8 9<\/strong>. A hyperbolical description of the terrible nature of the coming judgement. On account of such enormities, the land will tremble, and rise up in mighty convulsions against the offenders; and darkness at noon-day will envelope the heavens.<\/p>\n Shall not<\/em> on this account<\/strong> &c.] Cf. (esp. in the Heb.) Jer 5:9<\/span>; Jer 5:29<\/span>; Jer 9:9<\/span> (Hebrews 8<\/span>).<\/p>\n mourn<\/em> ] viz. in terror, as they feel the earth beginning to shake.<\/p>\n and it shall rise up<\/em>, all of it<\/strong>, as<\/em> the Nile<\/strong>, and it shall be<\/em> tossed about<\/strong> (Isa 57:20<\/span>), and<\/em> sink<\/strong> (again), as<\/em> the Nile<\/strong> of Egypt<\/em> ] As the Nile, at the time of its annual inundation, rises, overflows, and sinks again, so will the land of Israel, in all its length and breadth, heave, and be convulsed, as by an earthquake, as it labours to rid itself of its guilty inhabitants (Isa 24:19-20<\/span>). The acquaintance shewn by Amos with a natural phenomenon peculiar to Egypt is interesting; comp. the knowledge of Egypt shewn by Isaiah (Isa 19:2<\/span>; Isa 19:5-9<\/span>), and Nahum (Amo 3:8<\/span>). There was no doubt more intercourse between Canaan and Egypt, during the period of the kings, than is commonly supposed. The verse (except the first clause) is repeated with unsubstantial alterations in Amo 9:5<\/span>.<\/p>\n Shall not the land tremble for this? – <\/B>o<\/SUP>: For the greater impressiveness, he ascribes to the insensate earth sense, indignation, horror, trembling. For all creation feels the will of its Creator. It shall rise up wholly as a flood, literally, like the river. It is the Egyptian name for river, which Israel brought with it out of Egypt, and is used either for the Nile, or for one of the artificial trenches, derived from it. And it shall be cast out and drowned, literally, shall toss to and fro as the sea, and sink as the river of Egypt. The prophet represents the land as heaving like the troubled sea. As the Nile rose, and its currents met and drove one against the other, covered and drowned the whole land like one vast sea, and then sank again, so the earth should rise, lift up itself, and heave and quake, shaking off the burden of mans oppressions, and sink again. It may be, he would describe the heaving, the rising and falling, of an earthquake. Perhaps, he means that as a man forgat all the moral laws of nature, so inanimate nature should be freed from its wonted laws, and shake out its inhabitants or overwhelm them by an earthquake, as in one grave.<\/P><\/p>\n Verse 8<\/span>. Shall not the land tremble for this<\/B><\/I>] It is supposed that an earthquake<\/I> is here intended, and that the rising up<\/I> and subsiding as a flood<\/I> refers to that heaving motion<\/I> that takes place in an earthquake, and which the prophet here compares to the overflowing<\/I> and subsiding<\/I> of the waters of the Nile<\/I>. But it may refer to commotions among the people.<\/P> <\/p>\n Shall not the land tremble?<\/B> either literally, are not such sins and judgments enough to shake the very foundations of the earth? Or, metonymically, the land for the people of it, as after in the verse, they that dwell therein. <\/P> For this; <\/B>this that you have done, O house of Israel, in sinning, and this that God will do in punishing, enough to melt the earth, as Psa 46:6<\/span>. <\/P> And every one mourn; <\/B>since every one hath sinned too much, and every one shall suffer in this approaching calamity, every one at the news may well mourn and lament; <\/P> that dwelleth therein; <\/B>in the land of Israel. <\/P> It shall rise up wholly as a flood; <\/B>or, by an interrogation, shall it not? i.e. shall not the judgment, the invading troops of Assyria, the displeasure of God, rise and grow as a mighty, wasting flood? or else thus, the whole land shall rise up; soaked in these judgments, it shall seem to swell and grow greater, ready, like a hydropic, to burst asunder: or else it is a hypallage, the land shall rise up, i.e. the flood shall rise over the land; or, which I rather incline to, the whole judgment shall rise as a flood. <\/P> It shall be cast out; <\/B>the land, the state, people, and what they have, shall be, as in a shipwreck, or mighty flood which breaks all down before it, tossed in the surges and waves; <\/P> and drowned as by the flood of Egypt; <\/B>and at last, by the continuance of this tempest, drowned all as the overflowing on Nilus doth drown all the plains of Egypt. <\/P> <\/p>\n 8. the land . . . rise up wholly asa flood<\/B>The land will, as it were, be wholly turned into aflooding river (a flood being the image of overwhelming calamity, Da9:26<\/span>). <\/P> cast out and drowned,<\/B>&c.swept away and overwhelmed, as the land adjoining the Nileis by it, when flooding (Am 9:5<\/span>).The Nile rises generally twenty feet. The waters then “cast out”mire and dirt (Isa 57:20<\/span>).