moab and Judah
v. 1. Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Moab, v. 2. but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirioth, v. 3. and I will cut off the judge, v. 4. Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, v. 5. but I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Amo 2:1-3
Judgment on Moab.
Amo 2:1
Moab. The prophet now denounces the other nation connected by ties of blood with Israel (see on Amo 1:13). Moab’s hostility had been shown in the hiring of Balsam to curse the Israelites, and in seducing them to idolatry (Nu 22-25:3). He was their oppressor in the time of the Judges (Jdg 3:12); and David had to take most stringent measures against him (2Sa 8:2). The Moabites joined in a league against Jehoshaphat (2Ch 20:22), and later against Jehoiakim (2Ki 24:2), and, as we see by the inscription on the Moabite Stone, were always ready to profit by the disasters or weakness of the chosen people. “I erected this stone,” says Mesha, “to Chemosh at Kirkha, a stone of salvation, for he saved me from all despoilers, and made me see my desire upon all mine enemies, even upon Omri, King of Israel.” And then he goes on to recount his victories. He burned the bones of the King of Edom into lime. This profanation of the corpse of the King of Edom (see 2Ki 23:16; Jer 8:1, Jer 8:2) is not mentioned in the historical books. Some of the older commentators, as Tirinus and Corn. a Lapide, think that the prophet wishes to show that the sympathy of God extends beyond the covenant people, and that he punishes wrongs inflicted even on heathen nations. But as in the case of the other nations, Amos reproves only crimes committed against Israel or Judah, so the present outrage must have the same connection. The reference to the King of Moab’s sacrifice of “his eldest son,” even if we suppose (which is improbable) the son of the King of Edom to be meant, is plainly inapplicable (2Ki 3:27), as the offence regarded the king himself, and not his son, and the expression, “burned into lime,” can hardly be thought to refer to a human sacrifice. The act mentioned probably occurred during the time that the Edomites joined Jehoram and Jehoshaphat in the league against Mesha, the King of Moab (2Ki 3:7, 2Ki 3:9), the author of the inscription on the celebrated stone erected by him at Dibon. Unfortunately, the last lines of that inscription, describing the war against the Edomites, are lost. The paragraph that remains is this: “And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim [i.e. the men of Edom], and take Chemosh in my days. Wherefore I made year and I” The Jewish tradition, quoted by Jerome, tells that after this war the Moabites, in revenge for the assistance which the King of Edom had given to the Israelites, dug up and dishonoured his bones. Edom was then in vassalage to Israel, but regained its independence some ten years later (2Ki 8:20). The sacrilegious act was meant to redound to the disgrace of Israel
Amo 2:2
Kirioth; cities, and so taken as an appellative by the Septuagint translators, : but it is doubtless a proper name of one of the chief Moabite towns (Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41). Keil, after Burckhardt, identifies it with the decayed town of Kereyat, or Korriat; others, with Ar, or Kir, the old capital (Isa 15:1). The plural termination of the word,like Athenae, Thebae, etc; may denote a double cityupper and lower, or old and new. Moab shall die. The nation is personified. With tumult; caused by war (comp. Jer 48:45, and the prophecy of Balaam, Num 24:17). Septuagint, , “in weakness.” With shouting. Omitted by the Vulgate (see on Amo 1:14). Trumpet (Amo 3:6; Jer 4:19). Trochon cites Virgil, ‘AEneid,’ 2:313, “Exoritur clamorque virum clangorque tubarum,” “Rises the shout of men and trumpets’ blare.”
Amo 2:3
The judge; shophet, probably here a synonym for “king” (comp. Mic 5:1). it implies the chief magistrate, like the Carthaginian sufes, which is the same word. There is no ground for deducing, as Hitzig and Ewald do, from the use of this form that Moab had no king at this time. The country was conquered by the Chaldeans, and thenceforward sank into insignificance (Jer 48:1-47.; Eze 25:8-11).
Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5
2. Judah is summoned to judgment, the prophet thus passing from alien nations, through the most favoured people, to Israel, the subject of his prophecy.
Amo 2:4
They have despised the Law of the Lord. The other nations are denounced for their offences against God’s people; Judah is sentenced for her offences against God himself. The former likewise had offended against the law of conscience, natural religion; the latter against the written Law, revealed religion. By thus denouncing Judah, Amos shows his perfect impartiality. The Law, Torah, is the general name for the whole body of precepts and commandments, chuqqim, moral and ceremonial. Their lies; Vulgate, idola sua, which is the sense, though not the translation, of the word. Idols are so called as being nonentities in themselves, and deceiving those who trust in them. “We know,” says St. Paul (1Co 8:4). “that an idol is nothing in the world.” The Septuagint gives, , “their vain things which they made.” Their fathers have walked. This is the usual expression for attachment to idolatrous practices. From this error the Israelites were never weaned till their return from the penal Captivity.
Amo 2:5
The destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans is here briefly foretold (Jer 17:27; Hos 8:14; 2Ki 25:9, 2Ki 25:10).
Amo 2:6-16
3. Summons and general denunciation of Israel for injustice, cruelty, incest, luxury, and idolatry.
Amo 2:6
They sold the righteous for silver. The first charge against Israel is perversion of justice. The judges took bribes and condemned the righteous, i.e. the man whose cause was good. Pusey thinks that the literal selling of debtors by creditors, contrary to the Law (Exo 21:7; Le Exo 25:39; Neh 5:5), is meant (comp. Amo 8:6 and Mat 18:25). The needy for a pair of shoes. For the very smallest bribe they betray the cause of the poor (comp. Eze 13:19); though, as sandals were sometimes of very costly materials (So Amo 7:1; Eze 16:10; Judith 16:9), the expression might mean that they sold justice to obtain an article of luxury. But the form of expression is opposed to this interpretation.
Amo 2:7
That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor. This is the second chargeoppression of the poor. The obscure expression in the text is capable of two explanations. Hitzig, Pusey, Trochon, assume that its meaning is that in their avarice and cupidity the usurers or tyrannous rich men grudge even the dust which the poor man strews upon his head in token of his sorrow at being brought to so low a state. But this seems unnatural and farfetched, and scarcely in harmony with the simple style of Amos. The other explanation, supported by Kimchi, Sehegg, Keil, and Knabenbauer, is preferable. These oppressors desire eagerly to see the poor crushed to the earth, or so miserable as to scatter dust on their heads. The poor (dal, not the same word as in verse 6); depressed, as brought low in condition. The Septuagint joins this with the previous clause, “And the poor for sandals, the things that tread on the dust of the earth, and smote on the heads of the needy.” The Vulgate gives, Qui conterunt super pulverem terrae capita pauperum, “Who bruise the heads of the poor on the dust of the earth.” Turn aside the way of the meek. They thwart and hinder their path of life, and force them into crooked and evil ways. Or way, according to Kimchi, may mean “judicial process,” as Pro 17:23. This gives, to the clause much the same meaning as Pro 17:6. The meek are those who are lowly and unassuming (see note on Zep 2:3). And a man and his father will go in unto the same maid; LXX; . The Vulgate, which omits “the same,” is closer to the Hebrew, Et filius ac pater ejus ierunt ad puellam, though the Greek doubtless gives the intended meaning. This sin, which was tantamount to incest, was virtually forbidden (Le Pro 18:8, Pro 18:15; Pro 20:11). Some (as Ewald, Maurer, Gandell) see here an allusion to the organized prostitution in idol temples (Hos 4:14), but this seems unnecessary. To profane my holy Name (Le 22:32). Such crimes dishonoured the God who called them his people, so that to them could be applied what St. Paul says (Rom 2:24), “The Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you” (comp. Le Pro 20:3; Eze 36:20, Eze 36:23). The word lemaan, “in order that,” implies that they committed these sins, not through ignorance, but intentionally, to bring discredit upon the true faith and worship.
Amo 2:8
The prophet condemns the cruel luxury which, contrary to the Law, made the poor debtor’s necessities minister to the rich man’s pleasures. They lay themselves down upon; Vulgate, accubuerunt. Ewald translates, “they cast lots upon;” but the Authorized Version is supported by the highest authorities, and gives the most appropriate meaning. The Septuagint, with which the Syriac partly agrees, refers the clause to the immoralities practised in heathen worship, which the perpetrators desired to screen from observation, , “Binding their clothes with cords, they made them curtains near the altar.” This is far from the intention of the prophet’s words. Upon clothes laid to pledge; or, taken in pledge. The “clothes” (begadim) are the large outer garments which formed poor men’s dress by day and cover by night, and which, if pledged, were ordered to be returned by nightfall (Exo 22:26, etc.; Deu 24:12, etc.). These the hardhearted usurers kept as their own, and reclined luxuriously upon them at their feasts and carousals in their temples. By every altar. At the sacrificial feasts in the temples at Dan and Bethel. They drink the wine of the condemned; Septuagint, . Wine obtained by fines extorted from the oppressed. So it is better to translate, “of such as have been fined.” In the house of their god. The true God, whom they worshipped there under the symbol of the calf.
Amo 2:9
God complains of Israel’s ingratitude for the favour which he had shown them. And yet I. The personal pronoun has a prominent position, and is continually repeated, to contrast God’s faithfulness and the people’s unthankfulness. The Amorite (Jos 24:8, Jos 24:18). The representative of the seven nations of Canaan who were dispossessed by the Israelites (Gen 15:16; Exo 23:27; Exo 34:11). The hyperbolical description of this people is taken from Num 13:32, etc.; Deu 1:28. Thus is shown Israel’s inability to cope with such an enemy, and their entire dependence on the help of the Lord. Fruit roots. Keil explains that the posterity of a nation is regarded as its fruit, and the kernel of the nation out of which it springs as the root, comparing Job 18:16; Eze 17:9; Hos 9:16. The expression is equivalent to our “root and branch” (Mal 4:1).
Amo 2:10
The deliverance from Egypt and the guidance through the desert, though chronologically first, are mentioned last, as the great and culminating example of the favour and protection of God. First God prepared the land for Israel, and then trained them for possessing it. From the many allusions in this section, we see how familiar Amos and his hearers were with the history and law of the Pentateuch. Led you forty years (Deu 2:7; Deu 8:2-4).
Amo 2:11
Having mentioned two temporal benefits conferred on Israel, the prophet now names two spiritual favoursthe presence of holy speakers and holy doers. I raised up. The prophet and the Nazarite were alike miracles of grace. The former gave heavenly teaching, the latter exhibited holiness of life. It was the Lord who gave the prophet power and authority to proclaim his will; it was the Lord who inspired the vow of the Nazarite and enabled him to carry it out in practice. Prophets. To Israel belonged Samuel (1Sa 1:1), Ahijah of Shiloh (1Ki 14:2, 1Ki 14:4), Jehu, son of Hanani (1Ki 16:7), Elijah and Elisha, Hosea and Jonah. Young men. In the height of their passions, lusty and strong. Nazarites. The law concerning the Nazarites is given in Num 6:1-27. The special restrictions by which they bound themselves (viz. abstention from strong drink, from the use of the razor, and from all ritual defilement) were the outward signs of inward purity and devotion to God. Their very name implied separation from the world and devotion to God. They were, in fact, the religious of the old Law, analogous to the monks of Christian times. The vow was either temporary or lifelong. Of perpetual Nazarites we have as instances Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. Is it not even thus? Is not the existence of prophets and Nazarites among you a proof that you are signally favoured by God, separate from other nations, and bound to be a holy people? Taking the general import of the passage and the signification of the word “Nazarite,” the LXX. renders, , “I took and of your young men for consecration.”
Amo 2:12
Ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink. Far from profiting by their example, or acknowledging the grace of God displayed in their holy lives, ye tried to get rid of their testimony by seducing or forcing them to break their vow. Prophesy not. Israel was impatient of the continued efforts of the prophets to warn and to win; and, unmindful of the fact that the man of God had a message which he was bound to deliver (comp. Jer 20:9; 1Co 9:16), this ungrateful nation systematically tried to silence the voices which were a standing rebuke to them. Thus Amos himself was treated (Amo 7:10, etc.).
, Ewald, Pusey, Gandell, for “flight” render “place of flight, refuge,” as Job 11:20; Psa 142:5; Septuagint, : Vulgate, fuga. Shall not strengthen his force. The strong man shall not be able to collect or put forth his strength to any good purpose (comp. Pro 24:5; Nah 2:1). Neither shall himself. Some of the Greek manuscripts omit this clause. Deliver himself occurs three timesa kind of solemn refrain.
Amo 2:15
Stand (Jer 46:21; Nah 2:8). The skilled archer shall not stand firm. That handleth the bow (Jer 46:9).
Amo 2:16
He that is courageous among the mighty; literally, the strong in his heart; i.e. the bravest hero. The LXX. takes the words differently, , “The strong shall not find his heart (confidence) in powers.” Naked. Casting away heavy garments and weapons and whatever might hinder flight. Virgil, ‘Georg.,’ 1:299, “Nudus ara, sere nudus.”
HOMILETICS
Amo 2:1-3
The woe against Moab.
Much that has been said of Ammon applies equally to Moab. The two nations had close relations and affinities, and in Scripture are generally mentioned together. Both were mildly treated by Israel (Deu 2:9, Deu 2:19) as long as such treatment was possible. Yet were they at one in an implacable hatred of her, and a national policy of outrage towards her. A spring raid into Hebrew territory seems to have been an established Moabitish institution (2Ki 13:20, literally, “were wont to come”). Again, Moab adopted the novel and unlikely expedient of employing a prophet of God to curse his own people (Num 23:7). Of the comprehensive and thorough character of the national hatred, which these doings reveal, we have evidence in the passage before us.
I. THE NATIONAL HATES OF MOAB WERE DETERMINED BY ITS HATE OF ISRAEL. “It has burned the bones of the King of Edom.” The particular occasion referred to here is not known. But the events that led up to it are briefly recorded. Moab was for some time tributary to Israel, and rebelled against it in the reign of Jehoram (2Ki 3:1, 2Ki 3:4, 2Ki 3:5). In the repressive war that followed, Jehoram was joined by the King of Judah and the King of Edom, then probably a tributary of Judah (2Ki 8:20). This war, the only one in which Edom and Moab came into conflict, exasperated Moab against it even more fiercely than against Israel itself (2Ki 3:26, 2Ki 3:27). The horrible sacrifice of the King of Edom’s son by the King of Moab, and the subsequent burning of the King of Edom’s bones by the Moabites, were both expressions of this wild and savage resentment. Moab’s hatred of Edom was hatred of her as Israel’s ally, and therefore at bottom was hatred of Israel itself. So the ungodly hate things from the standpoint of their connection with religion. They hate believers for Christ’s sake (Mat 10:22), and the friends of believers for believers’ sakes. The compensation for this is that for Christ’s sake also Christians love each other and the ungodly as well, and God for his own sake loves them all.
II. MOAB‘S WAS A HATE THAT EVEN DEATH COULD NOT APPEASE. This fact illustrates its insatiability. “The soul being after death beyond man’s reach, the hatred vented upon his remains is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengeance. It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it” (Pusey). The employment of the burnt bones as lime is a circumstance which, like the ripping of pregnant women by Ammon, reveals the savage debasement of the people, and that contemptuous disregard of the human body which is generated by a career of blood and lust. There is a sacredness about death. It introduces an unseen factor, marks off a territory into which we may not intrude. There is a sacredness, too, about the human body. It is for a temple of the Holy Ghost, and to be treated as holy (1Co 6:19, 1Co 6:20). Its members are to be members of Christ, and to be treated as consecrated things (1Co 6:15-18). The best guarantee against intemperance, uncleanness, violence, and every abuse of the body is respect for it as the home and instrument of God.
III. THE CIRCUMSTANCE THAT MAKES MOAB THE ENEMY OF EDOM MAKES GOD HER FRIEND. Edom’s alliance with Israel had results in two directions, it embroiled her with Israel’s enemies, and commended her to Israel’s friends. And primarily it commended her to Israel’s God. His favour to his people includes, to certain intents, their friends. Members of the families of Noah and Lot were spared for their fathers’ sake. A mixed multitude of foreigners were fed miraculously in the desert, because they were servants to the Israelites. Even the Egyptians were favoured because they for a time had given Israel a home (Deu 23:7). So with Edom. He was a brother by blood (Deu 23:7), and had been an ally against Moab, and so his cause is championed by God in this exactly as the cause of Israel is in the other woes. So with more spiritual relations. The virgin companions of the bride, the Church, are brought, as her companions, to the King (Psa 45:14). The final judgment apart, service rendered to God’s people will not go unrewarded (Mat 10:40-42). No investment brings in surer return than help and kindness shown to the saints of God.
IV. MOAB‘S DOOM WAS ONE THAT MATCHED ITS LIFE. “Shall die with tumult.” The Moabites were “sons of tumult” (Num 24:17; Jer 48:45), and as in tumult they lived, so in tumult they should die (see Pusey). This is providential, the punishment being made appropriate to the crime. It is also natural, violence provoking violence, and so fixing the character of its own punishment. Moab had probably lost its kings before the prophecy was fulfilled, but the judges and princes who had headed the nation in its violence fitly head it in its destruction also.
Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5
The woe against Judah.
In the form of this woe, as compared with those before, is nothing to indicate the difference of underlying principles which it involves. A woe on a Hebrew and a heathen have little in common but the inevitable connection between punishment and sin.
I. THE SINS FOR WHICH GOD VISITS RESPECTIVELY THOSE WHO KNOW HIM AND THOSE WHO KNOW HIM NOT ARE VERY DIFFERENT. The six woes against the heathen are fathered exclusively on their sins against Israel or its friends. This woe against Judah is denounced with exclusive reference to sins against God himself. This is exactly what we might expect. Each is judged out of his own law (Rom 2:12). The revelation of God and duty to him was the first great commandment of the Law given to the Jews (Mat 22:37, Mat 22:38), and for this God reckons with themfirst, because it was at once the guiltiest sin, and the sin of which they were oftenest guilty. The law revealed to the heathen made known the existence and many perfections of God (Psa 19:1; Rom 1:20), and threw a side light on the way to worship him (Act 17:29). But this was not their clearest revelation, and so their sin against it is not the sin that is emphasized. The law written on their heart (Rom 2:14, Rom 2:15)i.e. speaking in reason, conscience, and human feelingwas specially the law of duty to their fellow creatures; and it is for their sin in this matter specially that God brings them into judgment. It is its blindness, and not its darkness, that is the condemnation of the world (Joh 3:19). Where the white ray of revelation focusses, there the red ray of judgment shall fall and burn.
II. CONTEMPT OF LAW AND THE VIOLATION OF LAW INVOLVE EACH OTHER. “Despised the Law of Jehovah, and kept not his commandments.” The Law is the abstract thingGod’s revealed will as a whole. The commandments are the “particular precepts” (Keil) into which it is broken up. The first, Being general, is fitly described as being “despised;” i.e. its drift disliked and its authority spurned. The second, Being precepts enjoining particular duties, is said with propriety to be disobeyed. The order of enumeration is also the logical and natural order. Action is ever the outcome of sentiment, and its expression. What a man outwardly disobeys he has begun by inwardly despising. And so what he begins by despising he naturally goes on to disobey. It is in the heart that the eggs are hatched which, in a later stage, are the birds of evil doing. It is, therefore, at the door of his heart that the wise man will mount guard (Pro 4:23).
III. ALL TRANSGRESSION IS THE OUTCOME OF IDOLATRY. Their lies led them astray. “By ‘lies’ here we are to understand idols. And the figure is most appropriate. Amos calls the idols ‘lies,’ not only as res quoe fallunt, But as fabrications and nonentities” (Keil; see 1Co 8:4). It is this lying character that makes them inevitably the occasion of sin. The first sin was brought about by a lie, in which the truth of God’s threat was denied, and so its practical power destroyed. And every idol is just such a lie in embodied form. It is an abrogation of God’s authority, a denying of his very existence; and it is a substitution for these of a god and a code congenial to our fallen nature. Under such circumstances violation of God’s Law is a foregone conclusion.
IV. THE IDOLS OF THE CHILDREN ARE THE IDOLS OF THE FATHERS. Imitation is easier than invention. Hence Israel, when they first wanted an idol, adopted the calf of Egypt (Exo 32:4); and Jeroboam, also just left Egypt, set up calf worship in Dan and Bethel (1Ki 12:28). Then, other things being equal, the persons men are most likely to imitate are their fathers, who are their teachers and guides and natural examples. Add to this that national tastes and habits and characters, formed in connection with a particular idol worship, would be in special harmony with it, and would be transmitted with it from sire to son.
V. SIN INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE SPIRITUAL CIRCLE IS DEALT WITH ON THE SAME PRINCIPLES. The manner of the sin was the same with Judah and the heathen. It was a transgression, or act of disobedience to a known law, as distinguished from a sinful disposition. It was a series of these acts, culminating in a final one of special enormity. “For three transgressions, and for four.” The manner of treatment was the same. God threatened to strike. Then he lifted his hand for the stroke. Then he withheld it for a time. Then he declared the limit of forbearance was past, and nothing could now prevent the falling of the blow. The mode of punishment was to be the same. The agent would be devouring fire. This would fall on the capital. Sin in a visible spiritual relation, and however mixed up with acts of worship, is no whit less guilty. There is only one hell, and all sin alike deserves it, and, unrepented of, must bring to it.
