Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 6:12
Shall horses run upon the rock? will [one] plow [there] with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:
12. Do horses run upon crags? doth one plow (there) with oxen? or (dividing one word into two) doth one plow the sea with an ox? that ye have turned judgement into poison, &c.] The two questions are meant to represent what is obviously unnatural and absurd. Do horses run over the jagged crags, or do men plough there with oxen (or with the emendation, Do men plough the sea with oxen), that ye do what is not less preposterous and unreasonable, viz. turn justice into injustice, and so transform what is wholesome into a poison? For the figure ‘turn judgement into poison,’ see Amo 5:7 (“into wormwood”). The emendation proposed (which, though conjectural, is supported by many of the best modern scholars) is recommended by the fact that it avoids the unusual plural b e rm and also obviates the necessity of mentally understanding “there” in the second clause of the verse.
gall ] poison: Heb. rsh, occurring also Deu 32:32-33; Hos 10:4; Jer 8:14; Lam 3:5; Psa 69:21; Job 20:16; and coupled, as here, with ‘wormwood’ (cf. ch. Amo 5:7), Deu 29:18; Jer 9:15; Jer 23:15; Lam 3:19. Deu 29:18, Hos 10:4 shew that some poisonous plant is denoted by the word (so that the rendering gall is certainly wrong), though, since it is quite uncertain what plant is meant, it is impossible to render otherwise than by a perfectly general term, such as poison. As rsh also signifies ‘head,’ some have thought poppies, of which several species are found in Palestine, to be the plant denoted by the word.
the fruit of righteousness ] i.e. the effects of righteousness (or justice), which would normally be wholesome and beneficial to society, but which, as it is perverted by the nobles of Israel into in justice, become wormwood (Amo 5:7), i.e. something bitter and deleterious to all.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The two images both represent a toil, which people would condemn as absurd, destructive, as well as fruitless. The horses hoofs or his limbs would be broken; the plowing-gear would be destroyed. The prophet gains the attention by the question. What then? they ask. The answer is implied by the for, which follows. Ye are they, who are so doing. As absurd is it to seek gain from injustice and oppression, to which God had annexed loss and woe, temporal and eternal. More easy to change the course of nature or the use of things of nature, than the course of Gods Providence or the laws of His just retribution. They had changed the sweet laws of justice and equity into the gall of oppression, and the healthful fruit of righteousness, whereof they had received the seed from God, into the life-destroying poison of sin. Better to have plowed the rock with oxen for food! For now, where they looked for prosperity, they found not barrenness, but death.
Others understand the question as the taunt of unbelievers, trusting in the strength of Samaria, that when horses should run on their rocky eminence, or the oxen plow there, then might an enemy look for gain from investing the hill of Samaria. Shall things which are against nature be done? Yes, the prophet then would answer, for ye have done against nature yourselves. Ye, have changed justice, the solace of the oppressed, into wormwood, the bitterness of oppression. Well may what ye think above the laws of physical nature be done, when ye have violated the laws of moral nature. Well may the less thing be done, your destruction, secure as by nature ye seem, when ye have done the greater, violating the laws of the God of nature. Amos, however, when he refers to the sayings of the unbelievers, distinguishes them from his own.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Amo 6:12
Shall horses run upon the rock?
will one plough there with oxen?
Labour in vain
These expressions are proverbs, taken from the familiar sayings of the east country. A proverb is generally a sword with two edges, or, if I may so say, it has many edges, or is all edge, and hence it may be turned this way and that way, and every part of it will have force and point. The connection would tolerate two senses in this place. An ancient commentator says that it has seven meanings. Like those curiously carved Chinese balls in which there is one ball within another, so in many a holy text there is sense within sense, teaching within teaching, and each one worthy of the Spirit of God. It may be that the prophet is expostulating with ungodly men upon their pursuit of happiness where it can never be found. They were endeavouring to grow rich and strong by oppression. And if any of you try to content yourselves with this world, and hope to find a heaven in the midst of your business and your family, without looking upward for it, you labour in vain. To seek after happiness in evil deeds is to plough a rock of granite. To labour after true prosperity by dishonest means is as useless as to till the sandy shore. The words may mean this,–God will not always send His ministers to call men to repentance. There is a time of ploughing, but when it is evident that the heart is wilfully hardened, then wisdom itself suggests to mercy that she should give over her efforts. Taking that sense, we remark–
I. Ministers labour to break up mens hearts. They would make hearts ready to receive the heavenly Seed. Many truths are used, like sharp ploughshares, to break up the heart. We must cut into the heart with the ploughshare of the law. If we really love the souls of men, let us prove it by honest speech. The hard heart must be broken, or it will still refuse the Saviour who was sent to bind up the broken-hearted. There are some things which men may or may not have, and yet may be saved; but those things which go with the ploughing of the heart are indispensable There must be a holy fear and a humble trembling before God, there must be an acknowledgment of guilt and a penitent petition for mercy; there must, in a word, be a thorough ploughing of the soul before we can expect the seed to bring forth fruit.