<\/P><\/p>\n Shall not the land tremble for this<\/strong>,…. For this wickedness committed, in using the poor with so much inhumanity? may not an earthquake be expected? and which happened two years after Amos began to prophesy, Am 1:1<\/span>; or that the earth should gape and swallow up these men alive, guilty of such enormities? or shall not the inhabitants of the land tremble at such judgments, which the Lord hath sworn he will bring upon it?<\/p>\n and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein<\/strong>? at the hearing of them, and especially when they shall come upon them: as the calamity would be general, the mourning should be universal:<\/p>\n and it shall rise up wholly as a flood<\/strong>; that is, the calamity threatened shall rise up at once like a flood of waters, like Noah’s flood, and cover the whole land, and wash off and utterly destroy man and beast:<\/p>\n and it shall be cast out and drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt<\/strong>; or the river of Egypt, the Nile, which overflows at certain times, and casts up its waters and its mud, and drowns all the country; so that the whole country, during its continuance, looks like a sea: it overflows both its banks, both towards Lybia or Africa, and towards Arabia, and on each side about two days’ journey, as Herodotus d relates; and this it does regularly every year, in the summer solstice, in the higher and middle Egypt, where it seldom rains, and its flood is necessary; but is not so large in the lower Egypt, where it more frequently rains, and the country needs it not. Strabo e says this flood remains more than forty days, and then it decreases by little and little, as it increased; and within sixty days the fields are seen and dried up; and the sooner that is, the sooner they plough and sow, and have the better harvests. Herodotus f says it continues a hundred days, and is near the same in returning; and he says, unless it rises to sixteen, or at least fifteen cubits, it will not overflow the country g: and, according to Pliny h, the proper increase of the waters is sixteen cubits; if only they arise to twelve, it is a famine; if to thirteen, it is hunger; if to fourteen, it brings cheerfulness; if to fifteen, security; and if to sixteen, delights. But Strabo i relates, that the fertility by it is different at different times; before the times of Petronius, the greatest fertility was when the Nile arose to the fourteenth cubit; and when to the eighteenth, it was a famine: but when he was governor of that country, when it only reached the twelfth cubit, there was great fruitfulness; had when it came to the eighth (the eighteenth I suppose it should be) no famine was perceived. An Arabic writer k gives an account of the Nilometry, or measures of the Nile, from the year of Christ 622 to 1497; and he says, that, when the depth of the channel of the Nile is fourteen cubits, a harvest may be expected that will amount to one year’s provision; but, if it increases to sixteen, the corn will be sufficient for two years; less than fourteen, a scarcity; and more than eighteen makes a famine. Upon the whole, it seems that sixteen cubits have been reckoned the standard that portends plenty, for many generations, to which no addition has appeared to have been made during the space of five hundred years.<\/p>\n “This we learn (says Dr. Shaw) l, not only from the sixteen children that attend the statue of the Nile, but from Pliny also; and likewise from a medal of Hadrian in the great brass where we see the figure of the Nile, with a boy upon it, pointing to the number sixteen. Yet in the fourth century, which it will be difficult to account for, fifteen cubits only are recorded by the Emperor Julian m as the height of the Nile’s inundation; whereas, in the middle of the sixth century, in the time of Justinian, Procopius n informs us that the rise of the Nile exceeded eighteen cubits; in the seventh century, after Egypt was subdued by the Saracens, the amount was sixteen or seventeen cubits; and at present, when the river rises to sixteen cubits, the Egyptians make great rejoicings, and call out, “wafaa Allah”, that is, “God has given them all they wanted”.”