Amo 2:4
Heredity and the idol taint.
“And their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked.” Idolatry was Israel’s besetting sin. Within two months of their leaving Egypt they fell into it, and, in spite of Divine deterrent measures, they returned to it persistently for nine hundred years. They took to idol worship, in fact, as “to the manner born” And that the sin was constitutional, and in the grain, is evident from the fact that there was no corresponding secession from idol worship to the service of the true God (Jer 2:11). It was, moreover, the germinal sin. Deranging the primary relation to God, it led to the derangement of all other relations subordinate to this. From it, as a fruitful seed, sprang up in a luxuriant crop the hateful national vices, in which the heathen around were not merely imitated but outdone. And then, as was natural, all the national troubles, including the crowning one of captivity in Babylon, were brought on them by this and its resultant sins, and were designed to be at once its punishment and cure. How near the practice lay to the sources of national corruption and calamity this passage shows. We have here
I. AN IDOL A LIE. This is a strong figure, and very apt (Jer 16:19, Jer 16:20; Rom 1:25).
1. It is a figment of the imagination. “An idol is nothing in the world” (1Co 8:4). It is simply, as the very name implies, the creation of an errant fancy. If we think that to be something which is nothing, we deceive ourselves; and the idol which is the occasion of the deception is an illusion and a lie. There are idols in every human heart. Such are all its passions and lusts (Col 3:5; 1Jn 5:21). And they are lies. They are conversant with unrealities only. They deceive by false shows and promises. They promise joys that are purely visionary. They afford joys that turn out greatly poorer than they seemed. They refuse to believe in evil consequences that are manifold and inevitable. Every man who has given them entertainment has deceived himself (Rom 6:21).
2. It is the devil‘s figurehead. This is Paul’s reading of the natural history of an idol (1Co 10:19, 1Co 10:20), and it was that of Moses (Le 17:7; Deu 32:17) and Ezra (2Ch 11:15) and David (Psa 106:37) before him. Thus the imaginary god is, after all, a real devil, anti therefore doubly a lie; for he “is a liar, and the father of it.” He suggests it, and designs it, and works through it, and embodies himself in it, and then crowns all by concealing the fact. The “kingdom of the beast” in prophecy is probably the great idolatrous confederation or false Church in which idolatry is wedded to empire (Dr. Wylie, ‘Great Exodus’). So with the spiritual idols of our hearts. They are of the devil (1Jn 3:8), produced by his working (Act 5:3) and charged with his evil nature (Joh 8:44). To serve the flesh in the lusts of it is, in a very literal sense, to serve the devil.
3. It disappoints all expectations from it. “Ye are of nothing,” says Isaiah, addressing idols, “and your work of nought” (Isa 41:24). So we say, “Out of nothing nothing comes.” Idol impotence, declared in Scripture (Jer 14:22), and proved by experiment (1Ki 18:24, 1Ki 18:29), is a corollary from the very nature of things. So with spiritual idols. Nothing comes out of them to the purpose. Covetousness and concupiscence and frivolity promise happiness, and it never comes, but is wasted by them beyond recovery. And then, instead of happiness, there comes a ruined estate, and shattered health, and blasted hopes, and an accusing conscience, and the first tooth of the worm that never dies.
II. AN IDOL A CORRUPTING LIE. “Caused them to err,” or “led them astray.” There is a whole philosophy of morals in this statement.
1. Wrong belief leads to wrong action. The modern byword that “religion is not a creed, but a life,” is cant generally, and a blunder always. Religion is neither a creed nor a life; it is both. “if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” You cannot do them otherwise; and in that case, to know them is useless. It is impossible to steer right with a wrong theory of navigation or with no theory. So a right life is impossible where there is a wrong creed or no creed. A creed is but a formula, of which the intelligent life is the tilling up. Belief in idols, or in any ordinance of their worship, is a mistake, and acted on must lead astray. So, too, with the idols of sinful appetites. We expect happiness from serving them, and serve them with that view. What is this but committing sin on principlewrong practice the inevitable outcome of wrong theory?
2. Idolatry casts off God, and so all restraints on ill-doing. Morality has its basis in religion. The standard of it is God’s character. The ground of it is God’s command. If there is no God there is no duty, as theists understand duty, and men may live as they list. This was what Israel did as soon as they became idolatrous (verse 7). Idolatry was equivalent with them to a deed of indemnity for sinning. So with the worshippers of idol lusts. The idolatry that makes a god of ourselves makes us also a law to ourselves.
3. An idol is evil even as a conception, and the worship of it makes the idolater like it. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” The idol invented by corrupt man is a corrupt creation. The gods of Greece and Rome were many of them simply the embodiments of human vices; and as they were models for men to study and imitate, the worship of them made the people like them. We are naturally assimilated to the likeness of the thing we serve, if we serve it truly. Let this warn us to take service only with a pure master.
III. AN IDOL AN HEREDITARY LIE. “After which their fathers walked.” Reason suggests and history shows that the idols of the fathers are the idols of the children.
1. All practices tend to become hereditary. Children are imitative. They do what they see done. An act repeated becomes a habit, and the habit leading to persistence in the act, presses it on others’ attention, and leads to its being imitated. It is thus that the social and religions customs of a community assume an aspect of heredity, and propagate themselves down the generations.
2. Evil practices do so especially. (Pro 22:15.) Evil is congenial to human nature, and men will do the thing that is pleasant. Hence evil never dies, whilst good is dying out continually; and evil propagates itself, whilst good can be propagated only by a perpetual exercise of Divine influence.
3. Family sins are the most surely hereditary of all. Dispositions run in the blood. The drunkard, the thief, the libertine, each transmits his evil appetite or tendency to his children, and so practically ensures their failing into his sin. There is no reason to except a taste for idol worship from the operation of this law. In the literal sense it is an appetency easily transmissible. In the spiritual sense it is more easily propagable still. If “the fathers have eaten the sour grapes” of idol service in any form, “the children’s teeth” are more than likely to be “set on edge.”
4. Idol worship is self-worship in an insidious form, and therefore specially congenial to human nature. Self is the idol easiest to enthrone. The injunction to love ourselves is not given in Scripture. It is safely and properly assumed, and made the model and measure of our love to others (Mat 19:19). Self-love is an affection native to the heart, and that in ideal strength. Now, an idol represented the maker’s ideal of himself. It was, therefore, agreeable to his nature, and its service congenial, and so of easy transmission from generation to generation. All sin is really at bottom self-worship. We prefer ourselves to God; our will, our pleasure, our way, to his. We push him off the throne, and ourselves on it, and then do as we list. It is only grace that says, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
Amo 2:6-8
The woe against Israel.
This is the last woe and the greatest. “The thunder cloud of God’s judgments having passed over all the nations round about, and even discharged the fire from heaven on Judah and Jerusalem, settles at last on Israel” (Pusey). Just as God’s honour suffered specially by their sin, so does his heart suffer specially in their punishment. And so, whilst compendious justice may be meted out to heathen nations, the destruction of the chosen people cannot be denounced without regretful enlargement on the circumstances of the case.
I. COVETOUSNESS PUTS A CONTEMPTUOUS ESTIMATE ON HUMAN LIFE. “They sell the righteous for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes.” This may be either a commercial or a judicial transaction, but in either case the principle involved is the same. An undue estimate of wrong involves an inadequate estimate of all else. Wealth becomes the one good, and gain the one pursuit. Human life is as nothing in comparison with personal aggrandizement to the extent of even a paltry sum. Officialism, to which the death of a human being is mainly a question of a burial or registration fee, is not an altogether unheard of thing. This principle has a bearing, not only on murder and the perversion of justice, but on slavery, oppression, the opium and liquor traffics, and every method of making money at the expense of human life or health or well being. The extent to which such things prevail, and the tens of thousands of human lives annually sacrificed for gain, is a startling commentary on the maxim that “the love of money is a root of all evil.”
II. THE DOMINATING VICE OF A COMMUNITY MAKES ALL THE OTHER VICES ITS TRIBUTARIES. Israel’s besetting sin as against their fellow men was covetousness.
1. This was inhuman. It bore hardest on the poor. These, being helpless, were its easiest victims. Humanity was put out of the question, and the unspeakably greater suffering involved in making the same gain off the poor, as compared with the rich, was no deterrent whatever. Gain, though it be the very heart’s blood of miserable fellow creatures, was all they had an eye for or a heart to consider.
2. It was ungodly. It made special victims of the righteous. This course was partly utilitarian, no doubt. The righteous might be expected to submit to the maximum of wrong with the minimum of retaliation. But it was profane as well. The wicked hate good, and all in whom it is found. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” It was natural, therefore, that a worldly act should assume an ungodly character where opportunity arose.
3. It was devilish. “Who pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor.” It rejoiced in all the incidental evils which oppression of the poor involved. When those it impoverished were levelled in the dust of misery and degradation, this was the sort of thing it panted after. One side of a man’s moral nature cannot become vitiated without affecting the other sides. The vices have an affinity for one another, and tend to come together in groups. If evil gets in the little finger of one vice, the intrusion of the whole body is only a question of time.
III. WHEN MEN GET SATED WITH SIMPLE SINS, THEY RESORT TO COMPOUND SINS FOR A NEW SENSATION. Sin does not satisfy any time, and the longer it is followed up it satisfies the less. In the commission of it appetite increases, and relish diminishes pari passu, and so the candle of actual enjoyment is being shortened at both ends. One device in mitigation of this is to increase the dose, and another to multiply the ingredients. Reduced to the latter expedient, Israel mixed:
1. Carousal with uncleanness. The two things often go together. They are the two chief indulgences craved for by carnal appetite. The one, moreover, helps to produce the other. A Falstaff who combines the drunkard with the libertine is the typical debauchee.
3. Uncleanness with incest. “A man and his father go to the same girl.” This act was equivalent to incest, which was a capital crime according to the Mosaic code (Le 18:7, 15; 20:11). It outdid the heathen themselves, among whom this crime was not so much as named (1Co 5:1). An apostate is always the vilest sinner (2Pe 2:21, 2Pe 2:22).
3. Robbery with all three. “Stretch themselves upon pawned clothes.” This was robbery in two forms. They retained pawned clothes overnight, contrary to the Law of Moses (Exo 22:26, Exo 22:27), and in further violation of it used them to sleep on (Deu 24:12, Deu 24:13). “And drink the wine of the amerced.” Again a double injustice. The fine was unjustly inflicted, and then dishonestly appropriated.
4. Profanity with the entire troupe. “In order to profane my holy Name.” Incest was the guiltiest, but as a carnal indulgence it had no advantage over any other form of uncleanness, It must, therefore, have been sought out because of its very horrors, and with a view to the profanation of God’s holy flame, making the “members the members of an harlot” “Before every altar,” i.e. at Beersheba and Dan, where Jehovah was worshipped after a fashion (see Keil), and therefore in determinate contempt of God. “In the house of their God,” not the idol god probably, but the God of Israel. “In the time of Jeroboam II there was no heathenish idolatry in the kingdom of the ten tribes, or at any rate it was not publicly maintained” (Keil). But the sin, though less complicated, was scarcely less heinous than if idolatry had been a part of it. It was done of set purpose to dishonour him, and in order to this the place selected for the commission of it was his house, and the occasion the celebration of his worship. What a horrible exhibition of extreme and multiplex depravity! “They condensed sin. By a sort of economy in the toil of sinning they blended many sins in one and in all the express breach of God’s commandments” (Pusey).
Amo 2:9-11
The manifold mercies of the covenant people.
In striking contrast to Israel’s treatment of God stands out his treatment of them. Mercy rises above mercy, tier on tier, in a mighty pyramid of blessing. Of these there was
I. NATIONAL ADOPTION. This is not mentioned, but it is implied, as underlying all the other favours. God’s first step was to make them his people. He loved and chose them (Deu 10:15; Deu 7:7, Deu 7:8). He separated them from the peoples, and took them into covenant with himself (Exo 33:16; Gen 17:7, Gen 17:19). That covenant he sealed (Gen 17:13), and all who observed the seal he styled his own people (Isa 43:1), lavishing on them in addition many a title of affection. This national adoption is the fact that subtends the whole line of Israel’s national favours.
II. NATIONAL DELIVERANCE. “Brought you up,” etc. (Amo 2:10). This was a stupendous providence; stupendous in its measures and stupendous in its results, and therefore of immense moral significance and weight. The mighty forces of nature are utilized. A haughty heathen nation is brought to its bended knees before the God of the down-trodden Israel. A rabble becomes an army. Crouching slaves become the fearless free. And, out of the chaos of despair and death emerges the young world of fresh national life. This astounding work was Jehovah’s rod to conjure with in the after centuries. He makes it the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of resistless motive. His Law, in its moral (Exo 20:2), judicial (Deu 24:18-22; Deu 15:15), and ceremonial aspects (Deu 16:12), is bespoken a ready and glad obedience in the word, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt,” etc.
III. NATIONAL PRESERVATION. “And led you forty years.” The sustained but quiet miracles of the desert pilgrimage were a worthy sequence to the prodigies of the Exodus. Divine energies were not exhausted in the thunder bursts under which Egypt was made to reel. They were but the stormy prelude to the sunshine and soft showers and gentle wooing winds of a long spiritual husbandry. In the manna falling silently, and the mystic guiding pillar, and the Shechinah glory lighting up the most holy place, Jehovah by a perpetual miracle kept himself before the nation’s eye in all providential and saving relations. The resistless Deliverer was the jealous Protector, the bounteous Provider, and the solicitous and tender Friend.
IV. NATIONAL TRIUMPH. “I destroyed the Amorite,” etc. The Hebrews had fierce and powerful enemies in all the neighbouring nations. These were generally their superiors in physical strength and courage and the warlike arts. Apart from miraculous help, it is doubtful whether Israel would not have been overmatched by almost any one of them (Exo 17:11; 1Sa 17:42). Yet the giant races were subdued before them and wasted off the earth. When the grasshopper (Num 13:33) seizes on the lion’s domain there are forces at work that invert the natural order of things. To make the minnows of unwarlike, timid, plodding Israel victorious over the tritons of Anak, the colossal warriors of Hebron (Jos 11:21), was a moral miracle, sufficient in itself to carry a nation’s faith and a nation’s gratitude till the end of time.
V. NATIONAL ENFEOFFMENT. “To possess the land of the Amorite.” An earthly inheritance was included in the earliest promise to Israel (Gen 17:8). The tradition of this ideal provided home was never lost. In the stubble fields and by the brick kilns, where, “like dumb, driven cattle,” they toiled throughout the years of their Egyptian bondage, the vision of it came as a ray of comfort lighting the darkest hours. When they marched from Egypt they consciously went to possess their own land, and the long detention in the desert was taken as a tedious but appropriate schooling to prepare them for the coming of age. Palestine, when at last they settled in it, was the very garden of the world, and a home so perfect of its kind as to be made an emblem of the eternal home above. God’s standing monument, written over with the story of his goodness, was to every Israelite the teeming, smiling land in which he lived.
VI. NATIONAL EVANGELIZATION. “And I raised up of your sons,” etc. The prophet was a characteristic national institution among the Jews. He was a man to whom God made revelations of his will (Num 12:6), and through whom he communicated that will to the people (Heb 1:1). Of this communication more or less was generally, although not invariably, committed to writing, and embodied in the Scriptures. The prophet did not regularly instruct the people; that was rather the business of the priest. But he did so often, and was besides God’s mouthpiece for the communication of new truth, speaking it always according to the analogy of faith (Deu 13:1-5). The permanent establishment thus of a Divine oracle in their midst, giving constant access to the fountainhead of truth, was a notable privilege to Israel. The institution of Nazarites was little less so in another direction. They were consecrated ones, separated from common men and common uses, and devoted in a special manner to God (Num 6:1-21). Such consecration was the ideal human life (Joh 17:19). Therefore what the prophet did for truth in the abstract the Nazarite did for it in the concrete. The one revealed God’s will, the other embodied it, or at least its great central principle. Their respective functions were complementary of each other, and between the two the Israelitish nation was “throughly furnished unto good works.”
Amo 2:12
Children that are corrupters.
“But ye made the dedicated drink wine; and ye commanded the prophets, saying, Ye shall not prophesy” Action and reaction have a natural connection and a normal relation to each other. In all departments of being they meet and answer, as face answers to face in a glass. The rebound is as the blow, the conviction as the argument, the response as the appeal. The mention of what God had done for Israel brings up the questionHow had Israel been affected by it all? Had things occurred in the normal way? Had gratitude waited on blessing in due proportion, and improvement followed privilege? This verse is the disappointing answer. Israel’s response to God’s appeal, as contained in his gracious dealings, was not the gratitude and fealty due, but unaccountable and aggravated sin. God delivered them from bondage, and they oppressed each other; he defended them against unjust violence, and they wrought injustice. He guided them in their journeys, and they led one another astray. He plied them with evangelizing agencies, and they responded by committing sacrilege and procuring blasphemy. The last is the sin charged against them here.
I. THIS WAS PRIMARILY A SIN AGAINST GOD. The Nazarite and the prophet were both Divine institutions. The vow of the one and the message of the other were alike prescribed by God (Num 6:1; Num 12:6). It was his will that they should perform their characteristic acts. In doing so they were but his instruments, accomplishing his purpose toward the nation. Accordingly, Israel’s action against them was really against him, against his servants, against his ordinance, against his authority. So with all action against God’s people as such. As we deal by them will he regard us as dealing by himself. They are all God’s prophets, understanding the mysteries of his kingdom, and “holding forth the Word of life.” They are all his dedicated ones, separate from the world, and living, “not to themselves, but to him who died and rose again for them.” And whether as the one thing or the other, they are his accredited representatives on earth (Mat 10:40). Our treatment of them is virtually our treatment of him that sent them (Mat 25:40). A kiss to them reaches the Master’s lips; a blow to them touches the apple of his eye.
II. PROXIMATELY THIS WAS A SIN AGAINST MAN. It consisted in compelling the prophet and the Nazarite to disobey God. Now, disobedience is sin, even when committed under pressure. “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Men have faced death rather than the guilt of disobedience to known law. And so long as there is any alternative, even death itself, there is no place for disobedience. Israel’s was the sin of compelling others to sin. This was soul murder, and therefore guilt of the darkest dye. Early persecutors sometimes compelled Christians to swallow poison, an infernal device to make them suicides as well as martyrs, and so destroy them soul and body both. So diabolically ingenious was the young persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, that he compelled believers to blaspheme (Act 26:11); and when recalling the sin of his unconverted life he makes that fact the bitterest count in his self-accusation. Kindred to this was Israel’s sin. It was an attempt to compass not men’s death alone, but their damnationa crime to which killing the body is as nothing. And it is not so uncommon in Christian lands and Christian Churches. How many among us are tempters to drunkenness, tempters to uncleanness, tempters to falsehood, tempters to profanity! Well, every tempter is a murderera murderer not merely in the ordinary sense, but in the Satanic sense of destroying or trying to destroy an immortal soul.
III. ULTIMATELY IT WAS A SIN AGAINST THE SINNER‘S OWN INTERESTS. All sin is unprofitable, but this was doubly so. The prophet brought God’s message, not for their destruction, but for their salvation. When they shut his month they cut themselves off from their only chance of being saved. “Where no vision is the people perish;” and in deliberately cutting it off, Israel sealed its own destruction. Then the Nazarite was an embodied revelation, a typical representation of a consecrated life. A heedful eye might have read a spiritual lesson out of his separation. “The life of the Nazarites was a continual protest against the self-indulgence and worldliness of the people…. It was a life above nature and thought They were an evidence what all might do and be if they used the grace of God” (Pusey). But, in the compulsory violation of his vow, the rich page was blotched and its lesson blotted out. It presents the piteous sight of a people stopping the fount of life in order that they may die of thirst. Israel would neither listen to the Divine voice nor look at the Divine life. And the sight is not confined to Israel (2Ti 4:3). There are Churches that will not tolerate faithful preaching. There is a preaching that minces the gospel testimony against sin. It is the case of Israel over again. The people sinfully silence the preacher, and the preacher sinfully submits to be silenced. A Church asleep, and the minister rocking the cradle, is a poor interpretation of the pastoral relation.
IV. ALTOGETHER IT WAS A SIN AGGRAVATED BY THE ENJOYMENT OF SPECIAL MERCIES. All that God had done was a motive to obedience and an argument against sin. But all the arrows of influence fell pointless and broken from their hearts of stone. The more Divine mercies multiplied, the more did abominable wickedness increase. Sin, under such unlikely circumstances, argues special inveteracy, and involves corresponding aggravation of guilt (Rom 2:4). With every want supplied and every better feeling appealed to, it was sin not only without temptation, but in spite of strong deterrents, and was therefore hopeless as it was guilty. The love and goodness of God are the most potent persuasives to his service. Where these fail the case is desperate. What mercy cannot bend judgment will only break. If you sin against mercy you can sin eternally. There is no spiritual argument that can make you yield (2Pe 3:15; Rom 2:4).