II. At times ministers labour in vain. In a short time the ploughman feels whether the plough will go or not, and so does the minister. He may use the very same words in one place which he has used in another, but he feels in one place great joy and hopefulness in his preaching, while with another audience he has heavy work and little hope. All labourers of Christ know what it is sometimes to work in heavy soil. There are rocky hearers in all congregations. On some impression is made, but it is not deep and permanent. Certain of these rocky-hearted people have been ploughed for years, and have become harder instead of softer. The sun which softens wax hardens clay, and the same Gospel which has brought others to tenderness and repentance has exercised a contrary effect upon them, and made them more careless about Divine things than they were in their youth. Why are men so extremely rocky? Some are so from a peculiar stolidity of nature. Some are hard because of their infidelity. Worldliness hardens a man in every way. With many hardness is produced by a general levity. There is no depth of earth in their superficial natures; beneath a sprinkling of shifting, worthless sand lies an impenetrable rock of utter stupidity and senselessness.
III. It is unreasonable to expect that Gods servants should always continue to labour in vain. Labour in vain cannot be continued for ever if we consider the ploughman. Then there is the Master to be considered. Is He always to be resisted and provoked? And there are so many other people needing the Gospel who will receive it. There is a boundary to the patience of men, and even to the patience of God.
IV. There must be an alteration then, and that speedily. The oxen shall be taken off from such toil. It can be effected in three ways.
1. The unprofitable hearer can be removed so that he shall no more hear the Gospel from the lips of his best approved minister.
2. Another plan is to take away the ploughman. Or
3. God may say, This piece of rock shall never trouble the ploughman any more. I will take it away. The man dies. O Lord, break up the rock, and let the seed drop among its broken substance, and get Thou a harvest from the dissolved granite at this time. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Ye have turned judgment into gall.
Mans perverting power
The meaning of this is that they had turned the best things into bad use. See the working of this perverting power in many departments of action.
I. In physical operations. Everywhere you see man perverting nature, perverting the metals, the rivers, the fruits, and the chemical elements of the world to bad and mischievous uses.
II. In civic life. The principle of human government is a Divine ordinance, intended to secure equal justice and protection. But how has man perverted it! He has turned it into an instrument to benefit the few at the expense of the many, an instrument of tyranny and oppression. Mans perversion of the law is proverbial as a hideous enormity. The principle of merchandise, intended to band man together by the exchange of commodities, in mutual obligation and fellowship, man has awfully perverted. He has made it the instrument of cupidity, monopoly, and nameless frauds.
III. In the religious sphere. Do not let man say he has no power. His moral power is something stupendous. He has power to turn the things of God to the use of Satan, heavenly blessings into hellish curses. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. Shall horses run upon the rock] First, they could not do it, because they were unshod; for the shoeing of horses with iron was not then known. Secondly, If they did run on the rock, it would be useless to their owner, and hurtful to themselves. Thirdly, And it would be as useless to plough on the rock with oxen; for there it would be impossible to sow with any advantage. Fourthly, Just as useless and injurious would it be to put gall in the place of judgment, and hemlock in the place of righteousness. You have not only been labouring in vain for yourselves, but you have also been oppressive to others; and for both ye shall suffer.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Shall horses run upon the rock? would it not be dangerous to horse and rider? If prophets and pious men exhort, threaten, or advise, they endanger themselves, it does no more good than if you would run your horse on the slippery precipices of rocks. Or, all is lost labour on these hardened sinners.
Will one plough there with oxen? your hearts are hard as the rocks; my prophets preaching, my lesser judgments warning you, all gentler means used, are but as a husbandmans ploughing the rocks. These shall therefore be torn up by the roots, your state and kingdom shall be utterly overthrown.
For ye, you judges and governors in the ten tribes, and in Judah too,
have turned judgment, see Amo 5:7,
into gall, or poison; by those laws they took away life, and forfeited estate, which, had the laws been rightly executed, had saved both.
The fruit of righteousness, all that fruit which equity and justice would have produced by due application of the law, hath been wormwood, grief, and complaints, by your wresting and perverting the law.
Into hemlock, a deadly and pernicious weed so the course of your courts have been.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. In turning “judgment(justice) into gall (poison), and . . . righteousness into hemlock”(or wormwood, bitter and noxious), ye act as perversely as if onewere to make “horses run upon the rock” or to “ploughwith oxen there” [MAURER].As horses and oxen are useless on a rock, so ye are incapable offulfilling justice [GROTIUS].Ye impede the course of God’s benefits, because ye are as it were ahard rock on which His favor cannot run. “Those that will not betilled as fields, shall be abandoned as rocks” [CALVIN].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Shall horses run upon the rocks? or will [one] plough [there] with oxen?…. Will any man be so weak and foolish, to propose or attempt a race for horses upon rocks, where they and their riders would be in danger of breaking their necks? or would any man act so unwise a part, as to take a yoke of oxen to plough with them upon a rock, where no impression can be made? as vain and fruitless a thing it would be to attempt to bring such persons under a conviction of their sins, and to repentance for them, and reformation from them, who are given up to a judicial hardness of heart, like that of a rock, as are the persons described in the next clause; or as such methods with horses and oxen would be contrary to all the rules of reason and prudence, so as contrary a part do such persons act whose characters are next given, and there is no probability of bringing them to better sense and practice of things;
