Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 9:4
And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
4. Even in captivity they would not be safe; they might escape the destruction of the foe, but the Divine sword should yet overtake them.
before their enemies ] Driven before them, like a flock of sheep: cf. Lam 1:5.
I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good ] To set the eye upon is elsewhere found always in a good sense = to keep watch over, take under one’s care (see Jer 24:6; Jer 39:11). For evil and not for good, as Jer 21:10 (with “to set the face against”), Jer 39:16; and (with “watch over”) Jer 44:27. God’s watchful care and love is transformed, through His people’s sin, into hostility (cf. on Amo 6:8).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Captivity – , at least, seemed safe. The horrors of war are over. Men enslave, but do not commonly destroy those whom they have once been at the pains to carry captive. Amos describes them in their misery, as going willingly, gladly, into captivity before their enemies, like a flock of sheep. Yet thence too, out of the captivity, God would command the sword, and it should slay them. So God had forewarned them by Moses, that captivity should be an occasion, not an end, of slaughter. I will scatter you among the pagan, and will draw out a sword after you Lev 26:33. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease – and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life Deu 28:65-66. The book of Esther shows how cheaply the life of a whole nation was held by Eastern conquerors; and the book of Tobit records, how habitually Jews were slain and cast out unburied (Tobit 1:17; 2:3). The account also that Sennacherib (Tobit 1:18) avenged the loss of his army, and in his wrath killed many, is altogether in the character of Assyrian conquerors. Unwittingly he fulfilled the command of God, I will command the sword and it shall slay them.
I will set mine eyes upon them for evil – So David says, The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to root out the remembrance of them from off the earth Psa 34:15-16. The Eye of God rests on each creature which He hath made, as entirely as if He had created it alone. Every moment is passed in His unvarying sight. But, as man sets his eye on man, watching him and with purpose of evil, so Gods Eye is felt to be on man in displeasure, when sorrow and calamity track him and overtake him, coming he knows not how in unlooked-for ways and strange events. The Eye of God upon us is our whole hope and stay and life. It is on the Confessor in prison, the Martyr on the rack, the poor in their sufferings, the mourner in the chamber of death, for good. What when everywhere that Eye, the Source of all good, rests on His creature only for evil! and not for good, he adds; not, as is the wont and the Nature of God; not, as He had promised, if they were faithful; not, as perhaps they thought, for good. He utterly shuts out all hope of good. It shall be all evil, and no good, such as is hell.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. I will set mine eyes upon them for evil] I will use that very providence against them which before worked for their good. Should they look upward, they shall see nothing but the terrible lightning-like eye of a sin-avenging God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Though they go into captivity; those excluded from safety every where else may perhaps hope that yet the enemy may spare. Captives are the slaves, the possession of their conquering enemies; these make profit of them by selling them to others, or employing them in labour and service.
Before their enemies: this seems to intimate some voluntariness in these people going before the conqueror, whom they hope hereby to mollify and sweeten, that he may use them well; yet this hope shall fail them too.
Thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: the enemy should, either out of cruel humour and hatred against them, or on any slight occasion and disgust, slay them as if they had commission from me so to do: neither propriety in them, nor service by them, nor profit in the sale of these poor and miserable captives, should be safety to them, they should be accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
I will set mine eyes upon them; I will perpetually watch over them, and then be sure no opportunity will be let slip.
For evil, to afflict and punish them,
and not for good, for their benefit. Thus was the course of Gods providence against them from the days Amos aimeth at unto this very day, and God hitherto hath, and still doth, make good his threat against this idolatrous, cruel, oppressing people.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. though they go intocaptivityhoping to save their lives by voluntarilysurrendering to the foe.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And though they go into captivity before their enemies,…. Alluding to the manner in which captives are led, being put before their enemies, and so carried in triumph; see La 1:5; though some think this refers to their going voluntarily into a foreign country, in order to escape danger, as Johanan the son of Kareah with the Jews went into Egypt, Jer 43:5; in whom Kimchi instances:
thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them; or them that kill with the sword, as the Targum; so that though they thought by going into another country, or into an enemy’s country of their own accord, to escape the sword of the enemy, or to curry favour with them, yet should not escape:
and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good: this is the true reason, why, let them be where they will, they cannot be safe, because the eyes of the omniscient God, which are everywhere, in heaven, earth, hell, and the sea, are set upon them, for their ruin and destruction; and there is no fleeing from his presence, or getting out of his sight, or escaping his hand. The Targum is,
“my Word shall be against them.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Now when he says, If they go into captivity among their enemies, I will there command the sword to slay them, some interpreters confine this part to that foolish flight, when a certain number of the people sought to provide for their safety by going down into Egypt. Johanan followed them, and a few escaped, (Jer 43:2) but according to what Jeremiah had foretold, when he said, ‘Bend your necks to the king of Babylon, and the Lord will bless you; whosoever will flee to Egypt shall perish;’ so it happened: they found this to be really true, though they had ever refused to believe the prediction. Jeremiah was drawn there contrary to the wish of his own mind: he had, however, pronounced a curse on all who thought that it would be an asylum to them. But the Lord permitted him to be drawn there, that he might to his last breath pronounce the Woe, which they had before heard from his mouth. But I hardly dare thus to restrict these expressions of the Prophet: I therefore explain them generally, as meaning, that exile, which is commonly said to be a civil death, would not be the end of evils to the Israelites and to the Jews; for even when they surrendered themselves to their enemies, and suffered themselves to be led and drawn away wherever their enemies pleased, they could not yet even in this way preserve their life, because the Lord would command the sword to pursue them even when exiles. This, in my view, is the real meaning of the Prophet.
