Amos 1:5

I will break also the bar of Damascus,.... Or bars, the singular for the plural, by which the gates of the city were barred; and, being broken, the gates would be easily opened, and way made for the

I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.

I, the mighty God, as , will break, weaken and shake into pieces, the bar; literally, the bar with which the city gates were shut, and both fastened and strengthened, . Metaphorically it contains all the munitions, fortresses, and strength of a place or people: so here. Damascus: see . It is put here, as before, for the whole kingdom, of which it was the metropolis. Cut off, by the judgments of war, pestilence, famine, or diseases, all commissioned to do this. The inhabitant, for inhabitants, the singular used for the plural; and may possibly denote the universal excision and destruction of the Syrians, who shall perish as one man: see the like use of the singular number, . The plain of Aven: it is possible this may refer to, some peculiar manner which the Syrians observed in their choosing the valley or champaign for the place of worship to their idols; Israel chose high places, the Syrians chose valleys it is likely, and therefore though beaten in the hills, where they thought the gods which Israel worshipped were strongest, yet are confident that in the valleys, where Syrians worshipped their gods, the Syrians would find their gods the stronger, for this reason the valley or plain hath its name the plain of liven, of iniquity and vanity, because in it they worshipped vain gods, and their religion was highest idolatry; or it may be that Bikath-aven was the name of some city of Syria well known then, but whose memory is perished with it a great while ago. Him that holdeth the sceptre; a description of the king of Syria. whose royal dignity shall be no security to him. The house of Eden; some royal seat, where the kings of Syria did think good to build them a house or palace, for pleasure and delights, and therefore gave it this name, Beth-eden, or the house of pleasure; all their pleasant seats, the king’ s summer-houses, shall be laid waste. The people of Syria; the main body of the subjects and people of Syria; this explains Damascus, , and in this verse. Kir; Cyrene of Egypt, say some, but without any probability in this place: there was also Kir of Moab, ; but this was not the Kir in the text: this was Kir of Media, , now under the Assyrian yoke; and thither did Tiglath-pileser carry the conquered Syrians, , and placed them captives in that barren, mountainous country about fifty years after it was foretold by Amos. Saith the Lord: this gives us an assurance that all here threatened should at last be executed.

Amos 1:5 I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.Ver. 5. I will break also the bar of Damascus] i.e. their power and might, all strength defensive, or offensive, and so make way for the enemy into the city; give him a fair entrance without resistance. It is God that orders the battle, and renders men’ s attempts vain or prosperous, Isaiah 54:17 Jeremiah 50:9; whereever the sword comes it is "bathed in heaven," Isaiah 34:5. And cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven] Campus idoli, the plain or valley of idols (so Mercer rendereth it), that is, of Syria given to idolatry; or Damascus, a very Poneropolis, and therefore ripe for ruin. And him that holdeth the sceptre] & plain periphrasis of a king (called often by Homer, σκηπρουχος, sceptre bearer), or of him that was to succeed in the kingdom. The French call him Dauphin; the Spaniards, Infant, &c. Our Henry II crowned his eldest son Henry while he was yet alive, and put the sceptre into his hand; which made his ambition quite turn off his obedience. From the house of Eden] Or of pleasure, the king’ s palace, a very paradise. God denieth not great men their lawful pleasures for refreshment, amidst their weighty businesses, &c., but yet they must remember St James’ s charge, James 5:5, against the grandees of his time: "Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter," or of good cheer. And that of Abraham to Dives, "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things," &c., Luke 16:25, which text Gregory the Great could never read but his heart ached with fear, lest it should be his own case. It is well observed that (φιληδονοι) lovers of pleasure are set as last and worst of those wicked ones, 2 Timothy 3:4. Solomon is blamed for spending thirteen years in building his house, and planting those paradises about it, Ecclesiastes 2:5. And the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir] A place of Media, called by other authors Cyrrha, or (as others think) Cyrene, in Egypt or Africa. This was fulfilled fifty years after by Tiglathpileser. Saith the Lord] Who spake the word and it was done, Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5. And what wonder, when his fiat only made the world, and he can as easily unmake it if he please.