for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock; that which would be beneficial to a nation, than which nothing is more so, as the exercise of justice, and judgment, into that which is bitter and pernicious to it, as injustice and oppression; see Am 5:7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This judgment also, they, with their perversion of all right, will be unable to avert by their foolish trust in their own power. Amo 6:12. “Do horses indeed run upon the rock, or do men plough (there) with oxen, that ye turn justice into poison, and the fruit of the righteousness into wormwood? Amo 6:13. They who rejoice over what is worthless, who say: with our strength we make ourselves horns! Amo 6:14. For, behold, I raise over you, O house of Israel, is the saying of Jehovah, the God of hosts, a nation; and they will oppress you from the territory of Hamath to the brook of the desert.” To explain the threat in Amo 6:11, Amos now calls attention in Amo 6:12, under two different similes, to the perversity with which the haughty magnates of Israel, who turn right into bitter wrong, imagine that they can offer a successful resistance, or bid defiance with their own strength to the enemy, whom the Lord will raise up as the executor of His judgment. The perversion of right into its opposite can no more bring salvation than horses can run upon rocks, or any one plough upon such a soil with oxen. In the second question (on the rock) is to be repeated from the first, as the majority of commentators suppose. But the two questions are not to be taken in connection with the previous verse in the sense of “Ye will no more be able to avert this destruction than horses can run upon rocks,” etc. (Chr. B. Mich.). They belong to what follows, and are meant to expose the moral perversity of the unrighteous conduct of the wicked. For , see Amo 5:7; and for , Hos 10:4. The impartial administration of justice is called the “fruit of righteousness,” on account of the figurative use of the terms darnel and wormwood. These great men, however, rejoice thereby in , “a nothing,” or a thing which has no existence. What the prophet refers to may be seen from the parallel clause, viz., their imaginary strength ( chozeq ). They rested this hope upon the might with which Jeroboam had smitten the Syrians, and restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom. From this might they would take to themselves ( laqach , to take, not now for the first time to create, or ask of God) the horns, to thrust down all their foes. Horns are signs and symbols of power (cf. Deu 33:17; 1Ki 22:11); here they stand for the military resources, with which they fancied that they could conquer every foe. These delusions of God-forgetting pride the prophet casts down, by saying that Jehovah the God of hosts will raise up a nation against them, which will crush them down in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom. This nation was Assyria. K hinneh (for behold) is repeated from Amo 6:11; and the threat in Amo 6:14 is thereby described as the resumption and confirmation of the threat expressed in Amo 6:11, although the k is connected with the perversity condemned in Amo 6:12, Amo 6:13, of trusting in their own power. Lachats , to oppress, to crush down. On the expression , as a standing epithet for the northern boundary of the kingdom of Israel, see Num 34:8. As the southern boundary we have instead of (2Ki 14:25). This is not the willow-brook mentioned in Isa 15:7, the present Wady Sufsaf, or northern arm of the Wady el-Kerek (see Delitzsch on Isaiah, l.c.), nor the Rhinokorura, the present el-Arish, which formed the southern boundary of Canaan, because this is constantly called “the brook of Egypt” (see at Num 34:5; Jos 15:4), but the present el-Ahsy ( Ahsa), the southern border river which separated Moab from Edom (see at 2Ki 14:25).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
This verse interpreters misrepresent; for some think that the Prophet, by these figurative expressions, means, that the people were wholly unprofitable as to any thing good; as some one says, “The slothful ox wishes for the saddle, the horse wishes to plough.” They therefore suppose that this is the meaning of the words, “Ye are no more fitted to lead a good life than a horse is to run on a rock, or an ox to plough on a rock.” Others think that the Prophet complains that the order of things was subverted as though he said, “Ye have alike confounded all equity government, and justice. In short, ye have subverted all right; as when one tries to ride swiftly over a high rock, or attempts to plough there, which is contrary to the nature of things: ye are therefore become monsters.” Others, again, understand that the Prophet here complains that he had lost all his labor; for he had been singing, according to the common proverb, to the deaf. “What do I effect as to this iron generation? It is the same as if one tried to ride on the rock, to mount a rock on a swift horse; or as if one attempted to plough there; both which are impossible. So now, when I address stupid men, there is no fruit to my labor, and no advantage is gained.” (44)
But let us see whether a fitter and a more suitable meaning can be elicited. We have already observed how secure the Israelites were; for they thought that God was, in a manner, bound to them, for he had pledged his faith to be a father to them. This adoption of God puffed up their hearts. The Prophet now reproves this presumptuous security; and, in a fitting manner, “Can a horse,” he says, “run on a rock? and can an ox plough in a stony place? So there is not among you a free course to God’s blessings. Ye ought indeed to have been the vineyard and the field of the Lord; justice and judgment ought to have reigned among, you but ye have turned judgment into gall ( ראש, rash, which is variously taken, but as to the sense it matters but little,) ye have then turned judgment into gall, and righteousness into hemlock Since then ye are so perverse, a way for God’s blessings is doubtless closed up. It cannot be that the Lord will act towards you in a manner like himself; for he must necessarily be refractory towards the refractory, as he is gentle towards the gentle”. The Prophet seems to me to mean this and if any one impartially considers the whole verse, he will easily find out the truth of what I have stated, namely, that the Prophet here reproves the supreme haughtiness of the Israelitic people, who thought God bound to them though, at the same time, they, as it were, designedly provoked his wrath. “Ye think”, he says, “that God will be always propitious to you; whence is this confidence? Is it because he has adopted you, because he made a covenant with your fathers? True he has done so; but what sort of covenant was it? What was engaged on your part? Was it not that ye would be perfect before him? But ye have turned judgment into gall, and righteousness into hemlock (45) Since then ye are thus covenant-breakers, what can God now do? Do you wish him to proceed in the same course, and to bestow on you his blessings? Ye do not allow them to be bestowed. For ye are become like craggy rocks. How can God proceed in his course? how can he continue his benefits to you? He can certainly no more do so than a horse, however nimble he may be, can run swiftly on a rock or an ox plough on a rock.” We now understand what the Prophet means in this place. A confirmation of this view now follows, and from this connection the truth of what I have stated will become more evident.