He at last subjoins, I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good. There is a contrast to be understood in this clause: for the Lord had promised to be a guardian to his people, according to what is said in Psa 121:4,
‘
Behold, he who guards Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers.’
As hypocrites ever lay hold on the promises of God without repentance and faith, without any religious feeling, and afterwards turn them to support their vain boasting, the Prophet therefore says here, that the eye of God would be upon them, not indeed in his wonted manner to protect them, as he had done from the beginning, but, on the contrary, to accumulate punishment on punishment: it was the same thing as though he said, “As I have hitherto watched over the safety of this people, whom I have chosen for myself, so I will hereafter most sedulously watch, that I may omit no kind of punishment, until they be utterly destroyed.”
And this sentence deserves to be specially noticed; for we are reminded, that though the Lord does not indeed spare unbelievers, he yet more closely observes us, and that he will punish us more severely, if he sees us to be obstinate and incurable to the last. Why so? Because we have come nearer to him, and he looks on us as his family, placed under his eyes; not that anything is hid or concealed from him, but the Scripture speaks after the manner of men. While God then favors his people with a gracious look, he yet cannot endure hypocrites; for he minutely observes their vices, that he may the more severely punish them. This then is the substance of the whole. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Amo 9:4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
Ver. 4. And though they go into captivity, &c. ] And so may hope the worst is over (“Surely the bitterness of death is past,” 1Sa 15:32 ) yet it shall prove otherwise: the hypocrite’s hope is as the giving up the ghost, saith Job and that is but cold comfort; or, as the spider’s web, spun out of her own bowels; and, when the besom comes, swept to the muckhill.
Before their enemies
Thence will I command the sword
And I will set mine eyes upon them
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
command the sword. Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 26:33. Deu 26:25). App-92. Compare Eze 5:12.
I will set Mine eyes, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 17:10; Lev 20:5). App-92. Compare Jer 44:11.
evil = calamity. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44. Compare Amo 3:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
go: Lev 26:33, Lev 26:36-39, Deu 28:64, Deu 28:65, Eze 5:2, Eze 5:12, Zec 13:8, Zec 13:9
set: Lev 17:10, Deu 28:63, 2Ch 16:9, Psa 34:15, Psa 34:16, Jer 24:6, Jer 44:11
Reciprocal: Gen 44:21 – that I may Num 21:6 – General 1Ki 17:4 – I have commanded Jer 12:12 – the sword Jer 21:10 – I have Jer 39:12 – look well to him Jer 51:53 – mount Eze 21:9 – A sword Amo 9:8 – the eyes Zec 8:10 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Amo 9:4. Even after the Lords people have been moved into the territory of a foreign land, the wrath of an offended God will not he satisfied, for the severity of their captors will reduce their numbers. Evil is not something wrong morally for God does not use such means to punish his people. The term refers to something in the nature of a chastisement that would cause great humiliation.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The Lord would even slay the Israelites whom their enemy led away into captivity. Yahweh would order the sword to slay them even there, though there they would be under the protection of a strong foreign power. They would not be able to hide from His all-seeing eye. Normally God watched over His people for their good, but here He promised to set His eyes on them for evil. His purpose and intention for them was evil from their viewpoint. So thorough was the dispersion following the Assyrian invasion of Israel that the exiles came to be known as the "lost tribes." They were not really lost, however, as later revelation makes clear (Amo 9:11-15; et al.).