<\/p>\n The river begins to swell in May, yet no public notice is taken of it till the twenty eighth or twenty ninth of June; by which time it is usually risen to the height of six or eight pikes (or cubits, , a Turkish measure of twenty six inches); and then public criers proclaim it through the capital, and other cities, and continue in the same manner till it rises to sixteen pikes; then they cut down the dam of the great canal. If the water increases to the height of twenty three or twenty four pikes, it is judged most favourable; but, if it exceed that, it does a great deal of mischief, not only by overflowing houses, and drowning cattle, but also by engendering a great number of insects, which destroy the fruits of the earth o. And a late learned traveller p tells us, that<\/p>\n “eighteen pikes is an indifferent Nile (for so high it is risen when they declare it but sixteen); twenty is middling; twenty two is a good Nile, beyond which it seldom rises; it is said, if it rises above twenty four pikes, it is looked on as an inundation, and is of bad consequence.”<\/p>\n And to such a flood the allusion is here. Thus the land of Israel should be overwhelmed and plunged into the utmost distress, and sink into utter ruin, by this judgment coming upon them; even the Assyrian army, like a flood, spreading themselves over all the land, and destroying it. So the Targum,<\/p>\n “a king shall come up against it with his army, large as the waters of a river, and shall cover it wholly, and expel the inhabitants of it, and shall plunge as the river of Egypt;”<\/p>\n see Isa 8:7<\/span>.<\/p>\n d Euterpe, sive l. 9. c. 19. e Geograph. l. 17. p. 542. f Ut supra. (Euterpe, sive l. 9. c. 19.) g Ibid. c. 13. h Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 9. i Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 17. p. 542.) k Apud Calmet. Dictionary, in the word “Nile”. l Travels, p. 384. Ed. 2. m Ecdicio, Ep. 50. n De Rebus Gothicis, l. 3. o Universal History, vol. 1. p. 413. p Pocock’s Description of the East, p. 200.<\/p>\n He confirms what the last verse contains in other words: and the question is emphatical, for it is a double affirmation. A question, we know, is usually put, when there is no measure of doubt on the subject. God then asks here as of a thing certain, how they could remain in safety, who had so perverted every thing right and just, who had violated all equity, who were influenced by no feelings of humanity, — how could such continue safe? It was impossible. We hence see why the Prophet here uses a question; it was, that he might more fully confirm what he declares. <\/p>\n Shall not the land, he says, make a tumult? (55) when these disturb all order, when they mingle, as the proverb is, heaven and earth together, can the earth remain quiet under such a violent confusion? when all reason and equity is confounded, how, he says, can the land do otherwise than make a tumult? And though the Prophet ascribes not here either clamor or speech to the land; it is yet a sort of personification, when he says that the earth must necessarily make a tumult, while it sustains such inhabitants; for between them there was no agreement. Since then their way of living was extremely turbulent, the land itself must necessarily be agitated. <\/p>\n He afterwards adds, And mourn shall every one who dwells in it He now shows that the inhabitants of the earth shall feel that commotion of which he predicts: for the earth, ceasing to fulfill its offices, constrains its inhabitants to lament and mourn. And then there is another metaphor which sets forth the moving of the earth, that it will rise as a river to destroy men with a deluge. Many render what follows, “It shall be driven away and closed up like the river of Egypt.” But after the Prophet has spoken of inundation of the earth, he turns his discourse to the men whom this inundation would drown and swallow up. Hence, the real sense is, that their habitations would be destroyed, as by a deep gulf, in a way similar to the Nile, which, by overflowing the whole country, seems to make a sea of what had been inhabited. As the Prophet’s words lead us as by the hand, I wonder how those skillful in the Hebrew language could have blended things so different, for they give this explanation, “The land shall be raised up, as a river, and then it shall be destroyed and driven away;” and they refer this to the land; and then, “it shall be sunk down:” this also they apply to the land; except that some give this rendering, “It shall discharge itself like the river of Egypt.” But I translate otherwise, “It shall heave up whole as a river, and shall be driven away, and shall be immersed as by the river of Egypt.” It shall heave up, he says, that is, the land as a river; so that there will be no habitation for men: “I have given this land to my people that they might live in it; but the land itself shall heave up as a river; there shall be an inundation of the whole land.” And then when he says, It shall be driven away and sunk, this