(44) This is the view taken by Matthew Henry, and seems not unsuitable. “The methods used for their reformation,” he says, “have been all fruitless and ineffectual. Shall horses run, etc. No; for there will be no profit to countervail the pains. God has sent them his prophets to break up their fallow ground; but they found them as hard and inflexible as the rock, rough and rugged, and they could do no good with them, nor work upon them, and therefore they shall not attempt it any more.” — Ed.
(45) “Ye have turned judgment into gall, which is nauseous, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock, which is noxious.” — M. Henry.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amo. 6:12.] As horses and oxen are useless on a rock, so ye are incapable of fulfilling justice [Grotius]. The comparison indicates the folly of expecting prosperity while committing acts of injustice. The interrogative form gives strength to the representation.
Amo. 6:13. Nought] Their growing empire, or imaginary strength. Horns] A symbol of power; dominion rescued by Jeroboam from the Syrians (2Ki. 14:25).
Amo. 6:14.] Gods answer to this presumption. A people] Not named, perhaps to awaken attention; probably Assyria. Afflict] Oppress, crush down; the whole extent of territory said to have been recovered by Jeroboam II., the region of triumphs a scene of woe.
HOMILETICS
A HOPELESS PEOPLE.Amo. 6:12-14
These verses are rather abrupt, and generally taken to show how useless and impossible it is to reform the people. Their perversion of right and their indifference to threatening rendered punishment inevitable, and foolish confidence in their own power could not avert it.
I. Punishment was most inevitable. Two illustrations prove this. Their conduct was perilous and preposterous. Horses cannot run with safety, nor can oxen plough, upon rocks: so in their self-chosen way they will wound themselves and be disappointed.
1. Former attempts to reform had failed. God had sent judgment after judgment, prophet after prophet, but in vain. They had not broken up their fallow ground, but were hard and uncultivated as a rock. They hindered the work of God and acted most perversely. Those who will not be tilled as fields shall be abandoned as rocks, says Calvin.
2. Special sins were not forsaken. Ye have turned judgment into gall, &c. Power was still abused, oppression and injustice practised, and righteousness turned into hemlock. Men who pervert justice, and despise ordinances in hope of advantage, will neither preserve the nation nor escape punishment. They turn the hearts of men and the providence of God against themselves. It is as impossible for them to prosper as to reap a harvest from the rock.
3. The judgments of God were disregarded. They continued to rejoice in their idols and wealth; boasted of their own valour, and thought to defend themselves with their own strength. Have we not taken to us horns? i.e. acquired power and dominion. Premeditated injustice, wilful opposition to the word of God, will lead to judicial blindness and destruction. Those who exalt themselves in pride shall be abased.
II. Punishment was most destructive. What they took for their greatest gain would be their greatest loss.
1. Their own strength could not defend them. It was a thing of nought. There was no substance, no reality in it. Victory and dominion, courage and prosperity, are nonentities. Empire decays and riches flee away. God only is real and satisfying good.
2. The whole country would be desolated. Under Jeroboam II. they had recovered their lands, from the entering in of Hamath, &c. (2Ki. 14:25). They were boasting of their success and securing themselves in their dominions. But the scene of their triumph would be the scene of their fall. When men give not God the glory of their possessions, in justice will he take them away.
3. The whole people would be oppressed. They shall afflict you. Conquerors would take the riches in which they gloried, treat them with indignity and afflict them with shame. Neither Judah nor Israel would be spared. It is easier to turn the course of nature than to change Gods law from rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. When God commands it must be done, and the scourge will be prevalent as the evil.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
12. Horses upon a rock, &c. The course of the sinner
1. Most foolish.
2. Most dangerous.
3. Most useless. Horses stumble and wound themselves. No harvest is reaped from such ploughing. The course of sin, turning equity into poison, will grievously disappoint.
13. Taken to us horns. The language of arrogance and self-confidence.
1. Men apt to ascribe possessions to their own efforts. They have done everything and God nothing.
2. To overvalue them in the enjoyment. How many things in which we trust are things of nought.
3. Hence, when we think more of the gifts than the Giver, we are taught our folly. To glory in anything, whatever it may promise, will delude. God will strip men of every false, that he may become their true glory.
14. I will raise up. No foe could ever invade us if the Lord did not raise him up. War therefore is not an accident, but a providential dispensation. Pharaoh, Hadad, Rezon, the Chaldees, are all expressly said to have been raised up by the Lord (Exo. 9:16; 1Ki. 11:14; 1Ki. 11:23; Hab. 1:6) [Lange].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Amo. 6:12. The blessings of just administration are emphatically set forth by terms used to describe the opposite. Injustice is gall and poison, bitterness and death. How should it commend to us the kingdom of Christ, that he is to reign in righteousness, to judge in equity [Ryan].
Amo. 6:13. Nought. The more I exaggerate these ideal joys, the more do I treasure up subjects of woe. Oh what vanity has God written upon all things under the sun! Adored be the never failing mercy of God! He has made my happiness to depend, not on the uncertain connections of this life, but upon his own most blessed selfa portion that never faileth [Martyn].
Amo. 6:14. Captivity. Sell not your liberty to gratify your luxury [Matt Henry].