Amo 2:13-16
The wrath of outraged goodness.
“A wounded spirit who can bear?” Even God will not bear it forevermore. A “base contempt of covenant mercies,” exemplified here, may go too far. The limit of intelligent forbearance will be passed, and the pent-up vials of wrath restrained will be poured forth.
I. THE CRUSHER. “Behold, I will press you down as the cart presses that is filled with sheaves” (Keil). This is a strong figure. God, in his retributive action, is compared not only to a cart, but to a heavily loaded one, which crushes all it passes over. His stroke, when it falls, will be heavy in proportion as, in mercy, it has been long suspended. His love had long been spurned, and now at last it is turned into righteous hatred. Unspeakable goodness disregarded persistently will now give place to thick disasters. His power had been insanely dared, and Israel would now discover whether they had an arm like his. “On whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.” How indignant love can be that has suffered persistent outrage! How stern goodness becomes when it finds itself thrown away on inappreciation and contempt! How overwhelming Omnipotence is, which nevertheless endures defiance from worms of the dust so long! How terrible God will be as a Foe where he will not be accepted as a Friend (Psa 18:26; Pro 1:24-28)!
II. THE CRUSHED. These are not the nation in general, but each class in particularthe strong, the courageous, the swift, the fighter, the runner, and the rider alike. None shall escape. God’s wrath, like his love, is distinctiverests not on masses, but on individuals. And, answering to this, the judgments which execute his wrath are elaborated in detail They are no more necessary than reluctant, no more reluctant than sure, no more sure than thorough.
“The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small.”
It is noticeable, too, that of those who fall in the sweep of God’s sword, it is the best protected who are emphasized. Nothing is said of the weak and timid and slow. Their destruction might be taken for granted. But, lest any should cherish a hope of escape under any circumstances, the persons to whom such hope would be most natural are doomed by name. An occasion of remaining in sin is, with many wicked, the stealthy hope that somehow or other they will escape at last (Isa 28:15). Perhaps they have no definite expectation, no theory even, on the subject. They know the Word of God to be decisive, and feel the chances are against them. But they cajole the judgment into negligently making the wish the father to the thought, and go down to death the half-conscious victims of a make believe. The gospel to such wants heralding with a Saviour’s warning cry, “How can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
III. THE CRUSHING. A variety of figures combine to illustrate this.
1. It cannot be resisted. “The strong one will not fortify his strength,” etc. There are no arms we can use against God. They are suited to a material, not a spiritual, foe. There is no strength to be put in competition with his. The bare thought of a struggle is the climax of all absurdity. “Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth.”
2. It cannot be faced. “The courageous one among the heroes will flee away.” Man has strength, and confidence in it, for a struggle with fellow man. But his strength leaves him in God’s presence (Joh 7:44). He cannot even attempt resistance. “He falls at his feet like one dead.”
3. It cannot be escaped. “The flight will be lost to the swift.” To fly from Omnipresence is as inconceivable as to fight against Omnipotence. Darkness cannot hide, nor distance separate, from God. We live in his presence. We sin in his presence. We die in his presence. Even the destruction from his presence as gracious (2Th 1:9) is destruction in his presence as filling heaven and earth.
(1) Judgment is the obverse of grace. There are only the two ways of it. There is no compromise between obedience and disobedience (Mat 12:30). So there is no via media between salvation and destruction. The coin of Scripture truth comes to us with a nimbus on the one side and a death’s head on the other. We may choose between the two, but one or other we must take (Mar 16:16). God will save if he may, but he will destroy if he must.
(2) Grace is the converse of judgment. Judgment empties the strong of strength. Grace makes the weak to be strong in God. You may have either; and you must have one. Which shall it be?
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Amo 2:1-3
Moab’s brutality avenged.
It is natural for the mind to lay hold upon and to retain in memory some one out of many characteristics of a nation, some one out of many incidents of a war. The one thing that is remembered is representative of many things that are forgotten. So is it with Amos’s treatment of the sins of the surrounding nations. Several of these are characterized by some special quality. In the case before us in this passage an incident of malignant brutality is mentioned, not as standing alone, but evidently as a sample of the conduct of which the children of Lot had been guilty, and which was about to bring down upon them the wrath of Heaven.
I. IRREVERENCE AND INSULT OFFERED TO THE DEAD INDICATE A BASE AND ABANDONED DISPOSITION. We know nothing of the circumstance here referred to. The Moabites had made war upon the Edomites; had conquered them, had captured their king, and had slain him, and then consumed his bones with fire. This last action must be judged by the standard of the habits and feelings of the time. In some nations and at some periods cremation has been regarded as an honourable mode of disposing of dead bodies. In the time of the prophet, and among the Hebrews and their neighbors, it was held in detestation. No greater insult, no more horrible evidence of brutality, was possible. The dead are always considered, by civilized and religious communities, as entitled to tender and reverential treatment. Especially those who believe in a future life are bound to support their creed by treating a dead body as something better than a carcase. The instance of irreverence here recorded was aggravated by the fact that it was a king whose body was thus treated. War is in itself bad enough; but savage brutality renders war still worse.
II. DIVINE PROVIDENCE VISITS BRUTALITY WITH APPROPRIATE RETRIBUTION.
1. War, with all its accompanying horrors, is the doom of the savage slaughterers. They that take the sword perish by the sword. The measure they mete is measured to them again.
2. In this retribution the great suffer equally with the multitude. They who insult their neighbours’ kings may suffer in the person of their own mighty ones. Fire devours the palaces as welt as the cottages, and the judges and princes are cut off and slain along with the meanest of the subjects. The Lord is King and Judge, and he will not allow those nations always to prosper which violate his Law and defy his authority.T.
Amo 2:4
The privileged but faithless.
The preceding denunciations refer to the idolatrous nations by whom the chosen people were surrounded. But the impartiality of the prophet is apparent from his condemnation of his own kindred. Amos came from Tekoah, a city of Judah, and, instructed by the righteous Ruler of all, he did not spare his own tribe.
I. THE TRANSGRESSION OF JUDAH WAS AGGRAVATED BY THEIR POSSESSION AND THEIR NEGLECT OF THE DIVINE LAW. From the days of the desert wanderings the Jewish people had enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of Possessing the laws of Moses, which were the laws of Jehovah. A treasure of incomparable value should have been highly esteemed and diligently used. That there were those to whom the Law was as “fine gold,” as “honey and the honeycomb,” cannot be questioned. But the people as a whole were insensible of their privileges, and neglected and abused them; indeed, they are charged with having despised them. The surrounding and heathen nations were not guilty of this heinous offence. Great is the sin of those who have the Word of God, but who treat it with neglect and disdain.
II. THE TRANSGRESSION OF JUDAH WAS AGGRAVATED BY THEIR FAILURE TO PROFIT BY THE LESSON OF WARNING OFFERED IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR FOREFATHERS. The chosen people were taught not only by words, but by facts; not only by the books of Moses, but by the history of their ancestors. How often had the Hebrew people forsaken their God! How grievously had they sinned! And how terribly had they been scourged for their folly! Yet the lesson, emphatic and impressive though it was, was overlooked and unlearnt.
III. THE TRANSGRESSION OF JUDAH WAS AGGRAVATED BY THEIR LAPSE INTO IDOLATRY. The “lies” spoken of by the prophet refer to the deceptive and hideous rites and practices of the heathen. Jehovah was the true God; the “gods of the nations” were but idols, the professions of whose worshippers and priests were delusive and vain. That those who had been trained to idolatry should persevere in it was intelligible; but that Judah should forsake the righteous, pure, and gracious God for the capricious and obscene and ridiculous divinities of the surrounding nations, was monstrous, and only to be accounted for by an awful abandonment to self and sin. The greater the height from which one falls, the deeper is his descent.
IV. THE AGGRAVATED TRANSGRESSION OF JUDAH MET WITH A SEVERE RETRIBUTION. Nebuzaradan and the army of the Chaldees fulfilled this prediction to the letter.T.
Amo 2:6-8
A nation’s crimes.
The ministry of Amos was mainly to the northern kingdom. With this passage commences the long impeachment and warning which the prophet was inspired to address to Israel. The previous denunciations are pungent, but brief; now Amos puts forth all his strength of invective, reproach, and expostulation.
I. UNGODLINESS IS AT THE ROOT OF A NATION‘S MORAL DEBASEMENT. Israel did not, indeed, abjure religion; but Israel abjured God. “The house of their god,” says the prophet with a quiet irony, referring to the idol temples which the people had taken to frequenting. The reverence of the supreme Lord of righteousness is the very root of national morality. Let a people worship such deities as were worshipped by Israel’s neighbours, the Philistines, the Amorites, the Syrians, and it is well known to what fatal results such worship will surely lead. And let a nation abandon all worship, and live a life of sense, and it is certainly upon the high road to moral ruin.
II. GREED AND OPPRESSION ARE AMONG THE FRUITS OF NATIONAL UNGODLINESS. In the state of society with which Amos was conversant, these immoral habits displayed themselves in the enslavement of the poor or in their deprivation of the ordinary comforts of life. There was no human law to prevent some of the base transactions mentioned, and all belief in a Divine Law was abandoned. History gives us many proofs of the pernicious effect of secularism and superstition upon human relations. Not only are all restraints, save those of civil law and physical force, spumed and ridiculed; there is no impulse and no motive to a higher than the selfish and animal life.
III. FLAGRANT LICENTIOUSNESS IS ANOTHER FRUIT OF A NATION‘S IRRELIGION. The passions which lead to such atrocities as those here mentioned are, no doubt, deep seated in human nature. But religion assists men, not in repressing them wholly, but in controlling and guiding them. It is believed by many that Amos refers to some of the practices which were encouraged by the idolatries to which the Israelites were conforming. Certain it is that infidelity is often associated with the vilest principles of an immoral life, and tends to the letting loose of that wild beast-sensual appetitewhich works dire devastation in society.
APPLICATION. These considerations should induce those who prize true religion for themselves to seek its maintenance at home against the assaults of infidelity, and to seek its propagation in lands where its absence is so morally deleterious.T.
Amo 2:9-11
A nation’s privileges.
The transgressions of Israel were all the more reprehensible because of the peculiar favour which had been shown, to the people who were descendants of the father of the faithful and the friend of God. Upon these special privileges the prophet here dwells and expatiates, with a view to bring home to the offenders the magnitude of their sin.
I. A NATION SHOULD TRACE THE HAND OF GOD IN THE DELIVERANCES WROUGHT ON ITS BEHALF. Israel was established in the land of the Canaanites, of whom the Amorites are in this passage taken as the representatives. These foes of the chosen nation are pictured majestic as the cedar and mighty as the oak. Yet Jehovah had smitten them in the lofty branches, and had extirpated them from the roots, and had planted in their stead the vine brought out of Egypt. It was not by Israel’s sword or bow, but by the right hand of the Lord, that the Amorites had been vanquished. A devout mind will trace the presence and the action of Divine Providence, in a nation’s history. In great crises England has been succoured by the interposition of Omnipotence from the assaults of powerful and unpitying foes. The “good hand of our God” has been upon us to protect and to deliver.
II. A NATION SHOULD REMARK THE GUIDANCE OF THE ALL–WISE GOD APPARENT IN THE EVENTS OF ITS POLITICAL LIFE. “I led you:” such is the language in which Jehovah reminded the forgetful and unfaithful Hebrews of his treatment of his chosen. The epoch of wilderness wandering was the critical epoch of Israel’s life; it was then that the nation was consolidated and disciplined. A marvellous story it remains to this day, the story of the forty years in the Peninsula of Sinai. Fraught, too, with encouragement for all who trust God. What Christian nation has not reason to give thanks to “him who led his people through the wilderness” for his mercy endureth forever”? The eye must be dull which cannot see, the heart must be cold winch ages not confess, the directing hand of the Eternal in the career of such a nation as our own.
III. A NATION SHOULD GRATEFULLY HONOUR GOD FOR RAISING UP WISE AND HOLY MEN AS NATIONAL TEACHERS AND EXAMPLES. The prophets and Nazarites of the Jews may represent men of sanctified genius and insight, and mental and moral force, whom Providence appoints to be the inspiration of the community towards all that is beautiful and good. A people’s greatest strength and most valuable possession must be sought in its finest, purest, ablest men. God did much for Israel in the way of outward guidance and interposition; but all his mercies were transcended by the gift of heroes and saints, judges and seers, valiant, true-hearted kings, fearless prophets, faithful priests. Rich as our own country is in many other respects, its true wealth must be sought in its noblest, most unselfish sons. God give us grace to appreciate and to profit by his goodness in this respect!T.
Amo 2:13
Men’s sins a Divine burden.
The figure of the text is one taken by Amos from his own experience as a husbandman. In the harvest field the cart is piled high with sheaves to be taken to the garner or the threshing floor. The wain groansas poets put itbeneath the load. Even so, it is represented that the sins of Israel oppress Jehovah; he is distressed by their magnitude and their aggravations.
I. LIGHT IS CAST BY THIS LANGUAGE UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD.
1. His repugnance to sin is here brought before us. The deities of the heathen do not seem to have been represented as hating sin, though they were pictured as resenting the neglect of their worshippers. It was otherwise with Jehovah, for he was not an invention of human ignorance and frailty. The Old Testament writers, with one consent, represent the Eternal as holy, and as hating sin as sin.
2. His distress at sin is conveyed in this declaration. This is no imperfection. Mere disapproval would have been an imperfection. But it is an encouraging view which we are justified in taking of the Divine character, as we read that God is pained by human iniquity. What an appeal to sinful man is this, “I am pressed under you”!
II. LIGHT IS CAST BY THIS LANGUAGE UPON THE NATURE OF HUMAN SIN. Men’s transgressions are not unheeded by God, neither are they a matter of indifference to him. The Supreme Being is not oppressed by the vast care of the material universe. But sin is so heinous and awful that it affects his feelingsif we may use language so human. Shall man be careless with regard to that which is so felt by the infinite heart? Of all ills there can be none like this.
III. LIGHT IS CAST BY THIS LANGUAGE UPON THE PROSPECT OF REDEMPTION. This light may be dim, but it is an advance upon darkness. If man’s sin is so distressing to God, there is reason to hope that Divine wisdom and grace will concur to provide means for its forgiveness and its cancelling. The feeling which is uttered in the figurative language of the text found lull expression in the cross of Christ, in the gospel of salvation.T.
Amo 2:14-16
Judgment inevitable.
In the preceding verses there is observable an accumulation of human transgression and iniquity. And in these closing verses el the chapter the reader is equally struck with the rhetorical accumulation of figures intended to convey a deep impression of the inevitableness of retribution.
I. A PICTURE OF HUMAN GREATNESS. Man has his own standard of greatness. The prophet piles up epithets to represent man’s power. In vivid colours and in rapid succession there rise before the imagination the figures of the “swift” runner who is wont to overtake his foe, the “strong” hero whose blow cleaves the helmet in twain, the “mighty” whose praise is upon all lips, the “bowman” whose arrow pierces the fugitive in the battlefield, the “swift on foot” who trusts for safety to his speed, the “horseman” whose charge has often broken the doughty ranks of the enemy, the “courageous,” “the strong of his heart,” whom no danger daunts.
II. A VISION OF INEVITABLE RETRIBUTION AND OF THE DISCOMFITURE OF THE ENEMIES OF GOD. Even such as those who have been described shall be powerless in the day of the Lord. Exemption from the operation of righteous law is not to be obtained by any human craft or might. The swift shall be overtaken, and the arm of the warrior shall tall powerless by his side. Justice must be vindicated; the Lord of right will never abandon his sovereign throne.T.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Amo 2:9-13
God and nations.
“Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath,” etc. These verses suggest a few remarks in relation to God and nations.
I. He reminds nations of the GREATNESS OF HIS KINDNESS TOWARDS THEM. In these verses he reminds Israel of two great merciful interpositions of his on their behalf.
(1) The destruction of the Amoritethe original inhabitant of Canaan. Amorite hero stands for all the old Canaanites. He drove out the Canaanites that Israel might possess and enjoy the goodly land in which they then lived (Exo 23:27).
(2) Their emancipation from Egypt and their guidance into the Holy Land. “Also I brought you up from Egypt, and led you into the promised land.” These two great acts of kindness are mentioned only as specimens of millions of others. The language in which these acts are represented suggest three great truths in relation to God’s conduct toward the world.
1. He often sacrifices one people in order to advance the interests of another. The old Canaanites he sacrificed for the good of Israel. in the history of the world this is often done; one country ruined for the advantage of another. This is marvellous; it clashes with our primitive ideas of justice and Divine goodness. But we cease to murmur when we remember that there is a great explaining day, and that the peoples that have been ruined for the interests of others have never suffered more from the hands of God than they have justly deserved.
2. That the mightiest human powers cannot obstruct him in his procedure. The Amorites, the original inhabitants of Canaan, were a great people. It is said their “height was like the height of cedars,” and they were “strong as oaks” They were in the great field of mankind not like the tender sapling or the stunted shrub; they were tall as the cedars and mighty as the oak (Num 13:32, Num 13:33). Then Egypt, too, from which he delivered them, was a mighty power. Pharaoh was the greatest despot of the old world. But what was all this human power before the march of Omnipotence? The mighty Canaanite and the powerful Egyptian were as mere stubble under his feet. God will not be hindered.
3. That he fulfils his great purposes with nations by the agency of men. He crushed the Canaanites and he crushed the Egyptians, not by hurling directly from his hand the thunderbolts, No; but by the agency of Joshua and Moses. God works with men by men. By men he blesses and by men he punishes, He allows man to be the devil of man, and he makes man the saviour of man.
II. He reminds nations of THE ABUSE OF THE MERCIES HE HAD CONFERRED ON THEM.
He specifies here two special mercies which he had bestowed upon Israel.
1. A spiritual ministry. “And I raised up of your sons for prophets.” He gave them men whom he duly qualified to indoctrinate and inspire them with the highest truths of duty and of destiny. The greatest blessing which God bestows upon a people is a true ministry.
2. Virtuous young men. “Your young men for Nazarites.” “These were young men who,” to use the language of another, “bound themselves by a vow to God and his service, and, in pursuance of that, denied themselves many of the lawful delights of sense, as drinking wine and eating grapes. There were some of their young men that were in their prime for the enjoyment of the pleasures of this life, and yet voluntarily abridged themselves of them; these God raised up by the power of his grace to be monuments of his grace, to his glory, and to be his witnesses against the impieties of that degenerate age.” Virtuous and high-minded young men are amongst the chief ornaments and brightest hopes of a people. But how did Israel treat these Divine mercies? “They commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.” They did not wish to hear their voices; they closed their ears to their ministry. To a great extent this is the case with our own country now. The great bulk of our people say to the pulpits of England, by their conduct, “Prophesy not;” we do not want your ministry. Sad state thisa state of sin and the precursor of ruin. How did Israel treat these virtuous young men? “They gave the Nazarites wine to drink,” They caused them to break their vow. This they did, it may be, by seductive promises, or frightening threats, or abashing ridicule and reproach. A greater crime than the crime of a people endeavouring to make young men drunkards can scarcely be imagined, and this crime England is on all hands earnestly promoting. The multiplication in our midst of beer houses and gin palaces, all under the sanction of law, is an insult to Heaven, an outrage on decency, a curse to the country. It behoves every philanthropist to take his stand against this abomination, and to sweep from the earth such huge establishments of the devil as the Burton breweries and the infernal spirit distilleries, whence streams of poison flow through every grade of social life. “Every inordinate cup is unbless’d, and the ingredient is a devil;” “O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!” (Shakespeare).D.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Amo 2:1. Because he burned the bones, &c. “That not even the ashes of the bones might remain, or be distinguished from lime.” See 2Ki 3:27.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
AMOS
_____________
CHAPTERS 1, 2
The Superscription (Amo 1:1)
1 The words of Amos (who was among the shepherds of Tekoa), which he saw concerning Israel, in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
And he said:
I. The Divine Judgment is announced first against the Countries lying around Israel, then against the Kingdom of Judah, but at last remains standing over the Kingdom of Israel (Amo 1:2 to Amo 2:16).
2 Jehovah roars out of Zion
And out of Jerusalem he utters his voice
Then the pastures of the shepherds wither
And the head of Carmel is dried up.
(a) Damascus (Amo 1:3-5).
3 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Damascus
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they threshed Gilead with iron rollers,
4 I will send fire into the house of Hazael,
And it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.
5 And I will shatter the bolt of Damascus,
And cut off the inhabitant from the vale of Aven,
And the sceptre-holder out of Beth-Eden;
And the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir, saith Jehovah.
(b) Gaza (Amo 1:6-8).
6 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Gaza,
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they carried away captives1 in full number2
To deliver them up to Edom,
7 I will send fire into the wall of Gaza,
And it shall devour their palaces.
8 And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod
And the sceptre-holder from Ashkelon;
And I will turn my hand against Ekron
And the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord, Jehovah.
(c) Tyre (Amo 1:9-10).