ought not to be referred to the land itself, but to the inhabitants or to the people. (56) <\/p>\n He had said before, כאר, kar, as a river; but now he says, כיאור, kiaur, which I explain as meaning, as by the river of Egypt. The Nile, we know, overflows annually and covers the whole plain of Egypt. The Prophet therefore borrowed a similitude from the Nile; and he says, that such would be God’s vengeance, that the land would be like a river, and its dwellings would be immersed and carried away, or annihilated: for when there is no surface of land, it seems to have been cleared away. So then he says now, It shall be driven away, It shall be sunk. This is the simple explanation; and ע, oin, is to be understood; for שקע, shiko, is to sink or to cover. Here, ה, he is only put, but ע, oin, is to be understood, and there is also a double reading pointed out. (57) We now then perceive the Prophet’s meaning. But it follows — <\/p>\n (55) Shake or move is the most current meaning of the word, and the most suitable to this place. Newcome renders it, “be shaken;” Henderson, “tremble;” and Grotius, “be moved.” — Ed. <\/p>\n (56) A different view is given by Newcome and also by Henderson. Newcome translates thus, — <\/p>\n And shall not all of it rise up as the river, And be driven out of its place and sunk down as the river of Egypt? <\/p>\n Henderson renders the lines in the same sense, though in different words, — <\/p>\n Shall not all of it rise like the river? Shall it not be driven and subside Like the river of Egypt? <\/p>\n The question is unnecessarily retained, borrowed from the first line of the verse. It is seldom, if ever, that this is the case in Hebrew; it is not consistent with the simplicity of the language. It is evidently the earthquake that is here compared to the rising and subsiding of a river. I would therefore render the whole verse thus, — <\/p>\n Shall not for this the land shake, And every inhabitant in it mourn? For heave up as a river shall the whole of it, And it shall be agitated and subside like the river of Egypt. <\/p>\n Here is the heaving, the agitation, and the subsidence of the earth in an earthquake. — Ed. <\/p>\n (57) He means evidently the Keri, the marginal reading. — Ed. <\/p>\n (8) Shall not the land<\/strong> . . .?<\/strong>The rendering should be, The whole of it rises as the Nile, surges and subsides<\/em> (or sinks<\/em>) as the Egyptian Nile.<\/em> The solid land shall rise up in earthquake, like the Nile that ascends twenty feet in the time of its inundation, and then subsides.<\/p>\n 8-10<\/strong>. <\/strong> Figurative description of the impending judgment and of the resulting lamentation. <\/em> The description of the judgment is introduced by a rhetorical question, the answer to which is in the affirmative. Surely their conduct deserves the severest and most terrible retribution. <\/p>\n Shall not the land tremble <\/strong> In an earthquake. In Amo 4:11<\/span>, Amos called attention to the terrors of a former earthquake; do they not deserve another similar visitation? <\/p>\n For this <\/strong> Or, on account of this <\/em> the wickedness and corruption described. <\/p>\n Mourn <\/strong> In terror, and over the destruction wrought. 8b may be translated as continuing the rhetorical question, “shall it not rise up wholly like the River, and shall it not be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt?” Or, following the English translations, it may be understood as the reply to 8a. That which they deserve shall indeed come to pass. <\/p>\n It <\/strong> The land. <\/p>\n As a flood <\/strong> Better, R.V., “like the River.” The last word, when in the singular, is used almost exclusively of the Nile. <\/p>\n Cast out <\/strong> R.V., “shall be troubled,” by being driven hither and thither in restless convulsions (Isa 57:20<\/span>). The verb is omitted in LXX. and in the parallel passage (Amo 9:5<\/span>), and may not be original. Drowned <\/strong> Better, R.V., “sink again.” <\/p>\n As by the flood of Egypt <\/strong> Better, R.V., “like the River of Egypt” the Nile, when its waters subside after the inundation. The rise and fall of the Nile are perhaps not the most appropriate figures for an earthquake, since the latter causes sudden convulsions, while the rise and fall of the Nile are gradual.<\/p>\n Amo 8:9<\/span> <\/strong> adds a new feature to the terror of this day of Jehovah <\/em> (see on Joe 2:10<\/span>; Joe 2:30-31<\/span>). <\/p>\n Cause the sun to go down at noon <\/strong> The imagery is probably borrowed from an eclipse of the sun. Amos may have seen the eclipse of 763 B.C., which was observed as a total eclipse in Nineveh on June 15, and which must have been visible in Palestine as a “fairly large partial eclipse.” <\/p>\n Go down <\/strong> Literally, go in. <\/em> The sun appeared to go into <\/em> the earth when it set. <\/p>\n Darken the earth <\/strong> By hiding the sun. <\/p>\n Clear day <\/strong> Literally, day of light <\/em> broad daylight.