There is a paradise that fears
No forfeiture, and of its fruit He sends
Large prelibations oft to saints below. [Cowper.]
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(12) The questions require a negative answer, and show that the conduct of Israel is as inconsistent and senseless as the supposition involved in the interrogation: that horses should climb steep cliffs, or oxen plough in the rocky gorge. The conception of oppression, luxury, and pride being the forerunners of prosperity and peace is anomalous. The idea is, that that which should have insured the stability of the state, the embodiment of its conscience, had been turned into narcotic poisonthe self-satisfaction of personal greed. Rsh, the Hebrew for gall, is a poisonous kind of plant with bitter taste, and resembling, according to Jerome, stalks of grass, and propagating itself with such rapidity that it is difficult to exterminate it. (Comp. Hos. 10:4. Speakers Commentary suggests poppy-head.) In Amo. 5:7 the word expressed here by hemlock is rendered worm-wood, as in Jer. 9:15; Jer. 23:15; Deu. 29:18, &c., a rendering which should have been retained here. Gall and worm-wood are constantly associated in Old Testament prophecy in this metaphorical sense.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. Shall horses run upon the rock? Or, cliff. The answer is an emphatic No. The attempt would result in the horses’ undoing.
Will one plow there with oxen? Again the answer is, No. The plow would be broken and the oxen hurt. Every one of Amos’s hearers would see the absurdity of doing these things. So, the prophet means to say, it is equally absurd for you to expect the divine help while you arouse Jehovah’s anger by perverting justice and righteousness, or to trust in your own resources, whose true value you overestimate greatly; your past successes do not warrant the present optimism. The second question is literally, “Will one plow with oxen?” The answer to this is in the affirmative. The context, however, as already suggested, demands a negative answer. To remove the difficulty the English translators added “there,” that is, upon the rock, which meets the demands of the context, and upon this addition the above interpretation is based. Most recent commentators, following the suggestion of Michaelis, divide the last word in Hebrew into two and make a slight change in the vowel points, which results in the reading, “Will one plow the sea with oxen?” This meets the demands of the context, and gives excellent sense.
For Better, R.V., “that.” Judgment [“justice”] righteousness See on Amo 5:7.
Turned into gall In defiance of all prophetic exhortations. Gall is the same word as in Hos 10:4, where the translation is “hemlock” (see there).
Fruit Result or effect. Hemlock [“wormwood”] See on Amo 5:7. The effects of a faithful administration of justice are always wholesome and desirable; by an unfaithful administration the Israelites have made the effects undesirable and detrimental. For this reason they can expect no help from Jehovah.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Amo 6:12. Shall horses run, &c. Shall horses run upon the sharp rock, or shall it be plowed with oxen? Because ye have turned, &c. As much as to say, “You pervert the use of things: for judgments are appointed to support and comfort the oppressed, and you use them in order to oppress; as if any one should abuse oxen for the ploughing of a barren rock.” See Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Amo 6:12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will [one] plow [there] with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:
Ver. 12. Shall horses run upon the rock ] Is it possible they should do so and not first break their hoofs, and then their necks? will the rider therefore venture there? were it not matchless madness in him?
Will one plough there with oxen
“ Atque idem iungat vulpes, et mulgeat hircos. ”
For ye have turned judgment into gall, &c.
And the fruit of righteousness into hemlock
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Amo 6:12-14
12Do horses run on rocks?
Or does one plow them with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into poison
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
13You who rejoice in Lodebar,
And say, Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?
14For behold, I am going to raise up a nation against you,
O house of Israel, declares the LORD God of hosts,
And they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath
To the brook of the Arabah.
Amo 6:12 These first two questions are somewhat difficult in Hebrew, but it is obvious they refer to unnatural acts. All these rhetorical questions expect a no answer. It was also unnatural for God’s people to turn justice into poison!
Do horses run on rocks Rocks (BDB 700) refers to large boulders or possibly to horses running up cliffs or over crags. The answer is obviously no.
does one plow them with oxen It is possible to change the MT’s vowels to read plow the sea (cf. NRSV, TEV, NJB). This is accomplished by taking the plural ending of oxen as a separate word, sea. This fits the context better. As 12a, it is meant to be an impossible act. All four questions expect a no answer!
justice. . .fruit of righteousness See note at Amo 5:12.
Amo 6:13 You who rejoice This Hebrew phrase implies arrogance and pride over two military victories. Israel was proud and confident in her military, but God will destroy Israel by a greater military power (cf. Amo 6:14, the Assyrians)! The Assyrians will come from the same geographical direction as these two cities mentioned, the north.
Lodebar This was a city on the eastern side of Jordan in the area of Gilead. The term (BDB 520) means a nothing.
Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves This is apparently another city in the trans-jordan area. The term (BDB 902) means a pair of horns, which would denote its power. These cities were both captured by Jeroboam II (782-753 B.C.).
The theological implication of the phrase is that Israel, by her own military power, captured this city, which goes against the concept of holy war. It was YHWH’s power and strength (e.g., Exo 13:3; Exo 13:14; Exo 13:16) that enabled His people to win in battle. This claim is another sign of Israel’s arrogance and covenant ignorance.
Amo 6:14 I am going to raise up a nation against you This refers to Assyria.
from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Arabah This is the traditional boundary of the Promised Land (cf. Num 34:7-8; Jos 13:5; Jdg 3:3; 1Ki 8:65; 2Ki 14:25). Judah would also be affected!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought provoking, not definitive.