9 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Tyre,
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they delivered prisoners in full number to Edom,
And remembered not the brotherly covenant,
10 I will send fire into the wall of Tyre
And it shall devour their palaces.
(d) Edom (Amo 1:11-12).
11 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Edom,
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because he pursues his brother with the sword,
And stifles his compassion,3
And his wrath continually tears in pieces,
And his anger endures forever,4
12 I will send fire into Teman
And it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.
(e) Ammon (Amo 1:13-15).
13 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of the sons of Ammon,
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they ripped up the pregnant women of Gilead,
To enlarge their border,
14 I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah,
And it shall devour their palaces,
With a war-shout in the day of battle,
With a storm in the day of the whirlwind.
15 And their king5 shall go into captivity,
He and his princes together, saith Jehovah.
Amos 2
(f) Moab (Amo 2:1-3).
1 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Moab
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because it burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime,
2 I will send fire into Moab,
And it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth,
And Moab shall die in the tumult,
With a war-shout, with a trumpet-blast;
3 And I will cut off the Judges 6 from the midst thereof,
And will slay all his princes with him, saith Jehovah.
(g) Judah (Amo 2:4-5).
4 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Judah,
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they despised the law7 of Jehovah,
And kept not his commandments,7
And their lies misled them,
After which their fathers walked;
5 I will send fire into Judah,
And it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
(h) Israel (Amo 2:6-16)
6 Thus saith Jehovah,
For three transgressions of Israel
And for fourI will not reverse it
Because they sell the righteous for money,
And the needy for8 a pair of shoes;
7 They who pant after the dust of the earth upon the afflicted,
And pervert the way of the sufferers;
And a man and his father go in to the same girl
In order9 to profane my holy name:
8 And they stretch themselves upon pawned clothes by every altar,
And they drink the wine of the punished10 in the house of their God.11
9 And yet12 I destroyed the Amorite before them,
Him who was as high as the cedars
And as strong as the oaks;
And I destroyed his fruit from above
And his roots from beneath.
10 And yet I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
And led you in the wilderness forty years,
To inherit the land of the Amorite;
11 And I raised up of your sons prophets,
And of your young men dedicated ones.
Is it not so, ye sons of Israel? saith Jehovah.
12 But ye made the dedicated ones drink wine.
And commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.
13 Behold, I will press you down13
As the full14 cart presses the sheaves.
14 Then shall flight be lost15 to the swift,
And the strong shall not confirm his strength,
And the hero shall not save his life.
15 He that beareth the bow shall not stand,
And the swift-footed shall not save,
And the rider of the horse shall not save his life,16
16 And the courageous one among the heroes,
Naked shall he flee away in that day, saith the Lord17.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Amo 1:1. The Superscription.The words of Amos. The expression is somewhat unusual. It is customary to state the contents of a prophecy as the word of Jehovah which came to this one or that one, as in the first verse of Hosea, Joel, Micah, etc. Jeremiah uses the same phrase as Amos, but adds expressly, to whom the word of Jevoah came. Here also the divine inspiration of the words of Amos is put beyond doubt by the addition, which he saw, for is the technical formula to denote the prophets immediate intuition of divine truth. His words therefore originated in such an intuition, and were not the outflow and expression of his own thoughts. He saw first what he afterwards recorded, and this seeing rested upon a divine revelation. Upon the addition to the prophets name, who was among, etc., see the Introduction, 1.
Upon Israel. The peculiar aim of the prophets utterances is the kingdom of Ephraim; but this came into view only in so far as it was a kingdom of Israel, and contained a partin extent a greater partof the people of Israel. Besides, the threatenings extend to the kingdom of Judah, therefore to all Israel. Moreover, it must be considered that these threatenings terminate in the promise after their execution of a new glorious Israel, in which no account is taken of the existing division of the kingdom. As to the note of time in the days of Uzziah. etc., see the Introduction, 2, where it is shown to be correct according to the contents of the book.
Two years before the earthquake. See also the Introduction. This date is not so much chronological as argumentative. It is inserted in reference to Amo 8:8 (also Amo 9:5), since this earthquake occurring two years after the prophesying, was a declaration in act that God would make good the words of his servant. As to the genuineness of the entire superscription, no argument against it is to be found in the statement who was among the herdmen, etc., and especially the expression who was; or if indeed this statement is not original it might yet have been inserted in a superscription otherwise genuine. In favor of this view is the above-mentioned unusual character of the phrase words of Amos which he saw. It is scarce conceivable that a later editor would use this expression rather than the customary one, The word of the Lord which came, etc. If then the words two years before the earthquake are cited, as by Baur, as a proof of spuriousness, because if genuine the prophecy must have been written two years after Amoss appearance in Bethel, while its whole character shows that it was written soon after that event, we answer that this latter assertion is wholly unfounded. Nothing forbids the opinion that two years, which is no great space of time, elapsed before the record was made, and besides we have before shown that the book is by no means a mere record of the oral discourse. On the other hand, even Baur himself must admit that the precise date and the peculiar form of the superscription presuppose in any event its composition not long after the prophecies were delivered. Surely he who prefixed these words did it in reference, as above stated, to its bearing upon the subject of the prophecies following. And as there is nothing against the authorship of Amos, it is most natural to think that he who suggested the reference recorded it. Besides, we have already seen (Introduction, 3) that there is reason to believe that the earthquake induced Amos to write his prophecies; indeed, he perhaps refers to it in Amo 1:2. Certainly then nothing is more natural than to assume that he himself contributed this note of time, and thus indicated the inducement which led him to write.
Amo 1:2. Jehovah roars out of Zion, etc. Comp. Joel 4:16. Amos connects himself directly with Joel in describing the judgments upon the heathen as enemies of Gods people. For even from Amo 1:3, he announces the divine wrath upon all the surrounding nations. But suddenly the denunciation turns to Judah, and then to Israel, where it remains standing, so that it is plain that he aimed especially at Israel, and that the threats against the heathen which seemed to be most important, served only for an introduction to what follows. This appears even in the verse before us, since he applies the phrase borrowed from Joel differently from that prophet, namely, against Israel, for since the drying up of Carmel is stated to be the result of Gods wrath, the pastures of the shepherds, which are said to wither, are to be referred to Israel. Woods and pastures are mentioned by Amos in accordance with his peculiar mode of characterizing the country. Or, we are to assign the meads of the shepherds to the pasture grounds of the wilderness of Judah, which was the prophets home in the south, and to this Carmel stands opposed on the north, so that Amos sees the whole land from south to north withered. The withering means generally destruction, not to be limited to mere drought as a natural occurrence, although this is not excluded, but extending to the devastation of a foreign foe, as the later statements require.
From Amo 1:3 begin the threatenings against the heathenin the way of a preface. The storm of divine wrath rolls around the outlying kingdoms, until it comes to a stand on Israel. The heathen kingdoms mentioned in their order are six: Syria (Damascus), Gaza, or rather all Philistia (Amo 1:8), Tyre, Edom, Amnion, Moab. These manifestly constitute two groups, three in each. For the three first are more distant from Israel, the latter nearer, as allied in origin. The ground of their punishment is stated to be their transgressions, especially against Israel; they come into view, therefore, as enemies of Gods people, and as such are threatened with wrath. In the succession of the groups we see a climax of guilt, since naturally the ill-doing of a kindred people is worse than that of a foreign race. Upon this ground the question, why just these were selected, answers itself. It was these from whom Israel had severely suffered, and their guilt lay in the foreground. They are then representatives of a class; a threatening upon such grounds proclaims the guilt of a similar course of action generallywherever it may be found.
See further, in respect to the bearing of menaces against the heathen upon menaces against Israel, in the Doctrinal and Practical Remarks.
2. DamascusSyria, Amo 1:3-5. Thus saith Jehovah; for three transgressions, etc. It is peculiar that the threatenings throughout both chapters are always introduced in the same manner. The phrase for threeand for four, is well explained by Hitzig, who says: The number four is added to the number three, to characterize the latter as simply set down at pleasure, to say that it is not exactly three but much more. Three would be enough, but it is not limited to three. The plurality is not rigidly denned, on purpose to indicate the ever increasing number of sins. These nations therefore have incurred not a light but a heavy degree of guilt.The with which the threatening begins is in each case repeated before the special transgression mentioned, and this latter, being a single case, seems to conflict with the preceding plurals. But in truth the commencement, having firmly asserted the plurality of the sins, may well allow the subsequent address, as it hastens from one people to another, to be content with naming a single wrong act as a flagrant example which necessarily presupposes the existence of many others. The phrase interposed in each caseI will not reverse it, i. e., the punishment decided uponcuts off every thought of repeal, and declares the execution to be inevitable. In every case the judgment is described as a sending of fire to consume the palaces, which can mean only the fire of war, conquest, and destruction. Because they threshed, refers to the cruelty with which they crushed the captured Gileadites under iron threshing-machines. This occurred when Palestine east of the Jordan was subjugated by Hazael under the reign of Jehu (2Ki 10:32-33; cf. 2Ki 13:7Benhadad; was it the first of that name, or the second? Probably both. Shatter the bolt, i. e., of the gate=the conquest of Damascus. The inhabitants of the valley of Aven and the sceptre-holder, i. e., prince or ruler, of Beth Eden, are extirpated. lit., valley of nothingness, is probably the modern Bekaa, the valley between Lebanon and Antilibanus, of which Heliopolis (Baalkek) was the most distinguished city. then perhaps= the name of the Egyptian Heliopolis, whence the LXX. render ; but designedly written in the former method to play upon the idol worship performed there (cf. for .
either the modern Bet-el-Ganna, not far from Damascus, or, better, the in the district of Laodicea (Ptol. 5, 5, 20). The rest are to be carried away to Kir, an Assyrian province, on the banks of the River Kir, the modern Tahoma. This was fulfilled by Tiglath-Pileser (2Ki 16:9).
3. GazaPhilistia. Amo 1:6-8. Gaza stands as a representative of the other Philistine states which are similarly threatened, and is named first, perhaps because it was most actively engaged in the sale of the captives (Keil). There is perhaps an allusion to the same case which Joel mentions (Amo 3:6). Although Joel speaks of a sale to the Grecians, and Amos of a sale to Edom, there is no discrepancy, for both occurred. Joel mentions the Greeks, because he sought to set forth the wide dispersion of the Jews and their future recall from all lands; but Amos wishes to emphasize the hatred of the Philistines, and therefore speaks of the sale made to Israels chief foe, Edom. Why Gath is not named, does not appear. Doubtless it was comprehended under the phrase remnant of the Philistines.
4. TyrePhnicia. Amo 1:9-10. The crime here is the same as in the preceding, namely, the sale of prisoners to Edom. But it does not include carrying them away, therefore they must have bought them from others and then sold them. Hence Joel says that the Philistines sold the prisoners whom they captured to the Greeks. But the Phoenicians as a trading people may just as well have bought from others, such as the Syrians, and sold the captives thus acquired to Edom. Their sin here was the greater, because David and Solomon had made a brotherly covenant with the king of Tyre. The threatening in Amo 1:10 is limited to the commencement of what is denounced upon Damascus and Gaza. The same is true of Edom and of Judah.
5. Edom. Amo 1:11-12. No particular crimes are here charged, but an implacable hatred against Israel, which broke out in acts of cruelty. Teman is either an appellative, the South, or the name of a province in Edom (cf. Jer 49:20; Hab 3:3; Job 2, 11; Eze 25:13). Eusebius and Jerome speak also of a city named Teman, six hours from Petra. Bozra, probably the capital of Iduma, south of the Dead Sea, still preserved in the village of el-Buseireh in Jebl.
6. Ammon. Amo 1:13-15. The fact stated here is not mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament. Rabbah, in its full form, Rabbah of the Sons of Ammon, the capital of the Ammonites, is preserved in the ruins of Amman. The destruction here threatened is more closely defined. It will take place through a foreign conquest which is compared to a storm, indicating either its speed or its violence.
7. Moab. Chap. 2 Amo 2:1-3. The burning of the body into lime, i. e., to powder, indicates the slaking of vengeance even upon the dead. Nothing is said of this in the historical books, but it was perhaps connected with the war waged by Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah, together with the king of Edom, against the Moabites. In that case the king of Edom was a vassal on the side of Israel, and the insult to him would be, at least indirectly, a crime against Israel. Kerioth is the proper name of a chief city of Moab, still preserved in the place called Kereyat. is applied to Moab, considered as a person. Here also the occurrence of a battle is mentioned. Judge, used only to vary the expression, is equivalent to king, or sceptre-holder in Amo 1:5. From the midst refers to Moab as a country.
8. Judah. Amo 2:4-5. The sin of Judah consists in apostasy from God. Their lies means their idols, as nonentities, destitute of reality.
9. Israelthe Ten Tribes. Amo 2:6-16. Now in a surprising manner Israel is brought forward, and by a similar introduction placed on the same line with the others; only in place of a short statement, there is a lengthened and detailed representation of its sin, guilt, and punishment.
(a.) Israels Sins.
Amo 2:6-8. Unrighteousness in judgment is charged, Amo 2:6. The righteous = one who is such in the judicial sense, i. e., innocent. Money, which they had received or expected. Sell, declare guilty and punish. The sentence is called a sale because the judge was bribed. The phrase, for a pair of shoes, does not state the price with which the judge was bribed [the poorest slave was certainly worth much more than thisKeil], but the occasion of the proceeding, namely, a pair of shoes, i. e., a mere trifle, for which the poor man was in debt and for which the judge gave him up to the creditor as a slave (Lev 25:39).
Amo 2:7. They who, etc. Plainly, not a new fault, but a description of the sin out of which the former sprang. Pant after the dust, etc., i. e., endeavor to bring these into such misery that they will strew dust on their heads, or that they will sink into the dust, i. e., perish. Pervert the way, etc., prepare for them embarrassments and distress. Son and father go in to the (i. e., one and the same) girl. In order to profane my holy name. The conjunction indicates that the profanation was deliberate and therefore willful. It is so called because it was an audacious violation of Gods commandments. Prostitution in or near the temple itself is not to be thought of here.
Amo 2:8. Every altar and the house of their God, certainly refer to the sacred places at Beer-sheba and Dan, but it must be kept in mind that in these Jehovah was worshipped. There is no reference to the worship of heathen deities, which indeed did not exist under Jeroboam 2, for the conduct here condemned is condemned just because it took place in the sanctuary, and thus was a daring contempt of God. Pawned clothes, i. e., upper garments consisting of a large square piece of cloth, used also as a bed-covering by the poor. These were pawned, given in pledge to a creditor, by the poor. Such the law required to be returned before nightfall (Exo 22:25; Deu 24:12). But instead of this, they were retained, and used as cloths on which the creditors stretched out, i. e., their limbs; and on what occasion? According to what follows, at banquets or sacrificial meals, as the connection shows. Wine of the punished, means wine bought with the proceeds of fines. Manifestly the oppression of the poor is censured also in Amo 2:8. It only connects with this sin that of frivolous luxury.
(b). The sin is the more heinous because Israel is the chosen people of God.
10. Amo 2:9-12. These verses recall to mind the manifestations of Gods grace. He had put Israel in possession of Canaan. Here Amos mentions first the direct means by which this was done, namely, the destruction of the Canaanites, then, what preceded, namely, the deliverance from Egypt and the guidance through the wilderness. And Iemphatic, the very being whom you now treat with contempt. The Amorites are named as the strongest race of the Canaanites (cf. Gen 15:16; Jos 24:15); they are likened to a mighty tree, and their destruction to its complete overthrow. A similar reference to these gracious dispensations is found in Deu 8:2; Deu 9:1-6; Deu 29:1-8. Further, the gift of prophecy and the institution of the Nazarites are mentioned as special favors, which God had given to Israel but which they despised.
(c). The Punishment.
This is to be a crushing so severe that no one can escape. The figure of the cart is explained in Textual and Grammatical.
Amo 2:14. Flight is lost to the swift = he will Hot have time to escape.
Amo 2:16. Will flee naked = will not defend himself, but leave behind the garment by which the enemy seizes him (cf. Mar 14:52). The punishment threatened in Amo 2:13 ff. is manifestly the invasion of a superior foe. The powerlessness before him and the consequent fright are depicted in the liveliest manner.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
1. In Joel, prophecy quickly drops the form of a threatening against Gods people which however it certainly has, and then assumes so much the more fully the character of a promise. It is altogether different with the next prophet of whom we have any written memorial, as indeed would be expected from the fact that his mission was to the ten tribes. On one side he stands connected with Joel, but on the other goes far beyond him; his message is not only the earnest calling of a degenerate people to repentance, but the annunciation of Gods destructive judgments upon them. But the transition from Joels point of view to that of Amos is worthy of consideration. The former announced a judgment upon the heathen, but in general terms. This the latter takes up with a slight allusion to Israel, but he does not expand it farther until he has paved the way by a succession of threatenings upon foreign nations. He unrolls before the eyes of Israel a picture of the Divine Justice in its sure and awful march through the kingdoms. But if the people at first regard this with satisfaction because it concerns their foes upon whom they will thus be revenged, they are frightfully awakened from their security by a sudden turn in the direction of the menace. Israel itself is counted among these Gentile kingdoms, and treated in the same way. This shows that the address to Israels foes is only an introduction; and therefore it passes rapidly from one to another, not entering into details, but content with indicating the multitude of their transgressions, and citing one only as an example of the rest. The prophet thus prepares to make the stroke which at last falls upon Israel heavier and more lasting. Were those nations punished Not less will this one be. Did they suffer who had not received the law nor enjoyed special tokens of Gods favor; far heavier will be the punishment of this people who, although chosen of God, had yet in the grossest manner despised Him and his well-known commands. The storm of divine wrath, which they had gazed at as it fell upon others, would discharge itself upon them in all its fury.
Thus does God prick the conscience of his own people by the judgments threatened upon others. They hear his voice saying, If I thus punish others, what must I do to you? The more generally and widely his punishment is inflicted, the less can Israel complain when it comes to them; much rather must they acknowledge it as just.
To Israel in the stricter sense an especial warning is given in the fact that the divine judgment in its circular sweep does not spare Judah, and even names this before Israel. It should sink deep into the heart of the ten tribes that not even the possession of such exalted prerogatives as the temple and the throne of David, could avert the merited punishment. If such be the energy of Gods righteousness, what had they to expect? (Hengstenberg.) That is, the ten tribes might at first hear gladly, and even feel flattered by a threatening against Judah, but so much the more surprising must it be when the same thing comes in turn to themselves. Then the matter assumes a different appearance, and they could infer from Judahs not being spared, how little they could count upon any exemption.
2. Returning to the judgments upon the heathen, the question arises, Why were they punished? One might answer without ceremony, Because of their offenses against Israel, the people of God. Undoubtedly these nations are considered as Israels foes, and their crimes so far as specified are crimes against Israel; in part they are the same as those charged by Joel, who speaks so plainly of the hostility of the heathen toward Israel. Only in the case of Moab (Amo 2:1), is the fact otherwise, for here the offense stated is one only indirectly against Israel. But this shows that the relation to Israel is not the only point of view, and that the threatenings against these nations are not to be attributed solely to this cause; a view which is confirmed by a closer inspection of the sins mentioned; crushing with a threshing sledge, giving prisoners to embittered foes (Edom), forgetting the brotherly covenant, slaying a brother, stifling compassion, ripping the pregnant, displacing the landmarks, burning the bones of a corpse. These are plainly moral offenses, trangressions of the simplest laws of morals. They are therefore sins against a natural divine ordinance, not positively revealed, but manifesting itself in every ones conscience; and as such they incur a heavy guilt. The crimes of these nations then are against God and not merely against his people. So much the more necessary is it for God to punish them.And He can do this because He is a God who controls all nations, and to whom all are subject even if they do not serve Him. Observe how self-evident this truth is to the prophet. Does not this assumed universality of the power of Israels God imply indirectly, or at least negatively, that faith in Israels God is destined for all? Under one God, who has power over all, all shall yet bow themselves.
3. Hence it is the more conceivable that Judah and Israel are joined so directly to the threatened heathen nations. Judah, it is concisely said, has not kept the law, in which God positively declared to them his will. To Israel, on the contrary, nothing is said here of the sin of idolatry (which indeed is presupposed), but individual offenses of a gross kind (partly of course allied with idolatry), are specified; base oppression of the poor through avarice, shameless sensuality, spending in drunkenness money wrested from the poor, and this, most offensively blended with idol-worship. How this is regarded is strikingly shown by an expression at the end of Amo 2:7 which applies to the whole series. It is, says God, a profaning of my holy name. In the view of Scripture there is a holy divine ordinance which is violated by such moral offenses. They are therefore offenses against God, profanations of his holy name, who instituted this ordinance. Therefore the punishment is absolutely necessary. For God cannot suffer his holy name to be profaned with impunity. Upon the sins against the poor, see also Doctrinal and Ethical, 2, upon chap. 3.
4. It is remarkable that the very same threat is made against the heathen and against Judah. This is certainly not without design. Even if it were owing in the first instance to the fact that the prophet had in view one and the same means of punishment for all, namely, subjugation by a foreign foe, still the intentional uniformity suggests equally the unvarying and impartial character of Gods punitive righteousness. There is no respect of persons with Him. Wherever there are sins, there inflexibly the divine wrath makes its appearance; and even if the sins are different in kind, yet where Gods law whether natural or revealed, is transgressed, there a corresponding reaction of his holiness is provoked.