<\/p>\n The Consequences Of The Judgment ( Amo 8:8-14<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> ).<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n For these people there would be a heavy price to pay because of their sins. The land would tremble and all its inhabitants mourn. For YHWH was about to bring about earth shaking events which would turn everything upside down.<\/p>\n Amo 8:8<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ‘Will not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt.’<\/p>\n The trembling of the land might have in mind the coming earthquake (Amo 1:1<\/span>), but it certainly also included the trembling of the inhabitants of the land in the face of what was coming. All concerned would be in mourning. The situation is likened to the rise and fall of the Nile in its devastating effects when it rose beyond the norm, bringing much destruction and increased unpleasant consequences. It engulfed the land, and then withdrew leaving unpleasant consequences in its wake. While the plagues of Egypt had been exceptional, many of them were amplifications of what the Nile waters regularly brought on Egypt, although to a more limited extent. This was quite apart from the benefit that it brought which was not in mind here. It may also be that Amos specifically had in mind the judgments of Exodus, and was here reminding the people of them.<\/p>\n Amo 8:9-10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “And it will come about in that day,<\/p>\n Says the Lord YHWH,<\/p>\n That I will cause the sun to go down at noon,<\/p>\n And I will darken the earth in the clear day.<\/p>\n And I will turn your feasts into mourning,<\/p>\n And all your songs into lamentation,<\/p>\n And I will bring sackcloth on all loins,<\/p>\n And baldness on every head,<\/p>\n And I will make it as the mourning for an only son,<\/p>\n And the end thereof as a bitter day.”<\/p>\n ‘In that day’ or ‘about that time’ refers to any fixed time of YHWH’s judgments. This is not specifically referring to ‘the end times’, even though the end times may follow this pattern. The catastrophic events relating to the sun could at various times arise as a result of the effects of a severe earthquake causing dust storms, or a volcano seriously erupting with its debris darkening the sky, or be the results of invasion, with the smoke of the destructive fires blotting out the sun. An eclipse of the sun, one of which occurred in 763 BC, may also have been indicated. It portrayed exceptionally severe judgment, which would result in deep mourning (compare Deu 28:29<\/span>). Thus the feasts that they had treated so lightly (Amo 8:5<\/span>) would now become feasts of mourning, their joyous songs would become lamentations, they would clothe themselves with sackcloth (compare Isa 22:12<\/span>; Joe 1:8<\/span>; Joe 1:13<\/span>; Jon 3:5<\/span>) and shave their heads (compare Job 1:20<\/span>; Deu 21:12-13<\/span>; Jer 41:5<\/span>; Jer 48:37<\/span>), all as an indication of their complete misery. Indeed the mourning would be so bitter that it would be similar in depth to that of mourning the premature death of an only son. It would be a bitter day for them all.<\/p>\n Amo 8:11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “Behold, the days come, says the Lord YHWH, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of YHWH.”<\/p>\n And the land which had been so much the land where people could hear the word of YHWH through priests, preachers and prophets, would be bereft of such priests, preachers and prophets. People would not know where to look in order to feed on the word of God (they had no copies of the Scriptures of their own. They were dependent on those who were taught in the word or received YHWH’s revelation). This too would be a consequence of the destruction of Samaria and its repopulation by foreign peoples, and of their own exile.<\/p>\n Amo 8:12<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “And they will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east. They will run to and fro to seek the word of YHWH, and will not find it.”<\/p>\n The picture is of people searching desperately for the word of God. When they had had it they had despised it. Now that they were bereft of it they sought it desperately, but usually in vain. The word of God would no longer be available in what had been God’s inheritance.