1. Why did God reject the sacrifices of the northern tribes?
2. Why is God’s creative act emphasized? (Amo 6:8-9)
3. Why is Amo 5:25-26 so difficult to interpret?
4. Is Amos condemning wealth and the sacrificial system or something else? What?
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Shall horses . . ? will . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6. there or, supply “[the seal”. for. Supply “[with equal madness]”.
hemlock. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 29:18, same word as `wormwood”). App-92.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
horses: Isa 48:4, Jer 5:3, Jer 6:29, Jer 6:30, Zec 7:11, Zec 7:12
for: Amo 5:7, Amo 5:11, Amo 5:12, 1Ki 21:7-13, Psa 94:20, Psa 94:21, Isa 59:13, Isa 59:14, Hos 10:4, Hos 10:13, Mic 7:3, Hab 1:3, Hab 1:4, Act 7:51, Act 7:52
Reciprocal: Deu 29:18 – among you a root Est 5:9 – joyful Pro 16:10 – transgresseth Pro 17:15 – that justifieth Ecc 5:8 – regardeth Amo 5:15 – establish Amo 6:3 – and cause Mat 13:5 – General Mar 4:5 – General Luk 8:6 – General Joh 8:15 – judge Act 24:25 – righteousness Rev 8:11 – Wormwood
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Amo 6:12. The two questions in the beginning of this verse should be an-swered in the negative. The wickedness of the nation had turned good judgment into gall (bitterness), and righteousness had been supplanted by hemlock (poison). Therefore the Lord determined to strip the land of its fertility, and render it useless to work their beasts.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Amo 6:12. Shall horses run upon the rock? Is it possible that horses should run upon the steep and craggy cliffs? So impossible is it that ye Israelites should continue to prosper, while ye remain thus sinful. Bishop Hall. Or, as horses and oxen are useless in such places, so are ye evidently useless to God. Grotius. Several other interpretations are given of this obscure verse. Mr. Scotts is, It was as perilous to endeavour to reform the people as it would be to ride a race on the top of a craggy rock, where both horses and horsemen would be in danger of being killed; and as vain as to plough there with oxen, when no impression could be made or increase expected. For ye have turned judgment into gall, &c. Ye have rendered the administration of public justice as bitter as gall, and the fruit of righteousness, or the observance of religious ceremonies, as poisonous as hemlock.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:12 Shall horses {n} run upon the rock? will [one] plow [there] with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into {o} hemlock:
(n) He compares them to barren rocks, upon which it is in vain to bestow labour: showing that God’s benefits can have no place among them.
(o) Read Amo 5:7 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
It was as unnatural for Israel’s leaders to live as they did as it was for horses to run on rocky crags or oxen to plow rocks. Horses normally ran on rock-free ground, and oxen plowed fields from which farmers had removed the rocks. Yet these leaders had replaced justice with corrupt courtroom decisions that had killed the defendants just as though they had taken poison. Righteousness in the rulers should have resulted in grace for the dependent that would have been sweet to their taste, but the treatment they received instead was bitter to their souls.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
8
COMMON SENSE AND THE REIGN OF LAW
Amo 3:3-8; Amo 4:6-13; Amo 5:8-9; Amo 6:12; Amo 8:8; Amo 9:5; Amo 8:4-6
FOOLS, when they face facts, which is seldom, face them one by one, and, as a consequence, either in ignorant contempt or in panic. With this inordinate folly Amos charged the religion of his day. The superstitious people, careful of every point of ritual and very greedy of omens, would not ponder real facts nor set cause-to effect. Amos recalled them to common life. “Does a bird fall upon a snare, except there be a loop on her? Does the trap itself rise from the ground, except it be catching something”-something alive in it that struggles, and so lifts the trap? “Shall the alarum be blown in a city, and the people not tremble?” Daily life is impossible without putting two and two together. But this is just what Israel will not do with the sacred events of their time. To religion they will not add common-sense.
For Amos himself, all things which happen are in sequence and in sympathy. He has seen this in the simple life of the desert; he is sure of it throughout the tangle and hubbub of history. One thing explains another; one makes another inevitable. When he has illustrated the truth in common life, Amos claims it for especially four of the great facts of the time. The sins of society, of which society is careless; the physical calamities, which they survive and forget; the approach of Assyria, which they ignore; the word of the prophet, which they silence, -all these belong to each other. Drought, Pestilence, Earthquake, Invasion conspire-and the Prophet holds their secret.
Now it is true that for the most part Amos describes this sequence of events as the personal action of Jehovah. “Shall evil befall, and Jehovah not have done it? I have smitten you. I will raise up against you a Nation Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!” {Amo 3:6; Amo 4:9; Amo 6:14; Amo 4:12} Yet even where the personal impulse of the Deity is thus emphasized, we feel equal stress laid upon the order and the inevitable certainty of the process Amos nowhere uses Isaiahs great phrase: “a God of Mishpat,” a “God of Order” or “Law.” But he means almost the same thing: God works by methods which irresistibly fulfill themselves. Nay more. Sometimes this sequence sweeps upon the prophets mind with such force as to overwhelm all his sense of the Personal within it. The Will and the Word of the God who causes the thing are crushed out by the “Must Be” of the thing itself. Take even the descriptions of those historical crises, which the prophet most explicitly proclaims as the visitations of the Almighty. In some of the verses all thought of God Himself is lost in the roar and foam with which that tide of necessity bursts up through Chem. The fountains of the great deep break loose, and while the universe trembles to the shock, it seems that even the voice of the Deity is overwhelmed. In one passage, immediately after describing Israels ruin as due to Jehovahs word, Amos asks how could it “have happened otherwise”:-
“Shall horses run up a cliff, or oxen plough the sea? that ye turn justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.” {Amo 6:12} A moral order exists, which it is as impossible to break without disaster as it would be to break the natural order by driving horses upon a precipice. There is an inherent necessity in the sinners doom. Again, he says of Israels sin: “Shall not the Land tremble for this? Yea, it shall rise up together like the Nile, and heave and sink like the Nile of Egypt.” {Amo 8:8} The crimes of Israel are so intolerable, that in its own might the natural frame of things revolts against them. In these great crises, therefore, as in the simple instances adduced from everyday life, Amos had a sense of what we call law, distinct from, and for moments even overwhelming, that sense of the personal purpose of God, admission to the secrets of which had marked his call to be a prophet.