5. Surely the greatness of what God has done for his people weighs heavily in the scale and greatly aggravates their guilt. The fact of these! enefits is the solid ground of the proceeding against Israels sins. Those benefits are so many loud accusations, from which there is no escape. For all Israels sins are not merely violations of a divine order, but a shameless contempt of his goodness and the blackest ingratitude; and the punishments therefore are only a righteous reversal of abused mercies. Hosea goes farther and represents the ingratitude as conjugal infidelity, since he conceives Gods tender relation to Israel as a marriage bond. The infliction of punishment upon apostate Israel is thus more clearly shown to be a divine right. An approach to this view, an indication of Gods loving fellowship with Israel is found in Amo 2:2 : You only have I known, etc.
6. Along with the great blessings which founded the nationthe deliverance from Egypt, and the guidance through the wilderness, and on the other side, the giving of the law,the institution of prophecy, and the law of the Nazarites are mentioned. These are gifts of grace in which Israel had the advantage of other nations, and was distinguished as the people of God and the medium of salvation for the heathen. Amos reminds the people only of these, and not of earthly blessings which the heathen also enjoyed, because these alone were real pledges of Gods gracious covenant with Israel, and because in the contempt and abuse of these gifts the ingratitude of the people was most glaringly displayed. The Nazarites are placed by the side of the prophets who declared the mind and will of God, because the condition of a Nazarite, although it was in form merely a consequence of his own free will in execution of a particular vow, was nevertheless so far a gift of grace in that the resolution to make such a vow came from the inward impulse of the divine Spirit, and the performance of it was rendered possible only through the power of the same Spirit. The raising up of the Nazarites was intended not only to set before the eyes of the people the object of their divine calling, or their appointment to be a holy people of God, but also to show them how the Lord bestowed the power to carry out his object (Keil); of. also the remarks on Hos 12:10, which rests on this passage in Amos.
7. Whether these threatenings against different heathen nations were fulfilled, is a question we must ask still more in the case of Amos than of Joel. For Amos not merely sees and describes in a general ideal sketch the downfall of the heathen power which then stood opposed to Israels exaltation, but he speaks as if predicting a precise historical occurrence. Yet it is to be considered, that, as was hinted before, the threatening runs essentially in the same terms, is in fact one, and, although subjoining special features in some cases (especially Amo 1:5; Amo 1:15), yet at bottom is very general, and sets forth simply conquest and loss of independence, but by whom, is not said. Just this fate befell these kingdoms, although at different times and in different ways. Syria experienced it from the Assyrians when Tiglath-Pileser, in the time of Ahaz, conquered Damascus and put an end to the kingdom. Later, the Chaldan invasion overthrew the other nations, although the information on the point is scanty. Accordingly we are always justified in saying that these predictions were fulfilled, without necessarily affirming that it was in the sense intended by the prophet. [But this latter is a point of no moment, if the fulfillment was in the sense which the Holy Spirit intended.C.] We must further consider that such threatenings are not absolute. They are given at a particular time, and the issue depends upon the behavior of those whom they concern. For Gods purposes, and therefore his punishments are directed according to our conduct. Hence He delays his visitations, or lessens or increases them; so that what takes place at last little coincides with what the prophet had to announce in his name. Nor should the idea be wholly rejected, that these predictions came to the foreign nations themselves, seeing that they were neighbors, and were laid to heart by them just as the heathen oracles were, so that thus the state of affairs might be changed. For these announcements of punishment are to be viewed as warnings as well to the heathen as to Israelwarnings intended to be heard and regarded. That the threatening against Judah, which is of the same tenor as the others, was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar, is well known. But even this fulfillment does not answer exactly to what the Prophet had in view, which manifestly was a judgment closer at hand, perhaps by means of the Assyrians. Hence it is clear that Judah obtained a respite, because its condition had meanwhile improved.
[8. It is remarkable that none of these burdens of Amos are addressed to the greatest powers of the heathen world, opposed to Israel and Judah,Assyria and Babylon. The Holy Spirit who spake by him, reserved the declaration of the destinies of these two great kingdoms for two other of the twelve minor prophets. Assyria was reserved for Nahum, Babylon for Habakkuk. There seems, therefore, to have been divine forethought in the omission. The prophecies of Amos are expanded by succeeding prophets. Amos himself takes up the prophecy of Joel whom he succeeds. Joel, by a magnificent generalization, had displayed all Gods judgments in nature and history as concentrated in one great Day of the Lord Amos disintegrates this great whole, and particularizes those judgments. Joel declares that God will judge all collectively; Amos proclaims that He will judge each singly. (Wordsworth.)
[9. Pusey (p. 161), with great propriety, calls attention to the fact that the complete captivity of a population, the baring a land of its inhabitants, was a thing unknown in the time of Amos. It is true, Sesostris brought together many men, a crowd, from the nations he had subdued, and employed them on his buildings and canals (Herodotus, 2:1078). But in this and other like cases, the persons so employed were simply prisoners made in a campaign, and the solo object of the removal was to obtain slaves so as to spare the labor of the native subjects in constructing the public works. This is shown by the earlier Assyrian inscriptions, all of which speak only of carrying off soldiers as prisoners or women as captives, of receiving slaves, or cattle or goods as tribute, or of putting to death in various ways rulers and men at arms. The forced deportation of a whole people, and the substitution of others in their place, is a different thing altogether. The design of this was to destroy effectually the independence of the subject races and put it out of their power to rebel. The first trace of it we find in the policy of Tiglath Pileser toward Damascus and East and North Palestine, and afterwards it came into general use. But Amos foretold this wholesale transportation long before it occurred, and at a time when there was no human likelihood that it would occur. It must have been a divine inspiration which enabled him so clearly to predict such an unprecedented captivity.C.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Amo 1:2. The head of. Carmel is dried up. Its glory has passed away, as in the twinkling of an eye. God hath spoken the word and it is gone. All, says Van de Velde, lies waste; all is a wilderness. The utmost fertility is here lost for man, useless to man. The vineyards of Carmel, where are they now ? Behold the long rows of stones on the ground, the remains of the walls; they will tell you that here where now with difficulty you force your way through the thick entangled copse, lay in days of old those incomparable vineyards to which Carmel owes its name. (Pusey.)
Amo 1:3 ff. Every infliction on those like ourselves finds an echo in our own consciences. Israel heard and readily believed Gods judgments upon others. It was not tempted to set itself against believing them. How then could it refuse to believe of itself what it believed of others like itself. If they who sinned without law perished without law, how much more should they who have sinned, in the law, be judged by the law. (Ibid.)For three transgressions, etc. God is long-suffering and ready to forgive; but when the sinner finally becomes a vessel of wrath, He punishes all the former sins which for the time He had passed by. Sin adds to sin out of which it grows; it does not overshadow or obliterate the earlier sins, but increases the mass of guilt which God punishes. When the Jews slew the Son, there came on them all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from righteous Abel to Zacharias the son of Barachias. So each individual sinner who dies impenitent, will be punished for all which in his whole life he did or became contrary to the law of God. Deeper sins bring deeper damnation at last. As good men by the grace of God, do through each act done by aid of that grace gain an addition to their everlasting reward, so the wicked by each added sin, add to their damnation. (Ibid.)I will not reverse it. Sin and punishment are by a great law of God bound together. Gods mercy holds back the punishment long, allowing only some slight tokens of his displeasure to show themselves that the sinful soul or people may not be unwarned. When He no longer withholds it, the law of his moral government holds its course. (Ibid.)
Amo 1:4. Devour Benhadads palaces. What avail the pleasure-houses and palaces of the rich of this world? How soon do they turn to dust and ashes when the fire of Gods wrath kindles on them?
Amo 1:6. Carry away prisoners to deliver them, etc. Who so further afflicts the afflicted, shall in return be afflicted by God. Fugitives who flee to us for refuge should never be treated with hostility nor robbed of their liberty.
Amo 1:7-8. The five cities of Philistia had each its own petty king. But all formed one whole; all were one in their sin; all were to be one in their punishment. So then for greater vividness, one part of the common infliction is related of each, while in fact, according to the wont of prophetic diction, what is said of each is said of all.
Amo 1:9. Remember not, etc. It is a great aggravation of enmity and malice, when it is the violation of friendship and a brotherly covenant. (M. Henry.)
Amo 1:10. Fire into the wall of Tyre. Not fine buildings nor strong walls, but righteousness and honesty are a citys best defense. 2Ki 2:12; 2Ki 13:14.
Amo 1:11. Pursues hit brother with the sword. Eleven hundred years had passed since the birth of their forefathers, Jacob and Esau. But with God eleven hundred years had not worn out kindred. It was an abiding law that Israel was not to take Edoms land, nor to refuse to admit him into the congregation of the Lord. Edom too remembered the relation, but to hate him. Fierce are the wars of brethren. (Pusey.)Stifles his compassions. Edom steeled himself against his better feelings, as we say, deadened them. But so they do not live again. Man is not master of the life and death of his feelings, any more than of his natural existence. He can destroy; he cannot recreate. And he does so far do to death his own feelings whenever in any signal instance he acts against them. (Ibid.)
Amo 1:13. To widen their border. The war of extermination was carried on not incidentally nor in sudden stress of passion, but in cold blood. A massacre here and there would not have enlarged their border. They wished to make place for themselves by annihilating Israel that there might be none to rise up, and thrust them from their conquests and claim their old inheritance. Such was the fruit of habitually indulged covetousness. Yet who beforehand would have thought it possible? (Ibid.)
Amo 1:15. He and his princes. Evil kings have evermore evil counsellors. It is ever the curse of such kings to have their own evil reflected, anticipated, fomented, enacted by bad advisers around them. They link together, but to drag one another into a common destruction. (Ibid.)Amo 2:1. Even the iniquity done to the godless, God will not leave unpunished. To rage against the bodies of the dead is sinful and horrible. Pusey justly remarks, The soul being beyond mans reach, the hatred vented upon ones remains is a sort of impotent grasping after eternal vengeance. It wreaks upon what it knows to be insensible the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it. Hatred which death cannot extinguish is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell.
Amo 1:3Amo 2:3. Who shall not tremble at the judgments of God? But who shall not gain confidence against all the insolence of men, from the thought how God has judged the world? Who shall not shun all rage, cruelty, and violence, since he knows that God avenges all such sins?
Amo 2:4. Because they despised the law, etc. Many other sins prevailed among the Jewish people, but by mentioning only these two,contempt for the law and false worship,the Lord shows that they are the most grievous, since they violate the first and great commandment, and make up the three and four, i.e., seven, the complete number of sins, the fullness of the measure of iniquity. For it is one of Gods greatest benefits that He gives us his Word containing the revelation of his will and thus points the way not only to our temporal welfare but to eternal blessedness. To throw to the winds such a gift is the grossest ingratitude. From this contempt of the Word, there follows necessarily the other sin of idolatry. For a man cannot exist without a God and worship; his nature forbids it. If any one turns aways from the Word in which God reveals his nature and will, he must needs devise to himself a deity and a worship which is nothing but a pernicious lie.Despised. The prophet uses a bold word in speaking of mans dealings with God. Man carries on the serpents first fraud, Hath God indeed said? He would not willingly own that he is directly at variance with the mind of God. It were too silly as well as too terrible. So he smoothes it over to himself, lying to himself: Gods Word must not be taken so precisely. God cannot have meant. The author of nature would not have created us so if He had meant. Such are the excuses by which man evades owning to himself that he is trampling under foot the mind of God. Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God and did not keep it; then he despised it. This ignoring of Gods known will and law and revelation is to despise them as effectually as to curse God to his face. (Pusey.)After which their fathers walked. The children canonize the errors of their fathers. Human opinion is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as Gods truth. The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates the evil, does not excuse it. (Ibid.)
Amo 2:5. Will send fire into Judah. So we know that a fiery stream will come forth and destroy all who, whether or no they are in the body of the Church, are not of the heavenly Jerusalem; dead members in the body which belongs to the living Head. And it will not the less come, because it is not regarded. Rather, the very condition of all Gods judgments is to be disregarded and to come, and then most to come when they are most disregarded. (Ibid.)
Amo 2:6. For three transgressions of Israel, etc. We see here that the idolatry of Israel was a fountain of all sorts of misdeeds, even of such as would shock a reasonable man, as the list shows; perversion of justice, oppression of the poor, unnatural uncleanness and shameless luxury.
Amo 2:7. Pant after the dust. Covetousness, when it has nothing to feed on, craves for the absurd or impossible. What was Naboths vineyard to a king of Israel with his ivory palace f What was Mordecais refusal to bow to one in honor like Haman? Covetousness is the sin, mostly not of those who have not, but of those who have. It grows with its gains, and is the less satisfied the more it has to satisfy it. (Pusey.)To profane my holy name. The sins of Gods people are a reproach upon himself. They bring Him, so to say, in contact with sin, and defeat the object of his creation and revelation. He lives like a Christian, is a proverb of the Polish Jews, drawn from the debased state of morals in Socinian Poland. The religion of Christ has no such enemies as Christians. (Ibid.)
Amo 2:8. They stretch themselves, etc. They condensed sin. By a sort of economy in the toil they blended many sins into one: idolatry, sensuality, cruelty, and, in all, the express breach of Gods commandments. This dreadful assemblage was doubtless smoothed over to the conscience of the ten tribes, by that most hideous ingredient of all, that the house of their God was the place of their revelry. What hard-heartedness to the willfully-forgotten poor is compensated by a little churchgoing! (Ibid.)
Amo 2:9-10. And I destroyed, etc. We need often to be reminded of the mercies we have received, which are the heaviest aggravations of the sins we have committed. God gives liberally and upbraids us not with our meanness and unworthiness, and the disproportion between his gifts and our merit; but He justly upbraids us with our ingratitude and ill-requital of his favors, and tells us what He has done for us, to shame us for not rendering again according to the benefit done to us. (M. Henry.)
Amo 2:11. I raised up dedicated ones. The life of the Nazarite was a continual protest against the self-indulgence and worldliness of the people. It was a life above nature. They had no special office except to live that life. Their life taught. Nay, it taught in one way the more, because they had no special gifts of wisdom or knowledge, nothing to distinguish them from ordinary men except extraordinary grace. They were an evidence what all might be and do, if they used the grace of God. (Pusey.)
Amo 2:12. Made them drink wine. What men despise they do not oppose. They kill us, they do not despise us, were the true words of a priest in the French Revolution. Had the men in power not respected the Nazarites, or felt that the people respected them, they would not have attempted to corrupt or to force them to break their vow. (Ibid).I command the prophets, Prophecy not. Those have a great deal to answer for who cannot bear faithful preaching, and those much more who suppress it. (M. Henry.)
Amo 2:13-16. When Gods judgments go forth, no power, wisdom, wealth, arms, swiftness or experience, is of any avail. Because men so readily fall into contempt of Gods judgments as something easy to be avoided, He at times expresses them in such terms as to show that no escape is possible. (Rieger.)
Footnotes:
[1]Amo 1:6., l, exile; but usually concrete, exiles.
[2]Amo 1:6., complete, therefore in full number=all the prisoners.
[3]Amo 1:11. depends upon , which continues in force as a conjunction., detroys = stifles his compassion = acts mercilessly.
[4]Amo 1:11 may be rendered, and his wrath lies in wait forever, namely, to perpetrate cruelties. [So Ewald; but Keil justly objects that the verb, applied to wrath in Jer 3:5, means to keep, preserve, and that lying in wait is inapplicable to an emotion.] for , the accent being drawn back because of the tone-syllable in the following word, . [Ewald and Green make a nominative absolute, and suppose an omitted mappik in the last letter of the verb, so as to translate, and it keeps its wrath forever.]
[5]Amo 1:15.. Some of the Greek versions, followed by the Syriac and Jerome, give the form , Melchom, as a proper name, but the common text is sustained by the LXX. and Chaldee, and required by the connection.]
[6]Amo 2:3. analogous to , in Amo 1:5; Amo 1:8, is simply a rhetorical variation for .
[7]Amo 2:4. = Gods law, his preceptive will in general. = the separate precepts, whether ceremonial or moral.]
[8]Amo 2:6. is not synonymous with pretii, but means on account of. Frst, Keil, etc. [Pusey and Wordsworth adopt the former view.]
[9]Amo 2:7., not so that, but, in order that, indicating that the sin was practiced not from weakness or ignorance, but a studious contempt of the Holy God.
[10]Amo 2:8.: punished in money, i. e., fined, as in the margin of the Auth. Version.
[11]Amo 2:8., not their gods, i. e., idols [as Henderson], but their God.
[12]Amo 2:9.The repetition of the personal pronoun , here and in Amo 1:10, is very emphatic, equivalent to our English phrase, It was I who, etc.]
[13]Amo 2:13., to enclose, compress, crush, , Keil renders down upon you = crush you. [So Winer. Gesenius, Ewald.] Frst takes the word here and elsewhere as a substantive, meaning place, position, and renders, I will compress your standing-place. The pressure is compared to that of a cart. According to the usual explanation, the cart is further defined as full of sheaves. But in that case it is strange that the pressure of a full cart should be used to represent the destructive crushing here intended. A more appropriate comparison is found in the pressure by which a threshing cart threshes the sheaves. It is better therefore to take as the object, and to refer to = the full threshing cart, since such a cart is always conceived of as heavily laden. The explanation of Frst is forced. He supplies , to which he refers the adjective, so as to render upon the floor full of sheaves.
[14]Amo 2:13. , lit., which is full in itself, has quite filled itself.
[15]Amo 2:14. .The same combination is found in Psa 142:4.]
[16]Amo 2:15. belongs to both members of the verse.
[17]Amos 2:16. = the strong in his heart, i. e., the courageous.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The same subject is continued here as occupied the former Chapter. Moab is first reckoned with, and then Judah, and Israel.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
We have some account of Moab’s cruelty, for which the Lord is here bringing him to accounts 2Ki 3:26-27 . It is worthy observation, and I take occasion to remark it in this place, in the Lord’s displeasure at Moab, that though the Lord doth And will punish sin wherever it is found, yet the sin most to be dreaded is sin in the Lord’s people. Here we find the Lord’s provocation most marked. Sin is sin in all men, as weeds are weeds wherever they grow; but most offensive, and soonest to be rooted out in a garden. Hence, when the Lord’s people became forgetful of the rock that begat them, we are told, when the Lord saw it he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. Deu 32:15-21 . Reader! mark this with peculiar emphasis! I do not say as much, but I verily believe it, and perhaps it may be so, all the sorrows and calamities of public life begin at this place; the Church of Jesus in her transgressions.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
V
THE BOOK OF AMOS PART I
Amo 1:1-2:16
Amos, the author of the book by his name, was a native of Tekoa, a herdsman and a dresser of sycomore trees. He was not educated for a prophet but was called by the Lord from his rural employment to bear his message to the Northern Kingdom (Amo 1:1 ; Amo 7:14 ).
Tekoa, the home of Amos, was a city about twelve miles south of Jerusalem, six miles south of Bethlehem, built for defense by Rehoboam (2Ch 11:5-6 ). It was situated on an eminence, beyond which (south) there was no village, not even crude cottages or huts. Such is the vast wilderness which stretches to the Red Sea and the borders of the Persians, Ethiopians, and Indians. The country is a dry, sandy soil and full of shepherds that make amends for the barrenness of the land by the multitude of their flocks. Its elevation gave it a wide prospect. On the west is seen the sweep of the range from Mizpah to Hebron; on the east, the wilderness of Judah; on the north, Bethlehem; to the right, in the bottom of a wild ravine, is the cave of Adullam. Farther down, on the shores of the Dead Sea, are “the cliffs of the wild goats,” from whose side springs the fountain of Engedi. Beyond the Dead Sea is the wall-like ridge of Moab, and to the south, the ruddy-tinted mountains of Edom. Now a mournful and solitary silence broods over that wonderful panorama. Tekoa now lies in ruins covering four or five acres, without building sufficient to shade a man from the scorching sun. Such was the surroundings of the boy, Amos, who used the geographical peculiarities of his native land with telling effect in his prophecies.
The date of his prophecy is given in Amos I: I: “In the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.” This was early in the eighth century B.C., or about 760 B.C., but the date cannot be fixed with exactness. The earthquake referred to is mentioned in only one other place (Zec 14:5 ), and from this the exact date cannot be ascertained.
The occasion of these prophecies is found in the history of the times in which he wrote. It was when Israel and Judah both enjoyed great prosperity and there was much indulgence in the luxuries of wealth by the upper classes while the poor were suffering from their extreme poverty. The moral condition of the people was terrible. Crime was perverted, and almost every form of iniquity abounded in the land. The nations round about were also corrupt and Judah had turned away from the law of Jehovah. There was enough in the vision of Amos from his lofty position at Tekoa to stir his righteous soul into an outburst of denunciation. Such was the occasion of his prophecy.