<\/p>\n The reference to north and east may suggest that ‘sea to sea’ indicated west (the Great Sea) and south (the sea of Egypt or the Dead Sea). But the phrase usually indicates ‘worldwide’ (Psa 72:8<\/span>; Zec 9:10<\/span>), and north and east may have indicated places where they might have expected to find wisdom.<\/p>\n Amo 8:13<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “In that day will the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst.”<\/p>\n And those among them who were usually so full of life, the beautiful virgins and the stalwart young men, would instead be fainting for thirst and desperate to cling onto life. All joy and pleasure would have been taken from them. It would be a dreadful day indeed when hope was taken away from those who were of an age when life should have been full of hope.<\/p>\n Amo 8:14<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, O Dan, lives,’ and, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives’. They will fall, and never rise up again.”<\/p>\n And all this would in the end be because of ‘the sin of Samaria’, in other words their false basis of worship, their syncretism of Yahwism with Baalism, and their watering down of the requirements of YHWH (compare 1Ki 15:26<\/span>; 1Ki 15:34<\/span> and often in Kings). Their folly is brought out in supposed words of the worshippers. Instead of worshipping the living, eternal Creator of heaven and earth, they had worshipped what they saw as a local god limited to Dan or a watered down teaching connected with Beersheba which was idolatrous (Dan and Beersheba may be mentioned because they represented the northernmost and southernmost parts of the land outside of which YHWH was not worshipped. But even this they had defiled and despoiled). The ‘they’ may refer to the gods in question or to the worshippers. Both would fall and never rise again (interestingly in contrast to One Who did die and rise again, our Lord Jesus Christ and all who are His).<\/p>\n Amo 8:8<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>And shall rise up, <\/em><\/strong>&c.<\/strong> And destruction shall rise up like a flood; and it shall be dissolved and drowned as by the river of Egypt. <\/em>The prophet here refers to the great earthquake, whereof he spoke at the beginning of this book. <\/p>\n Amo 8:8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt.<\/p>\n Ver. 8. Shall not the land tremble for this<\/strong> ] q.d.<\/em> So great are the oppressions here exercised, that the very axle of the earth is even ready to crack under them. Amaziah, that hedge priest of Bethel, had said of our prophet, that the land was not able to bear all his words, Amo 7:10<\/span> , but Amos more truly affirmeth, that the land trembled under their many and mighty sins, and could bear them no longer; the earthquake happened about this time, Amo 1:1<\/span> , and it was a just wonder, that the earth had not opened her wide mouth, and swallowed them all up quickly into hell, as Num 16:31-32<\/span> , and as it did a great part of the city of Antioch, A. D. 527, for their horrible heresies and blasphemies there held and broached by her bishops. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And every one mourn<\/strong> ] i.e.<\/em> smart, till they mourn. National sins bring national plagues. The Hebrews hold that there is not a worse sin than oppression. St James saith, that it cries to heaven, and entereth into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth, Jas 5:4<\/span> , who will not fail to hear, for he is gracious, Exo 22:27<\/span> . <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And it shall rise up wholly as a flood<\/strong> ] i.e.<\/em> the land shall rise up, shall seem to do so, when it is floated and flooded with water; as the sluggard’s field is said to rise up or ascend with thorns, that is, to be overgrown therewith. Here then is threatened an overflowing scourge, a universal destruction covering the face of the country, as Nile doth a great part of the land of Egypt every year, leaving much mud behind it; whereof see Pliny and other authors. Mercer thinks the words would be best read by interrogation, as the former, thus, And shall it not rise up wholly as a flood? q.d.<\/em> shall it not be turned into a large lake, as once Sodom and her sisters were for like cruelties to the poor? Eze 16:46<\/span> .