These instincts we must not exaggerate into a system. There is no philosophy in Amos, nor need we wish there were. Far more instructive is what we do find-a virgin sense of the sympathy of all things, the thrill rather than the theory of a universe. And this faith, which is not a philosophy, is especially instructive on these two points: that it springs from the moral sense; and that it embraces, not history only, but nature.
It springs from the moral sense. Other races have arrived at a conception of the universe along other lines: some by the observation of physical laws valid to the recesses of space; some by logic and the unity of Reason. But Israel found the universe through the conscience. It is a historical fact that the Unity of God, the Unity of History, and the Unity of the World, did, in this order, break upon Israel, through conviction and experience of the universal sovereignty of righteousness. We see the beginnings of the process in Amos. To him the sequences which work themselves out through history and across nature are moral. Righteousness is the hinge on which the world hangs; loosen it, and history and nature feel the shock. History punishes the sinful nation. But nature, too, groans beneath the guilt of man; and in the Drought, the Pestilence, and the Earthquake provides his scourges. It is a belief which has stamped itself upon the language of mankind. What else is “plague” than “blow” or “Scourge?”
This brings us to the second point-our prophets treatment of Nature.
Apart from the disputed passages (which we shall take afterwards by themselves) we have in the Book of Amos few glimpses of nature, and these always under a moral light. There is not in any chapter a landscape visible in its own beauty. Like all desert-dwellers, who when they would praise the works of God lift their eyes to the heavens, Amos gives us but the outlines of the earth-a mountain range, {Amo 1:2; Amo 3:9; Amo 9:3} or the crest of a forest, {Amo 2:9} or the bare back of the land, bent from sea to sea. {Amo 8:12} Nearly all, his figures are drawn from the desert-the torrent, the wild beasts, the wormwood (Amo 5:24; Amo 5:19-20; etc.; Amo 7:12). If he visits the meadows of the shepherds, it is with the terror of the peoples doom; {Amo 1:2} if the vineyards or orchards, it is with the mildew and the locust; {Amo 4:9 ff.} if the towns, it is with drought, eclipse, and earthquake. {Amo 4:6-11; Amo 6:11; Amo 8:8 ff.} To him, unlike his fellows, unlike especially Hosea, the whole land is one theatre of judgment; but it is a theatre trembling to its foundations with the drama enacted upon it. Nay, land and nature are themselves actors in the drama. Physical forces are inspired with moral purpose, and become the ministers of righteousness. This is the converse of Elijahs vision. To the older prophet the message came that God was not in the fire nor in the earthquake nor in the tempest, but only in the still small voice. But to Amos the fire, the earthquake, and the tempest are all in alliance with the Voice, and execute the doom which it utters. The difference will be appreciated by us, if we remember the respective problems set to prophecy in those two periods. To Elijah, prophet of the elements, wild worker by fire and water, by life and death, the spiritual had to be asserted and enforced by itself. Ecstatic as he was, Elijah had to learn that the Word is more Divine than all physical violence and terror. But Amos understood that for his age the question was very different. Not only was the God of Israel dissociated from the powers of nature, which were assigned by the popular mind to the various Baalim of the land, so that there was a divorce between His government of the people and the influences that fed the peoples life; but morality itself was conceived as provincial. It was narrowed to the national interests; it was summed up in mere rules of police, and these were looked upon as not so important as the observances of the ritual. Therefore Amos was driven to show that nature and morality are one. Morality is not a set of conventions. “Morality is the order of things.” Righteousness is on the scale of the universe. All things tremble to the shock of sin; all things work together for good to them that fear God.
With this sense of law, of moral necessity, in Amos we must not fail to connect that absence of all appeal to miracle, which is also conspicuous in his book.
We come now to the three disputed passages:-
Amo 4:13 :-“For, lo! He Who formed the hills, and createth the wind, and declareth to man what His mind is; Who maketh the dawn into darkness, and marcheth on the heights of the land-Jehovah, God of Hosts, is His Name.”
Amo 5:8-9 :-“Maker of the Pleiades and Orion, turning to morning the murk, and day into night He darkeneth; Who calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them forth on the face of the earth-Jehovah His Name; Who flasheth ruin on the strong, and destruction cometh down on the fortress.”
Amo 9:5-6 :-“And the Lord Jehovah of the Hosts, Who toucheth the earth and it rocketh, and all mourn that dwell on it, and it riseth like the Nile together, and sinketh like the Nile of Egypt; Who hath builded in the heavens His ascents, and founded His vault upon the earth; Who calleth to the waters of the sea, and poureth them on the face of the earth-Jehovah His Name.”