The canonicity of the book of Amos is abundantly supported by both Jewish and Christian writers.
The force, beauty, and freshness of the images freely employed by Amos are very evident. Oratorical in style, graphic in description, powerful in thought, observation, and expression he exhibits a wonderful natural ability. The very simplicity of his language makes it impressive. In simple, unadorned eloquence, in structural regularity, in natural vigor, and in loftiness of thought, Amos reaches a well-grounded eminence, and the author of such writings was in no wise behind the very chiefest of the prophets. His prophecy is after the model of a well-ordered discourse.
The second verse gives his text: “Jehovah will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.” It is taken from Joe 3:16 and indicates the denunciatory nature of his message.
The outline is simple in its general features. There are three main divisions and a conclusion.
Introduction
1. Title, author, and date (Amo 1:1 )
2. The text and subject (Amo 1:2 )
I. Denunciations of the nations (Amo 1:3-2:16 )
1. Syria (Amo 1:3-5 )
2. Philistia (Amo 1:6-8 )
3. Phoenicia (Amo 1:9-10 )
4. Edom (Amo 1:11-12 )
5. Ammon (Amo 1:13-15 )
6. Moab (Amo 2:1-3 )
7. Judah (Amo 2:4-5 )
8. Israel (Amo 2:6-16 )
II. Proclamations to Israel ( Amos 3-6)
1. Jehovah’s verdict and sentence (Amo 3 )
2. Jehovah’s indictment and summons (Amo 4 )
3. Jehovah’s judgment and woe (Amos 5-6)
III. Revelations for all (Amo 7:1-9:10 )
1. The locusts judgment threatened and restrained (Amo 7:1-3 )
2. The fire judgment threatened and restrained (Amo 7:4-6 )
3. The plumb line judgment determined (Amo 7:7-9 )
4. Historical interlude conflict with Amaziah (Amo 7:10-17 )
5. The basket of fruit judgment imminent (Amo 8:1-14 )
6. Jehovah himself judgment executed (Amo 9:1-10 ) Conclusion restoration (Amo 9:11-15 )
The subject of the prophecy of Amos is judgment, or national accountability. This is indicated by his text: “Jehovah will roar from Zion,” which means that God would soon spread terror, like wild beasts when they roar, or that he would soon display his power in executing judgment. The next clause of the text is a parallel thought in which the figure is extended. At the sound of God’s voice all nature withers.
“For three transgressions . . . yea, for four,” introducing the denunciations of the nations, is a favorite phrase of the prophet used, not to express a definite number of transgressions, but means many, or multiplied transgressions, a definite number being put for an indefinite number. (See Job 5:19 for a parallel case.)
Fire is used in these several denunciations to symbolize all the severities of war (see Num 21:28 ), and as an emblem of God’s wrath (see Deu 32:22 ). However, in some instances here it has a literal fulfilment in the devouring flame itself.
The charge here brought against Syria is that they threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron, the account of which we find in 2Ki 10:32-33 ; 2Ki 13:3-7 . The judgment here denounced with the destruction of their city and the captivity of the people, which was fulfilled when Tiglath-pileser took Damascus, carried the people captive to Kir, and slew Rezen, the king (2Ki 16:9 ).
The charge preferred against Philistia was that she had carried captive the whole people, meaning that neither age nor sex was spared (2Ch 21:16 ; 2Ch 28:18 ), and delivered them over to Edom. The judgment denounced was the complete destruction of the Philistines, which was fulfilled at different times and by different parties. Gaza was taken by Sennacherib, by Pharaoh-Necho, and by Alexander the Great. Ashdod was taken by Uzziah, by Sargon’s chief, Tartan, and by Psammetichus, king of Egypt, and finally destroyed by the Maccabees (1 Maccabees 5:68; 1 Maccabees 10:77-84; 1 Maccabees 11:4). Ashkelon was taken by Sennacherib who also took Ekron. There seems to have been a more distinct fulfilment of the prophecies relating to these cities by Hezekiah (2Ki 18:8 ; Isa 14:29 ). The remnant of the Philistines perished at the hands of the Assyrians (Isa 20 ).
The charge against Phoenicia (Tyre) was that they had delivered up all their captives to Edom and had disregarded the brotherly covenant made by Hiram with David and Solomon. The judgment denounced was Tyre’s destruction, which was fulfilled in the thirteen years’ siege by Nebuchadnezzar and its final and complete destruction by Alexander the Great.
The charge preferred against Edom was that of his perpetual hatred against his brother, Jacob, and consequent pursuit of Israel without pity. The judgment denounced was a fire upon Teman and Bozrah, the two principal cities of Edom. This was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar when he captured these cities and invaded Egypt.
The charge preferred against Ammon was her cruelty to the people of Gilead, which occurred, perhaps, in connection with the cruelties perpetrated by Hazael, king of Syria (2Ki 8:12 ; 2Ki 10:33 ; cf. 2Ki 15:16 and Hos 13:16 ). The punishment denounced upon Ammon was the destruction of Rabbah and the captivity of their king, perhaps meaning their god, Molech. This prophecy was fulfilled when the city was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, either at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the course of his Egyptian invasion.
The charge preferred against Moab was that “he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime,” which was done, doubtless, in connection with Israel or Judah, and may have been when the Edomites joined Jehoram and Jehoshaphat in the league against Mesha, the king of Moab (2Ki 3:7 ; 2Ki 3:9 ). There is a Jewish tradition that after this war the Moabites, in revenge for assistance which the king of Edom had given to the Israelites, dug up and dishonored his bones. This sacrilegious act was meant to redound to the disgrace of Israel. Hence this prophecy against Moab. The judgment denounced was that Moab should be destroyed, which was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar conquered this country (Jer 27:3 ; Jer 27:6 ).
The charge preferred against Judah was that he had rejected the law of Jehovah, and had not kept his statutes; that their lies had caused them to err, after which their fathers had walked. The judgment denounced in this case was that Jerusalem should be destroyed, which was literally fulfilled by Nebuzaradan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s guard (2Ki 25:8-12 ). Amo 2:4 shows that Judah was already in ‘possession of God’s law but had broken his statutes. This refutes the radical theory as to the date of the writing of the Pentateuch. The charge preferred against Israel was fourfold: (1) injustice; (2) hardness of heart toward the poor; (3) incest; (4) luxury combined with idolatry. The judgment denounced here against Israel was the severest oppression and the most degrading captivity, which found fulfilment in the captivity wrought by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria (2Ki 17:6 ).
The prophet in this connection cites several incidents in the history of Israel which should have taught them that God was their defender and preserver when they humbled themselves before him and kept his law. These examples are: (1) the destruction of the Amorites; (2) their deliverance from Egypt and forty years in the wilderness; (3) God gave them prophets and Nazarites of their own sons to instruct and lead them in the right ways. There is here an additional charge, twofold: (1) they had caused the Nazarites to drink wine and (2) they had refused to let the prophets prophesy.
The passage, Amo 2:11 , is important since it shows that there were prophets and Nazarites long known in Israel before Amos another refutation of radical criticism.
In general, there is a difference between the sins of Judah and Israel for which they were all punished. The heathen were punished for cruelty or inhumanity in some form; Judah, for forsaking the law of Jehovah; Israel, for covetousness, injustice, lasciviousness, sacrilege, and forgetting Jehovah’s kindness and rejecting his messengers. This is positive evidence that all nations as well as individuals are under the law of retribution.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was Amos?
2. What can you say of the city of Tekoa?
3. What was the date of his prophecy?
4. What was the occasion of the prophecies?
5. What of the canonicity of the book of Amos?
6. What was the character of this prophecy?
7. What was his text and where did he get it?
8. What was his outline?
9. What the subject of this discourse and what the meaning of “Jehovah will roar from Zion”?
10. What was the meaning of the phrase, “For three transgressions. . . . yea, for four,” introducing the denunciations of the nations?
11. What was the meaning of “I will send a fire, etc.” used so frequently in these denunciations?
12. What was the charge against Syria here denounced, what the judgment and when fulfilled?
13. What was the charge preferred against Philistia, what the judgment denounced and when fulfilled?
14. What was the charge against Phoenicia, what the judgment and when fulfilled?
15. What was the charge against Edom, what the judgment and when fulfilled?
16. What was the charge preferred against Ammon, what the judgment denounced and when fulfilled?
17. What was the charge preferred against Moab, what the judgment denounced and when was it fulfilled?
18. What was the charge preferred against Judah, what the judgment denounced and when was it fulfilled?
19. What the importance of Amo 2:4 ?
20. What was the charge preferred against Israel, what the judgment denounced against her and when was it fulfilled?
21. What were lessons of history here cited by the prophet and what additional charge brought against Israel?
22. What was the importance of Amo 2:11 ?
23. What, in general, the difference between the sins of the heathen nations and the sins of Judah and Israel for which they were all punished?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Amo 2:1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
Ver. 1. For three transgressions, &c. ] Or malicious wickedness with a high hand committed, and heaped up to that height. See Amo 1:3 .
Because he burnt the bones of the king of Edom
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Amo 2:1-3
1Thus says the LORD,
For three transgressions of Moab and for four
I will not revoke its punishment,
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime.
2So I will send fire upon Moab
And it will consume the citadels of Kerioth;
And Moab will die amid tumult,
With war cries and the sound of a trumpet.
3I will also cut off the judge from her midst
And slay all her princes with him, says the LORD.
Amo 2:1 The literary judgment formula of chapter one continues through chapter two (cf. Amo 1:3).
Moab These were also relatives of the Israelis through Lot (cf. Gen 19:30-38). The country is in the trans-jordan area just north of Edom between the Arnon and Zered Rivers.
because he burned the bones of the king of Moab to lime These actions (i.e., 1) opening the grave; 2) removing the remains; 3) burning them; 4) mixing them to make mortar [for buildings] or plaster [for whitewashing walls]) were seen as way to humiliate and to affect negatively one’s place/rest in the afterlife. This purposeful violation of that which was culturally sacred and taboo shows the level of animosity. This does not refer to cremation as a way of disposing of a dead body, but to a later desecration! It does, however, give me a chance to discuss modern concerns about cremation.
Cremation was an abominable practice to all the Near Eastern people. It is only mentioned in the Bible in connection with great crimes (cf. Gen. 28:24; Lev 20:14; Lev 21:9; Jos 7:15; Jos 7:25). Apparently out of hatred Moab burned the king of Edom’s bones and mixed them with mortar to build buildings or plaster to whitewash walls (Targums). Lime (BDB 966, cf. Isa 33:12) was an ingredient of mortar and plaster (whitewash).
It is possible that this act is a metaphor for complete destruction (i.e., Vulgate). It is difficult to interpret VERBS that have both literal and metaphorical uses. This is especially true of poetic passages, as in the book of Amos.
SPECIAL TOPIC: CREMATION
Amo 2:2 I will send fire This phrase refers to
1. YHWH’s judgment
2. the literal burning of cities
It is a recurrent phrase in Amo 1:4; Amo 1:7; Amo 1:10; Amo 1:12; Amo 1:14; Amo 2:2; Amo 2:5 and Hos 8:14. Fire is often sent as a cleansing agent and a symbol of God’s presence! See Special Topic: Fire .
the citadels See note at Amo 1:4.
Kerioth This is a region’s or city’s name. The NEB, following the LXX, translated it as towns (because of the DEFINITIVE ARTICLE, cf. Jer 48:41), but the revision of the NEB, called the REB, puts the place name back into the translation (i.e., the palaces of Kerioth). This city is also mentioned in Jer 48:24; Jer 48:41. This city (possibly Kir, cf. Isa 15:1) had a major shrine to the Moabite fertility god, Chemosh (cf. The Mesha Stone L.12; 1Ki 11:33).
with war cries See note at Amo 1:14. War cries and trumpet blasts are often used as signals in battle. The phrase in some contexts refers to the sound of confusion and fear during battle.
the sound of the trumpet Trumpets were used to direct troops in the field. See note at Amo 1:14.
Amo 2:3 the judge This is used in the sense of monarch. The king acted as judge (cf. Mic 5:2), as God’s representative (cf. Gen 18:25; Jdg 11:27; Psa 50:6; Psa 75:7; Psa 94:2; Isa 33:22). The parallel phrase, all her princes, refers to the royal family. Moab will be totally destroyed as a nation (cf. Mal 1:2-5).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Thus saith the LORD. See note on Amo 1:3.
the Lord. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
three. four. See note on Amo 1:3.
transgressions. See note on Amo 1:3
Moab. Compare Isa 15and Isa 16. Jer 48. Eze 25:8-11, Zep 2:8.
I will not, &c. See note on Amo 1:3.
the punishment thereof. See note on Amo 1:3.
because he, &c. Compare 2Ki 3:27.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Let’s turn now to the book of Amos. In the first verse of Amos he introduces himself.
These are the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen [or a shepherd] at Tekoa ( Amo 1:1 ),
Now Tekoa is a little valley going down toward the Dead Sea from the area of Bethlehem. Actually, if you’re standing on Herodian, that fortress that Herod built sort of east off Bethlehem, looking south, you’re looking into the valley of Tekoa, the area from which Amos came. He was a herdsman, and then in chapter 7 he tells us that he was a fruit picker. He picked the sycamore fruit, which was the fig. So he was not a prophet; he was not the son of a prophet. He was not from a line of ministers. He was just a common ordinary person like all of us are. And yet, while he was there watching his sheep, God spoke to him to go up to the Northern Kingdom and prophesy against them.
So suddenly there appeared in Bethel this prophet of God, Amos, who before this was nothing more than just a shepherd, a fruit picker, and God spoke to him and he went out and began to prophesy to the house of Israel. “These are the words of Amos,”
which he saw concerning Israel ( Amo 1:1 )
Now so often we read at the beginning of a book, “The word of the Lord which came to the prophet saying…” But Amos doesn’t say, “This is the word of the Lord,” he says, “These are the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw.” So it puts, of course, the divine attestation upon it here, “which he saw.” So Amos saw these visions from the Lord and he saw them concerning the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And these visions came to him,
during the time that Uzziah was the king in Judah ( Amo 1:1 ),
So it puts him really just a little before Isaiah. Isaiah began his prophecy at the death of Uzziah. Remember in the sixth chapter, “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon the throne, His train did fill the temple.” Isaiah exercised his ministry mainly during the times of Hezekiah. So during the time of Uzziah, who was a prosperous king in Judah, reigned for fifty-two years,
and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash the king of Israel ( Amo 1:1 ),
And then he dates the prophecy even further.
two years before the earthquake ( Amo 1:1 ).
Now in these years, and somewhere between the year 810 and 792, there was a tremendous earthquake that devastated that whole area. An earthquake that was so severe that according to Zechariah the people fled from that area terrified. Isaiah makes mention of this great earthquake that shook that whole region also. And here again, a reference to the great earthquake. So these prophecies that he received were a couple of years before this great earthquake. So we can put his area of ministry somewhere around 800 B.C., give or take a few years on either side.
Jeroboam was one of the most successful of the kings in Israel as far as bringing the nation to its zenith of glory. During the time that Jeroboam was the king in Israel, Israel was very prosperous from a material standpoint. They were very rich in the material things, but they were very poor in spiritual things. And so Amos comes to awaken them spiritually unto God. He begins his prophecy by declaring, “The Lord.”
And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion ( Amo 1:2 ),
When Jesus Christ comes again, according to Joel, Hosea speaks about it, and now Amos also speaks about it, “He will roar from Zion.”
he will utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. Thus saith the LORD ( Amo 1:2-3 );
And now God speaks of the judgment that is going to come against the surrounding nations of Israel. And in each of them He declares,
For three transgressions, and for four ( Amo 1:3 ),
Now He doesn’t name three indictments towards each. “For three transgressions, and for four” is a figure of speech that’s just declaring a cup of God’s indignation is full and is going to overflow now in judgment against Damascus. Damascus is the first, the capital of Syria.
I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron ( Amo 1:3 ):
They came with their iron chariots and they destroyed Gilead.
I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad ( Amo 1:4 ).
When Elijah the prophet had fled from Jezebel and had hid in the cave down in the Sinai, the word of the Lord came to Elijah the prophet saying, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” Now, in reality he was hiding from Jezebel. Really wasn’t doing much of anything. He said, “I’ve been jealous for God and they have killed all the prophets of God, and I only am left, and they are looking for me to take my life. God, You’re in trouble. You don’t have anybody left representing You except me, and they’re out to get me.” The word of the Lord came a second time to Elijah saying, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” Elijah didn’t understand the question the first time so the Lord repeated it. He still didn’t understand it and gave the Lord the same lame answer. The Lord said, “Elijah, get up to Syria and anoint Hazael to be the king over Syria in Benhadad’s place.” In other words, “You’re not doing anything down here. I’ve got a work for you to do. Get out of here and get back to work now.” God commissioned the prophet back to the ministry.
Now when he came to Hazael and went to anoint him and to prophesy over him, he began to weep. Just began to sob. Hazael said, “What’s going on? What’s the matter with you?” And he said, “I see the evil that you are going to do to the people of God. I see you ripping up the women who are pregnant. I see the horrible cruel things that you’re going to do to the servants of God.” Hazael said, “Am I a dog that I should do these things?” And he was quite upset. And yet, the scripture records that Hazael came against Israel and did do exactly these things. And because of that, now the time of judgment has come and, “For three transgressions, yea for four against Damascus,” their punishment will not really be passed by. God will surely punish them. God speaks of the punishment. “I will send a fire into the house of Hazael,” this king who was anointed by Elijah and was so cruel, “which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad,” who was his successor who he assassinated in order to take the throne.
I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holds the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD ( Amo 1:5 ).
Now Kir was in Assyria, and just as God predicted through Amos here, the Assyrians came, they captured and destroyed Syria, and they took those of Damascus captives to Kir back in Assyria, and thus the prophecy was literally fulfilled.
Now he prophesies against the Philistines and the country of the Philistines. Now, there were five major cities of the Philistines. I think four of them come into view in this prophecy. Gaza was one of the chief cities of the Philistines and then Ekron, and Ashdod, and Ashkelon, the major cities there in the Philistine territory.
Now thus saith the LORD, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof ( Amo 1:6 );
The indictment that God gives against them:
they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them to Edom ( Amo 1:6 ):
So in their conquering of the people of God, they turned the captives, or sold them to the Edomites their perennial enemies.
But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza [or of Gaza], which shall devour the palaces thereof: And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod [the coastal fortress], and him that holds the sceptre from Ashkelon [another coastal city], and I will turn my hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD ( Amo 1:7-8 ).
How many of you have met a Philistine lately? No, you see, God’s Word came to pass. The Philistines were wiped out. They don’t exist anymore.
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus ( Amo 1:9 ),
Now Tyrus was that coastal city which was the headquarters of the ancient Phoenicians. It was a very wealthy, prosperous, and powerful kingdom. Their merchant ships ruled the Mediterranean. They carried the goods from the east to the marketplaces of Europe. Tyrus had been consistently a friend of Israel. David and Hiram had made a covenant together which was carried on by Solomon, the son of David. Hiram the king of Tyre furnished the cedars for David’s palace and later for the great temple of Solomon. But in time, Tyrus also turned against Israel. Thus, the prophecy against Tyrus. “Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Tyrus,”
and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity up to Edom ( Amo 1:9 ),
The same punishment that was against the Philistines. However, he adds:
and they remembered not the brotherly covenant ( Amo 1:9 ):
That beautiful covenant that was made between David and Hiram, for Hiram was a great admirer of David. But they broke that covenant that had been made.
Now as we see the judgment of God coming against these various nations around Israel, Syria, the Philistines, Tyrus, next the Edomites, and then the Ammonites, and then the Moabites, in each case the judgment is coming because of their ill treatment of God’s people, the children of Israel.
Now God’s people were in the wrong, and God was judging His people because they were in the wrong. But God had said, “You’re not to touch My anointed, and do My prophets no harm” ( 1Ch 16:22 ). God had said to Abraham, “I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those that curse you” ( Gen 12:3 ). I don’t care how wrong the children of God are, don’t you touch them. You know my kids may be brats, but don’t you touch them. I’ll do the correction of my children. If someone else should come in and touch my children, then I rise in defense for them. So would God in His children. Though they were wrong, though they deserved the punishment, that’s something that God reserved for Himself. “I’ll take care of them, don’t you touch them.”
So it is, I believe, even to the present day that God still blesses those that bless them, and curses those that curse them. And when the day of judgment will come and Christ comes again, Mat 25:1-46 , and He gathers the nations for judgment, the nations will be judged according to their treatment of the nation of Israel. No nation has remained prosperous who dared to put a hand against the people of God, the nation of Israel. I would be very, very careful about what I said or did that would be contrary to the nation of Israel. So in each of these cases it was because of their mistreatment of God’s people that God is judging them.
So I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyrus, that will devour the palaces thereof ( Amo 1:10 ).
And that, of course, took place under Nebuchadnezzar, a partial fulfillment; it was completed by Alexander the Great, and Tyrus was destroyed. Ezekiel gives a more complete prophecy against Tyrus describing in great detail the two sieges of Tyrus, first by Nebuchadnezzar and later by Alexander the Great.