<\/p>\n flood. Hebrew. or. Referring to the overflowing of the Nile. <\/p>\n drowned = subside. <\/p>\n the land: It is supposed that an earthquake is here intended; the rising and falling of the ground, with a wave-like motion, and its leaving its proper place and bounds, in consequence of an earthquake, being justly and beautifully compared to the swelling, overflowing, and subsiding of the Nile. Psa 18:7, Psa 60:2, Psa 60:3, Psa 114:3-7, Isa 5:25, Isa 24:19, Isa 24:20, Jer 4:24-26, Mic 1:3-5, Nah 1:5, Nah 1:6, Hab 3:5-8, Hag 2:6, Hag 2:7 <\/p>\n every one: Amo 8:10, Amo 9:5, Jer 12:4, Hos 4:3, Hos 10:5, Mat 24:30 <\/p>\n rise: Amo 9:5, Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8, Jer 46:8, Dan 9:26 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Psa 104:32 – looketh Jer 22:5 – I Jer 25:38 – hath Jer 46:7 – as a flood Jer 51:29 – the land Dan 11:22 – with Nah 1:8 – with Zec 11:3 – a voice<\/p>\n Amo 8:8. The antecedent of this is the chastisement threatened In the preceding verse. Well might the land (Its people) tremble at thought of the wrath of God that was prophesied to come upon it. Floods and waters are used figuratively in the Bible to signify some overwhelming condition, and the particular application in this case is to the national calamity to come by the agency of the Assyrians or Babylonians. The specific reason for connecting Egypt with the figure is that the original word for flood means any large body of water, and the Nile River in Egypt is such a body.<\/p>\n Amo 8:8. Shall not the land tremble Shall not the state, or government, and all the people of the land, be terribly afraid, and greatly troubled; for this This, that you have done, O house of Israel, in sinning, and this that God will do in punishing? And every one mourn that dwelleth therein Shall not all be deeply concerned and distressed, since all have sinned and deserved punishment, and all will suffer in the approaching calamity? Certainly they shall. Observe, reader, those that will not tremble and mourn as they ought for national sins, shall be made to tremble and mourn for national judgments; those that look unconcerned upon the sins of oppressors, which should make them tremble, and upon the miseries of the oppressed, which should make them mourn, God will find out a way to make them tremble at the fury of those that oppress them, and mourn for their own losses and sufferings by it. And it shall rise up wholly as a flood The LXX. read, with a very small alteration in the Hebrew points, , Destruction shall rise up like a flood; that is, the judgment, the calamity of a hostile invasion by the Assyrians, shall be like an inundation, which in a short time overflows a whole country. And it shall be cast out and drowned The inhabitants of the land shall be cast out of their possessions, or the land itself shall be overwhelmed as by the flood, or rather, the river of Egypt, that is, as Egypt is by the inundation of the river Nile. Thus the Chaldee paraphrase: He shall make a king come up against it [the land] with a numerous army like a flood, and he shall drive out the inhabitants thereof, and [the land itself]<\/p>\n shall be drowned as when the flood of Egypt [overflows.]<\/p>\n 8:8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and {f} drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt.<\/p>\n (f) That is, the inhabitants of the land will be drowned, as the Nile drowns many when it overflows.<\/p>\n Because of the sins just described the land would quake from the Lord’s approach and the large enemy army that He would lead against Israel. Perhaps a literal earthquake did occur, but probably trembling with fear is in view (cf. 2Sa 7:10). All the inhabitants would mourn over the coming destruction. The waves of terror and destruction would be like the rising and falling of the Nile River.<\/p>\n "Since the rise and fall of the Nile usually extended over a few months, some national upheaval lasting a considerable period of time is implied by the analogy. Sometimes the flooding of the Nile was highly destructive. Amos may have been comparing the destructiveness of social injustice, civil strife, economic exploitation, and religious shallowness in Israel to the destruction caused by the inundation of the Nile. The flooding of the Nile occurred repeatedly, as did the social, civil, economic, and religious problems of society." [Note: B. Smith, p. 148.] <\/span><\/p>\n -8<\/p>\n COMMON SENSE AND THE REIGN OF LAW<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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”:-<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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?”<\/p>\n This brings us to the second point-our prophets treatment of Nature.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n We come now to the three disputed passages:-<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt. 8 9. A hyperbolical description of the terrible nature of the coming judgement. On account of such enormities, … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 8:8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"