These sublime passages it is natural to take as the triple climax of the doctrine we have traced through the Book of Amos. Are they not the natural leap of the soul to the stars? The same shepherds eye which has marked sequence and effect unfailing on the desert soil, does it not now sweep the clear heavens above the desert, and find there also all things ordered and arrayed? The same mind which traced the Divine processes down history, which foresaw the hosts of Assyria marshaled for Israels punishment, which felt the overthrow of justice shock the nation to their ruin, and read the disasters of the husbandmans year as the vindication of a law higher than the physical-does it not now naturally rise beyond such instances of the Divine order, round which the dust of history rolls, to the lofty, undimmed outlines of the Universe as a Whole, and, in consummation of its message, declare that “all is Law,” and Law intelligible to man? But in the way of so attractive a conclusion the literary criticism of the book has interposed. It is maintained that, while none of these sublime verses are indispensable to the argument of Amos, some of them actually interrupt it, so that when they are removed it becomes consistent; that such ejaculations in praise of Jehovahs creative power are not elsewhere met with in Hebrew prophecy before the time of the Exile; that they sound very like echoes of the Book of Job; and that in the Septuagint version of Hosea we actually find a similar doxology, wedged into the middle of an authentic verse of the prophet. {Hos 13:4} To these arguments against the genuineness of the three famous passages, other critics, not less able and not less free, like Robertson Smith and Kuenen, have replied that such ejaculations at critical points of the prophets discourse “are not surprising under the general conditions of prophetic oratory”; and that, while one of the doxologies does appear to break the argument {Amo 5:8-9} of the context, they are all of them thoroughly in the spirit and the style of Amos. To this point the discussion has been carried; it seems to need a closer examination. We may at once dismiss the argument which has been drawn from that obvious intrusion into the Greek of Hos 13:4. Not only is this verse not so suited to the doctrine of Hosea as the doxologies are to the doctrine of Amos; but while they are definite and sublime, it is formal and flat-“Who made firm the heavens and founded the earth, Whose hands founded all the host of heaven, and He did not display them that thou shouldest walk after them.” The passages in Amos are vision; this is a piece of catechism crumbling into homily. Again-an argument in favor of the authenticity, of these passages may be drawn from the character of their subjects. We have seen the part which the desert played in shaping the temper and the style of Amos. But the works of the Creator, to which these passages lift their praise, are just those most fondly dwelt upon by all the poetry, of the desert. The Arabian nomad, when he magnifies the power of God, finds his subjects not on the bare earth about him, but in the brilliant heavens and the heavenly processes.
Again, the critic who affirms that the passages in Amos “in every case sensibly disturb the connection,” exaggerates. In the case of the first of Amo 4:13, the disturbance is not at all “sensible”: though it must be admitted that the oracle closes impressively enough without it. The last of them, Amo 9:5-6 -which repeats a clause already found in the book {Cf. Amo 8:8} -is as much in sympathy with its context as most of the oracles in the somewhat scattered discourse of that last section of the book. The real difficulty is the second doxology, Amo 5:8-9, which does break the connection, and in a sudden and violent way. Remove it, and the argument is consistent. We cannot read chapter 5 without feeling that, whether Amos wrote these verses or not, they did not originally stand where they stand at present. Now, taken with this dispensableness of two of the passages and this obvious intrusion of one of them, the following additional fact becomes ominous. “Jehovah is His Name” (which occurs in two of the passages), or “Jehovah of Hosts is His Name” (Which occurs at least in one), is a construction which does not happen elsewhere in the book, except in a verse where it is awkward and where we have already seen reason to doubt its genuineness. But still more, the phrase does not occur in any other prophet, till we come down to the oracles which compose Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12. Here it happens thrice-twice in passages dating from the Exile, {Isa 47:4 and Isa 54:5} and once in a passage suspected by some to be of still later date. In the Book of Jeremiah the phrase is found eight times; but either in passages already on other grounds judged by many critics to be later than Jeremiah, or where by itself it is probably an intrusion into the text. Now is it a mere coincidence that a phrase, which, outside the Book of Amos, occurs only in writing of the time of the Exile and in passages considered for other reasons to be post-exilic insertions-is it a mere coincidence that within the Book of Amos it should again be found only in suspected verses? There appears to be in this more than a coincidence; and the present writer cannot but feel a very strong case against the traditional belief that these doxologies are original and integral portions of the Book of Amos. At the same time a case which has failed to convince critics like Robertson Smith and Kuenen cannot be considered conclusive, and we are so ignorant of many of the conditions of prophetic oratory at this period that dogmatism is impossible. For instance, the use by Amos of the Divine titles is a matter over which uncertainty still lingers; and any further argument on the subject must include a fuller discussion than space here allows of the remarkable distribution of those titles throughout the various sections of the book.
But if it be not given to us to prove this kind of authenticity-a question whose data are so obscure, yet whose answer frequently is of so little significance-let us gladly welcome that greater Authenticity whose undeniable proofs these verses so splendidly exhibit. No one questions their right to the place which some great spirit gave them in this book-their suitableness to its grand and ordered theme, their pure vision and their eternal truth. That common-sense, and that conscience, which, moving among the events of earth and all the tangled processes of history, find everywhere reason and righteousness at work, in these verses claim the Universe for the same powers, and see in stars and clouds and the procession of day and night the One Eternal God Who “declareth to man what His mind is.”