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom ( Amo 1:11 ),
Now Edom was south and east of Israel. It is south and east of the area of the Dead Sea. An area that today is pretty much barren wilderness.
I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother ( Amo 1:11 )
Now the Edomites were descendants of Esau. Esau was the brother of Jacob, and thus God still looks at them as a brotherly relationship. The Edomites were really kin to, or brothers to, because Jacob and Esau were twin brothers. Yet the hatred that Esau had for Jacob never ceased in the descendants. The Edomites were the perennial enemies of Israel. Every opportunity they had, they attacked. Whenever Israel would be occupied with an enemy from the north, they’d always attack from the south. They sought to take advantage of every situation to destroy Israel. There was a hatred constantly simmering and kindling among the Edomites. The last recorded Edomite was, of course, the house of Herod, Herod the Great and his descendants. From then on the Edomites have been lost from history. Herod was an Idumean, an Edomite. So God promises the judgment.
because they did pursue their brothers with a sword, they had no pity, and in their anger they tore perpetually, and their wrath never ceased: So I will send a fire upon Teman [which was, of course, the capital of Edom], and it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah. Thus saith the LORD ( Amo 1:11-13 );
And now we turn to Ammonites. And the word Ammon is, change the pronunciation, the spelling is the same, and you have Ammon, the modern capital of Jordan. And you have also the area of Ammon, and the Ammonites, was directly east from Jerusalem, across the great African rift in the area that today is Ammon.
and for three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, three and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead ( Amo 1:13 ),
Gilead, of course, was soundly defeated by the Syrians, and they came into judgment for it, and now also the Ammonites.
that they might enlarge their border ( Amo 1:13 ):
I thought that was interesting. They came over into the west bank to enlarge their borders. Times really haven’t changed that much, have they? We’re still having problems because Jordan was driven from the west bank, and in the 1967 war, and there’s still that endeavor to again take control of the west bank.
But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind: And their king shall go into captivity, and his princes together, saith the LORD ( Amo 1:14-15 ). “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Amo 2:1-3
PUNISHMENT PROMISED,
THE HEATHEN NATIONS-MOAB
TEXT: Amo 2:1-3
For her unnatural hate and arrogance toward God, Moab will die as a nation.
Amo 2:1-3 . . . FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF MOAB . . . BECAUSE HE BURNED THE BONES OF THE KING OF EDOM INTO LIME . . . I WILL SEND A FIRE UPON MOAB . . . AND MOAB SHALL DIE WITH TUMULT . . . AND I WILL CUT OFF THE JUDGE . . . Moab was a son of Lot (as was Ammon) (cf. Gen 19:38). Moses and the Israelites had a run-in with the Moabites in their journey to the land of Promise (cf. Numbers 22-24). Balaam advised Balak to seduce the men of Israel by sending the Moabite girls into the camp of Israel (cf. Num 31:16; Num 25:1-9). The Moabites oppressed Israel for 18 years (Jdg 3:12-14). When Israel repented God sent Ehud to deliver them from Moabite oppression. Ruth, the Moabitess came to Israel with Naomi, married Boaz and became an ancestress of David and consequently an ancestress of Jesus Christ, the Son of David according to the flesh,
Along with Amos death sentence upon Moab are those of Isaiah 15-16; Eze 25:8-11; Jeremiah 48; Zep 2:8-11. Isa 16:6 says, We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogancy, and his pride and his wrath. The death knell of Isaiah upon Moab is fulfilled by Shalmanezer of Assyria or by his successor Sargon. From then on a succession of world conquerors subdued and, in the process, annihilated Moab as a nation. The land of Moab was bounded on the west by the Dead Sea, on the east by the desert, on the north by the Arnon, and on the south by Edom. It is about 3200 feet above the level of the sea, and is chiefly rolling, mountainous country
Zerr: Amo 2:1. The Moabites had the same origin as the Ammonites (Gen 19:37), The historians and commentaries offer various suggestions about this strange act of the king of Moab. It is questioned whether he actually burned the bones of the reigning king of Edom, or that he dug up the bones of the son who (had he lived) would have reigned over Edom. But the main point in the passage is not affected either way it may be understood. God wouid not endorse such an inhuman performance that could have been prompted only by the spirit of wicked vengeance. Amo 2:2. Kirioth was an important city of the Moabites and it was destined to be destroyed by Are from an attacking army. The success of the invader was to be accompanied with shouts and the Instruments commonly used in warfare. Amo 2:3. Judge and princes means any of the leading men of the nation. In all military operations it is regarded as of special importance to remove the most outstanding men of the city or nation attacked.
In Eze 28:8-11 we are told that Moab and Seir are to be punished for likening the house of Judah to the other nations. Amos localizes his accusation against her by telling of an incident not recorded anywhere else in the O.T. K & D say, . . . no doubt it was connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom. Here the king of Edom was found on the side of the covenant people and when the king of Moab gained supremacy over Edom later, he burned the king of Edoms body until the bones turned into lime. It illustrates the depths of depravity to which a highly cultured people can descend if they reject the revelation of God (cf. Rom 1:18 ff). Pusey says, The soul being, after death, beyond mans reach, the hatred, vented upon his remains, is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengence. It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it . . . Hatred, which death cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. With this hatred Moab hated the king of Edom, seemingly because he had been . . . on the side of the people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, and directed against God Himself. This reminds us of Wycliffe who was the first to translate the Bible into the English language. The Roman pope of that day excommunicated him and ordered that Wycliffes bones be dug up, burned, and cast into the river.
Kerioth is probably the capital city of Moab. It is not to be confused with the Kerioth in the south of Judah (Jos 15:25) and otherwise known as Hazor. Some say the city lay in what is now Jebel Druz, nearly south of Damascus and in high country. Some have thought that Moab had no king at this time since Amos mentions a judge as the potentate. But there is no notice in the history of that time of any other type of potentate than a monarch. Judge is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the king and used simply for the sake of poetic variety.
Questions
1. Who were the Moabites and where was their country?
2. What is evidenced of their character in the burning of the king of Edoms bones?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Judah Shall Be Judged also
Amo 1:11-15; Amo 2:1-5
Edom was Esau; that is, the people were closely akin to Israel; perhaps for that very reason the hatred on either side became more and more inveterate from the days of the Exodus to the siege and fall of Jerusalem, Psa 137:7-8. Teman and Bozrah were principal cities, the first being named after Esaus grandson, Gen 36:11. Isaiah, in after years, saw the warrior Angel of Jehovah coming up from Edom to the foothills of Palestine, his garments stained with the blood of the foe whom he had overthrown, Isa 63:1. Thus Jesus Christ has overcome our foes, and now stands sentry between us and them.
Rabbah was the capital city of Ammon. The strife between the citizens and the Chosen People smoldered from the days of Saul, flaming out from time to time in terrible intensity. Moab-the terrible act referred to here was probably associated with 2Ki 3:27. Alas that, in the divine vengeance, Judah should be associated with these heathen peoples! The indictment is not for sins against man, but for those committed against God. We are judged by the greater light and the higher standards that we possess. The fire here threatened was the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans, who have their modern counterparts. Man is often used by the Almighty for the chastening and purifying of his fellows.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Moab, on the other hand, is not charged with cruelty to Israel, but with having undertaken to execute judgment on Edom when guilty of the gravest crimes himself. Therefore the judge should be cut off from the midst thereof, and all their princes slain (ch. 2:1-3).
Thus far the prophetic messages have been directed against the peoples surrounding the land of Israel. History is the witness of their fulfilment. Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab are now but names. Their glory has long since disappeared. Damascus still exists, but her people have gone into captivity and the Moslem dwells in her palaces. Thus have the predictions of the herdman-prophet been proved to be the word of Jehovah.
But not only against the heathen did he lift up his voice. To Judah and Israel he also had to proclaim the coming of long-delayed judgment, because of their unholy ways.
Judah, privileged above all others, had despised the law of the Lord, and refused obedience to His commandments. The lies of their false teachers had caused them to err-the prophets whom they preferred to the heaven-sent messengers of the God of their fathers. Alas, the fathers had turned away from their Rock, and the children had walked in their ways. Because of this, Jerusalems palaces, like those of the nations, must be burned with fire, and the place where Jehovah had set His name be given up to His enemies (vers. 4, 5).
The indictment of Israel is the lengthiest of all. The proud northern kingdom is charged with covetousness, licentiousness, idolatry, and yet with utter unconcern as to the mischief wrought. They sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes. The most commonplace article of commerce was of more value in their covetous eyes than the cause of the poor. Living in the practice of uncleanness of the vilest description, they yet called themselves by the holy name of the Lord, thus profaning it in the sight of the heathen. Idolatry inflamed them, and they drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their god, laying themselves down upon the pledged garments of the needy by every altar. The law had forbidden the keeping of the garment of the poor as a pledge overnight; but they not only despised the law, but openly devoted the garments thus acquired to the worship of their idols. The judges also, contrary to all law, used the fines of those they condemned for the purchase of wine for their idolatrous festivals. This was the wine of the condemned. Thus was the Holy One of Israel dishonored by those who boasted in His name.
Yet had He, as He touchingly reminds them, cast out the Amorite before them, having brought them up from the land of Egypt and led them forty years through the wilderness. He had raised up prophets among their sons, and Nazarites, devoted to Himself, among their young men. But they led astray the separated ones by wine, and refused to listen to the warnings of the prophets. It is a sad and pitiful picture, but how often has it been duplicated since! They to whom the greatest privileges appertain are often the greatest offenders.
At last their iniquities had come to the full. The last sheaf had been cast upon the cart, and the mercy of the Lord had come to an end. Therefore none should stand in that day-the day of the Lords anger (vers. 6-16).
How solemn the charges here recorded! Searching too are these words of old. Oh, that we who today are called by the name of the Lord may consider them well!
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
CHAPTER 2
1. Moab (Amo 2:1-3)
2. Judah (Amo 2:4-5)
3. Israel (Amo 2:6-16)
Amo 2:1-3. So fierce was the hatred of Moab that they dishonored the bones of the king of Edom. Moab burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime (see 2Ki 3:26-27). The fire or judgment came upon Moab and her glory, too, departed like the glory of the other nations.
Amo 2:4-5. While the measure was full of these nations, who had heaped transgressions upon transgressions, Judah and Israel were as guilty, yea, even more guilty, than these nations. The same significant phrase for three transgressions and four is used in connection with both. If the punishment of the nations could not be held back, but had to come, so Judah and Israel could not escape. Judahs sin was the rejection of the law of the Lord; instead of listening to the voice of the Lord and to His prophets, they harkened to the false prophets, who, with their lies, caused them to err, and the children walked in the evil footsteps of their fathers. The sin of Judah was apostasy. That is the great sin today among the professing people of God, Christendom. Fire was to devour the cities and palaces of the nations and fire was to come upon Judah and the palaces of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled this prophecy.
Amo 2:6-16. Inasmuch as Amos was sent to Israel the indictment and judgment of them occupies more space than the rest. Amo 2:6-8 give a description of their sins. The poor suffered through their covetousness, they lived in unspeakable vileness, they were idolatrous. Those who were condemned by judges and paid their fines furnished the money to the judges to buy wine for their heathenish orgies.
Then the Lord reminds them of all His mercies and loving kindness in the past. He destroyed the Amorite; He led them through the wilderness to possess the land. He instituted the Nazarite. In spite of all these manifold mercies they continued in their evil ways, grinding the poor, defying God and His law and in their moral depravity.
Behold, I will press you down As the full cart presses the sheaves. Then shall flight be lost to the swift, And the strong shall not confirm his strength, And the hero shall not save his life. He that beareth the bow shall not stand, And the swift-footed shall not save, And the rider of the horse shall not save his life.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
For three: Amo 2:4, Amo 2:6, Amo 1:3, Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9, Amo 1:11, Amo 1:13, Num 22:1 – Num 25:18, Deu 23:4, Deu 23:5, Psa 83:4-7, Mic 6:5
of Moab: Isa 11:14, Isa 15:1 – Isa 16:14, Isa 25:10, Jer 48:1-47, Eze 25:8, Eze 25:9, Zep 2:8, Zep 2:9
because: 2Ki 3:9, 2Ki 3:26, Pro 15:3
Reciprocal: Neh 13:1 – the Ammonite Pro 6:16 – six Pro 30:15 – There Isa 16:6 – have Isa 33:12 – the burnings Jer 8:1 – General Jer 25:21 – Moab Jer 27:3 – Edom
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Amo 2:1. The Moabites had the same origin as the Ammonites (Gen 19:37), The historians and commentaries offer various suggestions about this strange act of the king of Moab. It is questioned whether he actually burned the bones of the reigning king of Edom, or that he dug up the bones of the son who (had he lived) would have reigned over Edom. But the main point in the passage is not affected either way it may be understood. God wouid not endorse such an inhuman performance that could have been prompted only by the spirit of wicked vengeance.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Amo 2:1-3. For three transgressions of Moab Moab and Ammon being nearly related, (see Gen 19:37,) and bordering upon each other, they are usually joined together in the threatenings of the prophets. Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime To plaster the walls of his house with it, as the Chaldee paraphrase explains the text, which was most ungenerously and cruelly insulting over the dead. A like story is told by Sir Paul Rycaut (Present State of the Greek Church, chap. 2.) of the walls of the city Philadelphia, made of the bones of the besieged, by the prince that took it by storm. I will send a fire upon Moab Moab was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 27:3; Jer 27:6. It shall devour the palaces of Kirioth A principal city of this country. And Moab shall die with tumult The Moabites shall be destroyed in the tumult of war. And I will cut off the judge in the midst thereof Probably the chief magistrate or king is intended.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Amo 2:2. Kirioth, a city of Moab, having palaces. Jer 48:24.
Amo 2:6. For three transgressions of Israel. This phrase, explained in Amo 1:3, is repeated against five nations, marking the greatness of their sin.
Amo 2:7. A man and his father will go in to the same maid. Herodotus has delicately mentioned the licentiousness of the feasts of Venus, or Astarte. Incest is a crime which always made the heathen blush, At the end of Calvins Commentary on Joshua, there is a collation of the moral law of Moses with the laws of the Romans, edition 1603, in which he found seven laws by successive emperors against marriages within the prohibited degrees of affinity. The providence of God decided in the case of Moabs feasts, that the culprits should be punished with death.
Amo 2:8. They lay down on clothes laid to pledge by every altar. The dwellings of the wicked are habitations of cruelty. The poor in ancient times were often ragged, or clad in garments much impaired: no nation could dress like the British poor. Here the garments were pledged for wine at the idol feast; and the humane law of Moses required all such garments to be restored at sunset, redeemed or not redeemed. Exo 22:27. Nay, the judges and the priests, in the more depraved times, drank fines of men condemned for breaches of the peace. In our laws of king Ina, who reigned in the west of England, all crimes had their price.
Amo 2:9. Yet destroyed I the Amoritewhose height was like a cedar. The tall sons of Anak were, without a doubt, ten feet high, according to Gen 6:4. In battle, the strokes of their arm must have resembled those of the scythe which cuts the grass. They were however greater monsters in crime than in stature. But where was Israels gratitude for deliverance from these giants, which made the ten spies faint with fear.
Amo 2:11. Nazarites. See the notes on the sixth chapter of Numbers.
REFLECTIONS.
The prophet, in reproving guilty nations, speaks like one who knew the Lord, who knew the people he addressed, who understood his mission, and the object of his ministry. Cruelty was the leading sin of Moab. The burning of the king of Edom in the limekiln to make lime, as the Chaldaic renders the text, for the kings palace, was a most inhuman atrocity. Whatever were the peculiar provocations of this prince, nothing can apologize for the cruelty of the king of Moab. When the life of a culprit is once taken, indignities to the body add nothing to his punishment; but we may disgrace human nature, and injure ourselves by ferocious conduct.
Apostasy from the law of the Lord was the sin of Judah; and this apostasy was the more provoking because the laws and statutes of the Lord were peculiarly wise and good. They also did this for vanity and lies, and that they might embrace a pagan mythology founded on fiction, error, and impurity. Sin is always provoking, but the circumstances attending it often render it doubly so.
The transgressions of Israel were peculiarly aggravated. The dealing in slaves, the turning the meek out of the good way, the whoredoms and impurities consequent on apostasy, intoxicating the Nazarites, always accounted holy, Lam 4:7, and silencing the Lords prophets by exile and martyrdom, were all grievous crimes, and indulged to high excess. But the instances of ingratitude were crimes yet fouler in their shades. God had multiplied them in Egypt with marvellous kindness, he had delivered them from Pharaoh with a cloud of miracles, and vanquished the gigantic Amorites to give them the promised land. Now behold, they had polluted it worse than the Amorite!
As the sin of Israel was peculiarly great, so their punishment should be peculiarly severe. The Lord would, as Newcome reads the text, press them in their place or cities, as a cart is loaded with sheaves; and they should not escape the calamities. So it happened. The Assyrians, finding them weakened by former wars, besieged them in their cities, and carried away the survivors to distant places. Thus the hope of impunity shall perish; for the Lord will render to every man according to his works.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Amo 2:1-3. Moab.With Moab the prophet concludes his list of Israels foes. When Israel arrived on the E. of the Jordan, the Moabites inhabited the high tableland E. of the Dead Sea, whither they had been driven recently from the N. of the Arnon by the Amorites (cf. Jdg 11:25). They were subdued by David, and again by Omri; but in the reign of Ahab they regained their independence under their king Mesha (2Ki 3:5 ff.*). As in other cases, the prophet gives here a typical instance of Moabite cruelty. If the text is correct (see for suggested emendations, ICC) the Moabites are accused of burning the bones of a king of Edom into lime or for lime. In other words, they reduced the body to ashes by burning it, or they deliberately burned it in order to make use of the ashes for plaster. No other record of this event has been preserved; but in either case, an act of monstrous desecration is implied. For such acts, the fire of war (Amo 2:2) will come upon Moab and will devour the palaces or strongholds of Keriyyoth (Jer 48:41, and the Moabite Stone, lines Amos 1013). Moab will perish amid the din of battle, with the triumphant cry of the enemy and the blast of horns ringing in her ears. Thus will Yahweh cut off (Amo 2:3) the ruler (lit. judge) from the midst of her.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
2:1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because he burned the {a} bones of the king of Edom into lime:
(a) For the Moabites were so cruel against the King of Edom, that they burnt his bones after he was dead: which declared their barbarous rage, that they would avenge themselves upon the dead.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
6. An oracle against Moab 2:1-3
Yahweh promised not to revoke His punishment of Moab, another nation descended from Lot (cf. Gen 19:30-38), because of its brutal treatment of an Edomite king’s corpse (cf. 2Ki 3:26-27). Burning the bones of a dead person dishonored that individual since there was then nothing substantial left of him. Burning the king’s bones indicated a desire to completely destroy the peace and even the soul of Edom’s king, in this case King Mesha, for eternity. This was a despicable crime in the ancient Near East where a peaceful burial was the hope of every person. This treatment of a dead corpse reflected a lack of respect for human life, life made in the image of God.
"Highly significant is the fact that Amos here pronounced the punishment of Yahweh on a social crime involving a non-Israelite. In his other oracles the crimes were, for the most part, against the covenant people. Amos understood that an aspect of God’s law transcended Israel." [Note: McComiskey, p. 291.]
Probably the Noahic Covenant provides the background for the Lord’s indictment (Gen 9:5-7; cf. Isa 24:5).
"All the things condemned by Amos [in all eight oracles] were recognized as evil in themselves, not merely in Israel, but by all the nations of the western Fertile Crescent." [Note: Ellison, p. 72.]
"Crimes against humanity [not just against Israel] bring God’s punishment. This observation is a powerful motivation for God’s people to oppose the mistreatment and neglect of their fellow human beings." [Note: Niehaus, p. 358.]
"However dimly and falsely men may draw the boundary, there are such things as absolute right and wrong based on the nature of the Creator and Ruler of all." [Note: Ellison, p. 74.]
"When a society acquiesces in and welcomes an evil, knowing it is evil, that society is doomed." [Note: Ibid.]
Because of this sin Moab would perish in the tumult of battle, and its leaders would die. Kirioth was a major city in Moab (cf. Jer 48:24).
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Moab shortly after 598 B.C., which opened the way for Arab tribes to occupy its land. [Note: Josephus, 10:9:7.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
ATROCITIES AND ATROCITIES
Amo 1:3 – Amo 2:1-16
LIKE all the prophets of Israel, Amos receives oracles for foreign nations. Unlike them, however, he arranges these oracles not after, but before, his indictment of his own people, and so as to lead up to this. His reason is obvious and characteristic. If his aim be to enforce a religion independent of his peoples interests and privileges, how can he better do so than by exhibiting its principles at work outside his people, and then, with the impetus drained from many areas, sweep in upon the vested iniquities of Israel herself? This is the course of the first section of his book-chapters 1 and 2. One by one the neighbors of Israel are cited and condemned in the name of Jehovah; one by one they are told they must fall before the still unnamed engine of the Divine Justice. But when Amos has stirred his peoples conscience and imagination by his judgment of their neighbors sins, he turns with the same formula on themselves. Are they morally better? Are they more likely to resist Assyria? With greater detail he shows them worse and their doom the heavier for all their privileges. Thus is achieved an oratorical triumph, by tactics in harmony with the principles of prophecy and remarkably suited to the tempers of that time.
