Verse 4
The Lord God called to contend by fire - Permitted war, both civil and foreign, to harass the land, after the death of Jeroboam the second. These wars would have totally destroyed it, had not the prophet interceded.
It devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part - We are here to understand the partially destructive wars which afterwards took place; for the Lord causes all these things to pass before the eyes of Amos in the vision of prophecy; and intimates that, at the intercession of his prophets, total ruin should be prevented.
Verse 7
With a plumbline in his hand - This appears to be intended as an emblem of strict justice, and intimated that God would now visit them according to their iniquities.
Verse 8
I will set a plumbline - I will visit them by justice without any mixture of mercy.
Verse 9
And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate - Their total destruction is at hand. The high place of Isaac was Beer-sheba, where Isaac had built an altar to the Lord, [Gen 26:25]. This high place, which had been abused to idolatrous uses, was demolished by Josiah, king of Judah, as we read in [2Kgs 23:8], for he defiled all the high places from Geba to Beersheba.
I will rise against the house of Jeroboam - The Lord had promised to Jehu, the ancestor of Jeroboam, that his family should sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, was the fourth in order after Jehu; and on him the threatening in this verse fell; for he was murdered by Shallum after he had reigned six months, and in him the family became extinct. See [2Kgs 10:30]; [2Kgs 15:8-10].
Verse 10
Amaziah the priest of Beth-el - The idolatrous priest who had been established by the king to maintain the worship of the golden calves which Jeroboam the elder had set up at this place.
Amos hath conspired against thee - This was truly a lying prophet; there is not one word of truth in this message which he sent to Jeroboam. Amos had not conspired against the king - had not said that Jeroboam should die by the sword - and had not said that Israel should be carried away captive, though this last was implied in God's threatening and afterwards delivered by this prophet; see [Amo 7:17].
Verse 12
O thou seer - He pretends kindness to the prophet, and counsels him to go into Judea, and prophesy there and be safe, even in the time that he had accused him of high treason against Jeroboam. Hireling priests of this kind have ever been the great enemies of the true prophets of God; and when they could bring no charge of false doctrine or immorality against them, have accused them of conspiring against the government; and because they have preached against sin, have held them up as exciting insurrection among the people.
Verse 13
But prophesy not - at Beth-el - He must not speak against idolatry, because that was the king's religion; and he who speaks against the king's religion must be an enemy to the state. This was the doctrine held in England by popish James 2 and his insidious Jesuit hireling priests, till God in his mercy put this pitiful tyrant down, and with him his false prophets, and the degrading superstition which they endeavored to establish in these lands.
Verse 14
I was no prophet - I am an extraordinary messenger of God. I am not called to the prophetic office but for this occasion. I have no message to Judah, and therefore need not go there. I have a message to Israel alone, and I must faithfully deliver it.
For the account which Amos gives here of himself, see the introduction.
Verse 16
Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord - While he was speaking in his own vindication, God seems to have inspired him with the awful prediction which he immediately delivers.
Verse 17
Thy wife shall be a harlot - As this was the word of the Lord, so it was fulfilled; but as we have no farther account of this idolatrous priest, so we cannot tell in what circumstances these threatenings were executed.
1. His wife was to be a public prostitute; she was probably such already privately in the temple, as the wife of an idolatrous priest.
2. His sons and daughters were to fall by the sword.
3. Their inheritance was to be taken by strangers.
4. And himself was to die a captive in a heathen land.
Israel shall surety go into captivity - He now declares fully what he had not declared before, though Amaziah had made it a subject of accusation. This particular was probably revealed at this instant, as well as those which concerned Amaziah and his family.
Introduction
This chapter begins with a fourth vision denoting the certainty and nearness of the destruction of Israel, [Amo 8:1-3]. The prophet then proceeds to reprove their oppression and injustice, [Amo 8:4-7]. Strong and beautiful figures, by which is represented the complete dissolution of the Israelitish polity, [Amo 8:8-10]. The people threatened with a most awful judgment; a Famine of the word of God, [Amo 8:11-14].
Verse 1
A basket of summer fruit - As summer fruit was not proper for preserving, but must be eaten as soon as gathered, so the Lord intimates by this symbol that the kingdom of Israel was now ripe for destruction, and that punishment must descend upon it without delay. Some think the prophet means the fruits at the end of autumn. And as after the autumn no fruit could be expected, so Israel's summer is gone by, her autumn is ended, and she shall yield no more fruit. Or, the autumn of her iniquity is come, the measure is filled up, and now she shall gather the fruit of her sin in the abundance of her punishment.
Verse 2
A basket of summer fruit - כלוב קיץ kelub kayits, the end is come - בא הקץ ba hakkets: here is a paronomasia or play upon the words kayits, summer fruit, and kets, the end, both coming from similar roots. See the note on [Eze 7:2] (note), where there is a similar play on the same word.
I will not again pass by them any more - I will be no longer their Guardian.
Verse 3
The songs of the temple - Instead of שירות shiroth, songs, Houbigant reads שורות shoroth, the singing women; and Newcome follows him: "And the singing women of the palace shall howl in that day." Instead of joyous songs, they shall have nothing but lamentation.
They shall cast them forth with silence - Every place shall be filled with the dead, and a dreadful silence shall reign universally; the few that remain being afraid either to speak or complain, or even to chant a funeral dirge for the most respectable of the dead.
Verse 4
Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy - Ye that bruise the poor; exact from them, and tread them under foot.
Verse 5
When will the new moon be gone - This was kept as a kind of holy day, not by Divine command, but by custom. The Sabbath was strictly holy; and yet so covetous were they that they grudged to give to God and their own souls this seventh portion of time! But bad and execrable as they were, they neither set forth their corn, nor their wheat, nor any other kind of merchandise, on the Sabbath. They were saints then, when compared to multitudes called Christians, who keep their shops either partially or entirely open on the Lord's day, and buy and sell without any scruples of conscience. Conscience! alas! they have none; it is seared as with a hot iron. The strong man armed, in them, is quiet, for all his goods are in peace.
Making the ephah small, and the shekel great - Giving short measure, and taking full price; or, buying with a heavy weight, and selling with one that was light.
Falsifying the balances - Having one scale light, and the other weighty; one end of the beam long, and the other short. A few months ago I detected a knave with such balances; with a slip of his finger along the beam he altered the center, which made three ounces short weight in every pound. He did it so dexterously, that though I knew he was cheating, or, as the prophet expresses it, was falsifying the balances by deceit, it was some time before I could detect the fraud, and not till I had been several times cheated by this accomplished knave. So we find that though the knaves of ancient Israel are dead, they have left their successors behind them.