But Amos achieves another feat, which extends far beyond his own day. The sins he condemns in the heathen are at first sight very different from those which he exposes within Israel. Not only are they sins of foreign relations, of treaty and war, while Israels are all civic and domestic; but they are what we call the atrocities of Barbarism-wanton war, massacre, and sacrilege-while Israels are rather the sins of Civilization-the pressure of the rich upon the poor, the bribery of justice, the seduction of the innocent, personal impurity, and other evils of luxury. So great is this difference that a critic more gifted with ingenuity than with insight might plausibly distinguish in the section before us two prophets with two very different views of national sin-a ruder prophet, and of course an earlier, who judged nations only by the flagrant drunkenness of their war, and a more subtle prophet, and of course a later, who exposed the masked corruptions of their religion and their peace. Such a theory would be as false as it would be plausible. For not only is the diversity of the objects of the prophets judgment explained by this, that Amos had no familiarity with the interior life of other nations, and could only arraign their conduct at those points where it broke into light in their foreign relations, while Israels civic life he knew to the very core. But Amos had besides a strong and a deliberate aim in placing the sins of civilization as the climax of a list of the atrocities of barbarism. He would recall what men are always forgetting, that the former are really more cruel and criminal than the latter; that luxury, bribery, and intolerance, the oppression of the poor, the corruption of the innocent and the silencing of the prophet-what Christ calls offences against His little ones-are even more awful atrocities than the wanton horrors of barbarian warfare. If we keep in mind this moral purpose, we shall study with more interest than we could otherwise do the somewhat foreign details of this section. Horrible as the outrages are which Amos describes, they were repeated only yesterday by Turkey: Many of the crimes with which he charges Israel blacken the life of Turkeys chief accuser, Great Britain.
In his survey Amos includes all the six states of Palestine that bordered upon Israel, and lay in the way of the advance of Assyria-Aram of Damascus, Philistia, Tyre (or Phoenicia), Edom, Ammon, and Moab. They are not arranged in geographical order. The prophet begins with Aram in the northeast, then leaps to Philistia in the southwest, comes north again to Tyre, crosses to the southeast and Edom, leaps Moab to Ammon, and then comes back to Moab. Nor is any other explanation of his order visible. Damascus heads the list, no doubt, because her cruelties had been most felt by Israel, and perhaps too because she lay most open to Assyria. It was also natural to take next to Aram Philistia, as Israels other greatest foe; and nearest to Philistia lay Tyre. The three southeastern principalities come together. But there may have been a chronological reason now unknown to us.
The authenticity of the oracles on Tyre; Edom, and Judah has been questioned: it will be best to discuss each case as we come to it.
Each of the oracles is introduced by the formula: “Thus saith,” or “hath said, Jehovah: Because of three crimes of yea, because of four, I will not turn It back.” In harmony with the rest of the book, Jehovah is represented as moving to punishment, not for a single sin, but for repeated and cumulative guilt. The unnamed “It” which God will not recall is not the word of judgment, but the anger and the hand stretched forth to smite. After the formula, an instance of the nations guilt is given, and then in almost identical terms he decrees the destruction of all by war and captivity. Assyria is not mentioned, but it is the Assyrian fashion of dealing with conquered states which is described. Except in the case of Tyre and Edom, the oracles conclude as they have begun, by asserting themselves to be the “word of Jehovah,” or of “Jehovah the Lord.” It is no abstract righteousness which condemns these foreign peoples, but the God of Israel, and their evil deeds are described by the characteristic Hebrew word for sin-“crimes,” “revolts,” or “treasons” against Him.
1. ARAM OF DAMASCUS.-“Thus hath Jehovah said: Because of three crimes of Damascus, yea, because of four, I will not turn It back; for that they threshed Gilead with iron”-or “basalt threshing-sledges.” The word is “iron,” but the Arabs of today call basalt iron; and the threshing-sledges, curved slabs drawn rapidly by horses over the heaped corn, are studded with sharp basalt teeth that not only thresh out the grain, but chop the straw into little pieces. So cruelly had Gilead been chopped by Hazael and his son Ben-Hadad some fifty or forty years before Amos prophesied. Strongholds were burned, soldiers slain without quarter, children dashed to pieces, and women with child put to a most atrocious end. But “I shall send fire on the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad”-these names are chosen, not because they were typical of the Damascus dynasty, but because they were the very names of the two heaviest oppressors of Israel. “And I will break the bolt of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from Bikath-Aven”-the Valley of Idolatry, so called, perhaps, by a play upon Bikath On, presumably the valley between the Lebanons, still called the Beka, in which lay Heliopolis-“and him that holdeth the scepter from Beth-Eden”-some royal Paradise in that region of Damascus which is still the Paradise of the Arab world-“and the people of Aram shall go captive to Kir”-Kir in the unknown north, from which they had come: (Amo 9:7) “Jehovah hath said” it.
2. PHILISTIA.-“Thus saith Jehovah: For three crimes of Gaza and for four I will not turn It back, because they led captive a whole captivity, in order to deliver them up to Edom.” It is difficult to see what this means if not the wholesale depopulation of a district in contrast to the enslavement of a few captives of war. By all tribes of the ancient world, the captives of their bow and spear were regarded as legitimate property: it was no offence to the public conscience that they should be sold into slavery. But the Philistines seem, without excuse of war, to have descended upon certain districts and swept the whole of the population before them, for purely commercial purposes. It was professional slave-catching. The Philistines were exactly like the Arabs of today in Africa-not warriors who win their captives in honorable fight, but slave-traders, pure and simple. In warfare in Arabia itself it is still a matter of conscience with the wildest nomads not to extinguish a hostile tribe, however bitter one be against them. Gaza is chiefly blamed by Amos, for she was the emporium of the trade on the border of the desert, with roads and regular caravans to Petra and Elah on the Gulf of Akaba, both of them places in Edom and depots for the traffic with Arabia. “But I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and the holder of the sceptre from Askalon, and I will turn My hand upon Ekron”-four of the five great Philistine towns, Gath being already destroyed, and never again to be mentioned with the others-“and the last of the Philistines shall perish: Jehovah hath said it.”
3. TYRE.-“Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Tyre and because of four I will not turn It back; for that they gave up a whole captivity to Edom”-the same market as in the previous charge-“and did not remember the covenant of brethren.” We do not know to what this refers. The alternatives are three: that the captives were Hebrews and the alliance one between Israel and Edom; that the captives were Hebrews and the alliance one between Israel and Tyre; that the captives were Phoenicians and the alliance the natural brotherhood of Tyre and the other Phoenician towns. But of these three alternatives the first is scarcely possible, for in such a case the blame would have been rather Edoms in buying than Tyres in selling. The second is possible, for Israel and Tyre had lived in close alliance for more than two centuries; but the phrase “covenant of brethren” is not so well suited to a league between two tribes who felt themselves to belong to fundamentally different races, {Gen 10:1-32} as to the close kinship of the Phoenician communities. And although, in the scrappy records of Phoenician history before this time, we find no instance of so gross an outrage by Tyre on other Phoenicians, it is quite possible that such may have occurred. During next century Tyre twice over basely took sides with Assyria in suppressing the revolts of her sister cities. Besides, the other Phoenician towns are not included in the charge. We have every reason, therefore, to believe that Amos expresses here not resentment against a betrayal of Israel, but indignation at an outrage upon natural rights and feelings with which Israels own interests were not in any way concerned. And this also suits the lofty spirit of the whole prophecy. “But I will send fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour her palaces”
This oracle against Tyre has been suspected by Wellhausen, for the following reasons: that it is of Tyre alone, and silence is kept regarding the other Phoenician cities, while in the case of Philistia other towns than Gaza are condemned; that the charge is the same as against Gaza; and that the usual close to the formula is wanting. But it would have been strange if from a list of states threatened by the Assyrian doom we had missed Tyre, Tyre which lay in the avengers very path. Again, that so acute a critic as Wellhausen should cite the absence of other Phoenician towns from the charge against Tyre is really amazing, when he has just allowed that it was probably against some or all of these cities that Tyres crime was committed. How could they be included in the blame of an outrage done upon themselves? The absence of the usual formula at the close may perhaps be explained by omission, as indicated above.
4. EDOM.-“Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Edom and because of four I will not turn It back; for that he pursued with the sword his brother,” who cannot be any other than Israel, “corrupted his natural feelings”-literally “his bowels of mercies”-“and kept aye fretting his anger, and his passion he watched”-like a fire, or “paid heed” to it-“forever.” “But I will send fire upon Teman”-the “South” Region belonging to Edom-“and it shall devour the palaces of Bosrah”-the Edomite Bosrah, southeast of Petra. The Assyrians had already compelled Edom to pay tribute.
The objections to the authenticity of this oracle are more serious than those in the case of the oracle on Tyre. It has been remarked that before the Jewish Exile so severe a tone could not have been adopted by a Jew against Edom, who had been mostly under the yoke of Judah, and not leniently treated. What were the facts? Joab subdued Edom for David with great cruelty. {2Sa 8:13 with 1Ki 11:16} Jewish governors were set over the conquered people, and this state of affairs seems to have lasted, in spite of an Edomite attempt against Solomon, {1Ki 11:14-25} till 850. In Jehoshaphats reign, 873-850, “there was no king of Edom, a deputy was king,” who towards 850 joined the kings of Judah and Israel in an invasion of Moab through his territory. {2Ki 3:1-27} But, soon after this invasion and perhaps in consequence of its failure, Edom revolted from Joram of Judah (849-842), who unsuccessfully attempted to put down the revolt. {2Ki 8:20-22} The Edomites appear to have remained independent for fifty years at least. Amaziah of Judah (797-779) smote Edom, {2Ki 14:10} but not, it would seem, into subjection; for, according to the Chronicler, Uzziah had to win back Elath for the Jews after Amaziahs death. {2Ch 26:2} The history, therefore, of the relations of Judah and Edom before the time of Amos was of such a kind as to make credible the existence in Judah at that time of the feeling about Edom which inspires this oracle. Edom had shown just the vigilant, implacable hatred here described. But was the right to blame them for it Judahs, who herself had so persistently waged war, with confessed cruelty, against Edom? Could a Judaean prophet be just in blaming Edom and saying nothing of Judah? It is true that in the fifty years of Edoms independence-the period, we must remember, from which Amos seems to draw the materials of all his other charges-there may have been events to justify this oracle as spoken by him; and our ignorance of that period is ample reason why we should pause before rejecting the oracle so dogmatically as Wellhausen does. But we have at least serious grounds for suspecting it. To charge Edom, whom Judah has conquered and treated cruelly, with restless hate towards Judah seems to fall below that high impartial tone which prevails in the other oracles of this section. The charge was much more justifiable at the time of the Exile, when Edom did behave shamefully towards Israel. Wellhausen points out that Teman and Bosrah are names which do not occur in the Old Testament before the Exile, but this is uncertain and inconclusive. The oracle wants the concluding formula of the rest.
5. AMMON.-“Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Ammon and because of four I will not turn It back; for that they ripped up Gileads women with child-in order to enlarge their borders!” For such an end they committed such an atrocity! The crime is one that has been more or less frequent in Semitic warfare. Wellhausen cites several instances in the feuds of Arab tribes about their frontiers. The Turks have been guilty of it in our own day. It is the same charge which the historian of Israel puts into the mouth of Elisha against Hazael of Aram, {2Ki 8:12} and probably the war was the same; when Gilead was simultaneously attacked by Arameans from the north and Ammonites from the south. “But I will set fire to the wall of Rabbah”-Rabbath-Ammon, literally “chief” or “capital” of Ammon-“and it shall devour her palaces, with clamor in the day of battle, with tempest in the day of storm.” As we speak of “storming a city,” Amos and Isaiah use the tempest to describe the overwhelming invasion of Assyria. There follows the characteristic Assyrian conclusion: “And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith Jehovah.”
6. MOAB.-“Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Moab and because of four I will not turn It back; for that he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime.” In the great invasion of Moab, about 850, by Israel, Judah, and Edom conjointly, the rage of Moab seems to have been directed chiefly against Edom. Whether opportunity to appease that rage occurred on the withdrawal of Israel we cannot say. But either then or afterwards, balked of their attempt to secure the king of Edom alive, Moab wreaked their vengeance on his corpse, and burnt his bones to lime. It was, in the religious belief of all antiquity, a sacrilege: yet it does not seem to have been the desecration of the tomb-or he would have mentioned it-but the wanton meanness of the deed, which Amos felt. “And I will send fire on Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of The Cities”-Kerioth, perhaps the present Kureiyat, on the Moab plateau where Chemosh had his shrine-“and in tumult shall Moab die”-to Jeremiah (Jer 48:45) the Moabites were the sons of tumult-“with clamor and with the noise of the war-trumpet. And I will cut off the ruler”-literally “judge,” probably the vassal king placed by Jeroboam II “from her midst, and all his princes will I slay with him: Jehovah hath said” it.
These, then, are the charges which Amos brings against the heathen neighbors of Israel. If we look as a whole across the details through which we have been working, what we see is a picture of the Semitic world so summary and so vivid that we get the like of it nowhere else-the Semitic world in its characteristic brokenness and turbulence; its factions and ferocities, its causeless raids and quarrels, tribal disputes about boundaries flaring up into the most terrible massacres, vengeance that wreaks itself alike on the embryo and the corpse-“cutting up women with child in Gilead,” and “burning to lime the bones of the king of Edom.” And the one commerce which binds these ferocious tribes together is the slave-trade in its wholesale and most odious form.
Amos treats none of the atrocities subjectively. It is not because they have been inflicted upon Israel that he feels or condemns them. The appeals of Israel against the tyrant become many as the centuries go on; the later parts of the Old Testament are full of the complaints of Gods chosen people, conscious of their mission to the world against the heathen, who prevented them from it. Here we find none of these complaints, but a strictly objective and judicial indictment of the characteristic crimes of heathen men against each other; and though this is made in the name of Jehovah, it is not in the interests of His people or of any of His purposes through them, but solely by the standard of an impartial righteousness which, as we are soon to hear, must descend in equal judgment on Israel.
Again, for the moral principles which Amos enforces no originality can be claimed. He condemns neither war as a whole nor slavery as a whole, but limits his curse to wanton and deliberate aggravations of them: to the slave-trade in cold blood, in violation of treaties, and for purely commercial ends; to war for trifling causes, and that wreaks itself on pregnant women and dead men: to national hatreds, that never will be still. Now against such things there has always been in mankind a strong conscience, of which the word “humanity” is in itself a sufficient proof. We need not here inquire into the origin of such a common sense-whether it be some native impulse of tenderness which asserts itself as soon as the duties of self-defense are exhausted, or some rational notion of the needlessness of excesses, or whether, in committing these, men are visited by fear of retaliation from the wrath they have unnecessarily exasperated. Certain it is that warriors of all races have hesitated to be wanton in their war, and have foreboded the special judgment of heaven upon every blind extravagance of hate or cruelty. It is well known how the Greeks felt the insolence of power and immoderate anger; they are the fatal element in many a Greek tragedy. But the Semites themselves, whose racial ferocity is so notorious, are not without the same feeling. “Even the Beduins” old cruel rancors are often less than the golden piety of the wilderness. The danger past, they can think of the defeated foemen with kindness putting only their trust in Ullah to obtain the like need for themselves. It is contrary to the Arabian conscience to extinguish a Kabila.” Similarly in Israel some of the earliest ethical movements were revolts of the public conscience against horrible outrages, like that, for instance, done by the Benjamites of Gibeah. {Jdg 19:20} Therefore in these oracles on his old Semitic neighbors Amos discloses no new ideal for either tribe or individual. Our view is confirmed that he was intent only upon arousing the natural conscience of his Hebrew hearers in order to engage this upon other vices to which it was less impressionable-that he was describing those deeds of war and slavery, whose atrocity all men admitted, only that he might proceed to bring under the same condemnation the civic and domestic sins of Israel.
We turn with him, then, to Israel. But in his book as it now stands in our Bibles, Israel is not immediately reached. Between her and the foreign nations two verses are bestowed upon Judah: “Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Judah and because of four I will not turn it back; for that they despised the Torah of Jehovah, and His statutes they did not observe, and their false hoods”-false gods-“led them astray, after which their fathers walked. But I will send fire on Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” These verses have been suspected as a later insertion, on the ground that every reference to Judah in the Book of Amos must be late, that the language is very formal, and that the phrases in which the sin of Judah is described sound like echoes of Deuteronomy. The first of these reasons may be dismissed as absurd; it would have been far more strange if Amos had never at all referred to Judah. The charges, however, are not like those which Amos elsewhere makes, and though the phrases may be quite as early as his time, the reader of the original, and even the reader of the English version, is aware of a certain tameness and vagueness of statement, which contrasts remarkably with the usual pungency of the prophets style. We are forced to suspect the authenticity of these verses.
We ought to pass, then, straight from the third to the sixth verse of this chapter, from the oracles on foreign nations to that on Northern Israel. It is introduced with the same formula as they are: “Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Israel and because of four I will not turn it back.” But there follow a great number of details, for Amos has come among his own people whom he knows to the heart, and he applies to them a standard more exact and an obligation more heavy than any he could lay to the life of the heathen. Let us run quickly through the items of his charge. “For that they sell an honest man for silver, and a needy man for a pair of shoes”-proverbial, as we should say “for an old song”-“who trample to the dust of the earth the head of the poor”-the least improbable rendering of a corrupt passage-“and pervert the way of humble men. And a man and his father will go into, the maid,” the same maid, “to desecrate My Holy Name”-without doubt some public form of unchastity introduced from the Canaanite worship into the very sanctuary of Jehovah, the holy place where He reveals His Name-“and on garments given in pledge they stretch themselves by every altar, and the wine of those who, have been fined they drink in the house of their God.” A riot of sin: the material of their revels is the miseries of the poor, its stage the house of God! Such is religion to the Israel of Amos day-indoors, feverish, sensual. By one of the sudden contrasts he loves, Amos sweeps out of it into Gods idea of religion-a great historical movement, told in the language of the open air: national deliverance, guidance on the highways of the world, the inspiration of prophecy, and the pure, ascetic life. “But I, I destroyed the Amorite before you, whose height was as. the cedars, and he was strong as oaks, and I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from below.” What a contrast to the previous picture of the temple filled with fumes of wine and hot with lust! We are out on open history; Gods, gales blow and the forests crash before them. “And I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you through the wilderness forty years, to inherit the land of the Amorite.” Religion is not chambering and wantonness; it is not selfish comfort or profiting by the miseries of the poor and the sins of the fallen. But religion is history-the freedom of the people and their education, the winning of the land and the defeat of the heathen foe; and then, when the land is firm and the home secure, it is the raising, upon that stage and shelter, of spiritual guides and examples. “And I raised up of your sons to be prophets, and of your young men to be Nazarites”-consecrated and ascetic lives. “Is it not so, O children of Israel? (oracle of Jehovah). But ye made the Nazarites drink wine, and the prophets ye charged, saying, Prophesy not!”
Luxury, then, and a very sensual conception of religion, with all their vicious offspring in the abuse of justice, the oppression of the poor, the corrupting of the innocent, and the intolerance of spiritual forces-these are the sins of an enlightened and civilized people, which Amos describes as worse than all the atrocities of barbarism, and as certain of Divine vengeance. How far beyond his own day are his words stilt warm! Here in the nineteenth century is Great Britain, destroyer of the slave-traffic, and champion of oppressed nationalities-yet this great and Christian people, at the very time they are abolishing slavery, suffer their own children to work in factories and clay-pits for sixteen hours a day, and in mines set women to a labor for which horses are deemed too valuable. Things improve after 1848, but how slowly, and against what callousness of Christians, Lord Shaftesburys long and often disappointed labors painfully testify. Even yet our religious public, that curses the Turk, and in an indignation, which can never be too warm, cries out against the Armenian atrocities, is callous, nay, by the avarice of some, the haste and passion for enjoyment of many more, and the thoughtlessness of all, itself contributes, to conditions of life and fashions of society, which bear with cruelty upon our poor, taint our literature, needlessly increase the temptations of our large towns, and render pure child life impossible among masses of our population. Along some of the highways of our Christian civilization we are just as cruel and just as lustful as Kurd or Turk.
Amos closes this prophecy with a vision of immediate judgment. “Behold, I am about to crush or squeeze down upon you, as a wagon crushes that is full of sheaves.” An alternative reading supplies the same general impression of a crushing judgment: “I will make the ground quake under you, as a wagon makes it quake,” or “as a wagon” itself “quakes under its load of sheaves.” This shock is to be War. “Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not prove his power, nor the mighty man escape with his life. And he that graspeth the bow shall not stand, nor shall the swift of foot escape, nor the horseman escape with his life. And he that thinketh himself strong among the heroes shall flee away naked in that day-tis the oracle of Jehovah.”