(5) I will break . . .—The “bar” means the bolt of iron or brass with which the city was defended. But it is possible that it may be used of persons, i.e., princes or leaders (comp. Hosea 4:18; Hosea 11:6); and this seems confirmed by the parallelism. The plain or valley cleft between Libanus and Antilibanus is still called by the Arabs by a name closely resembling the rendering in the margin, “the valley.” It is probable that the word rendered “vanity,” (aven) is simply a Masoretic reading, and not what Amos intended. It is better to follow the LXX. and read the word On (as in Ezekiel 30:17), the reference being to the Temple of Baalbec, then in ruins, the Syrian Heliopolis. (Comp. Hosea 4:15.)[16] The site of Beth-eden (house of Eden) cannot be satisfactorily determined. Kir is the region of the river Cyrus, or, perhaps, the E. of the Upper Euphrates (see Amos 9:7). (2 Kings 16:9, we see fulfilment of this doom.) [16] On the other hand the Masoretic reading seems to have been suggested (if not confirmed) by Amos 5:5, where LXX. read aven.

Verse 5. The bar of Damascus] The gates, whose long traverse bars, running from wall to wall, were their strength. I will throw it open; and the gates were forced, and the city taken, as above. The plain of Aven - the house of Eden] These are names, says Bochart, of the valley of Damascus. The plain of Aven, or Birkath-Aven, Calmet says, is a city of Syria, at present called Baal-Bek, and by the Greeks Heliopolis; and is situated at the end of that long valley which extends from south to north, between Libanus and Anti-Libanus. The people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir] KIR is supposed to be the country of Cyrene in Albania, on the river Cyrus, which empties itself into the Caspian Sea. The fulfilment of this prophecy may be seen in 2Kg 16:1-9.

5. And I will break the bar of Damascus] Damascus will be powerless to resist the besieger. The allusion is to the ‘bars’ of bronze or iron by which the gates of every fortified city were secured (see Deuteronomy 3:5; 1 Kings 4:13), and which, when a city is captured, are spoken of as ‘broken’ (Lamentations 2:9; Jeremiah 51:30), or ‘hewn’ asunder (Isaiah 45:2). and cut off the inhabitant] better, perhaps (note the parallel clause, him that holdeth the sceptre), as R.V. marg. him that sitteth (enthroned): yβshab (‘to sit’) has sometimes this force, even when standing alone; see Isaiah 10:13 R.V.; Psalms 2:4; Psalms 22:3 (R.V. marg.). from the plain] Biḳ ?‘βh (from bβḳ ?a‘, to cleave) is a broad ‘cleft,’ or level (Isaiah 40:4) plain, between mountains: it is applied, for instance, to the plain of Jericho, Deuteronomy 34:3, of Megiddo, Zechariah 12:11, 2 Chronicles 35:22, of Lebanon, Joshua 11:17, i.e. Coele-Syria, the flat and broad plain between the two ranges of Lebanon and Hermon, which is still called (in Arabic) el-Beḳ ?β‘a, and is probably the plain meant here. of Aven] or of idolatry. The reference is uncertain. The common supposition is that Amos alludes to the worship of the Sun, carried on at a spot in the plain of Coele-Syria, called by the ancients Heliopolis, and now known as Baalbeḳ ?,—some sixty miles N.N.E of Dan,—where are still, in a partly ruined state, the massive walls and richly decorated pillars and architraves, of two magnificent temples. These temples, dedicated respectively to Jupiter and the Sun, are not of earlier date than the 2nd cent. a.d.,—the temple of Jupiter having been erected as a wonder of the world, by Antoninus Pius (a.d. 133–161); but the massive substructures are considered to date from a much earlier period, and to bear witness to the fact that a temple of the Sun had stood there from a distant past. According to Macrobius (Sat. 1:23) and Lucian (de Dea Syria § 5—both quoted by Robinson, Bibl. Researches, iii. 518) the worship of the Sun as carried on at Heliopolis in Syria was derived from Heliopolis in Egypt; and upon assumption of the correctness of this statement, it has been supposed that, with the worship of the Sun, the Egyptian name of Heliopolis, Aϋnϋ (Heb. On, Genesis 41:45; Genesis 41:50; Genesis 46:20) may have been brought from Egypt; and further that, as the Egyptian On (ΰεο) is punctuated in Ezekiel 30:17—by way of contempt—ΰָ ?εֶ ?ο Aven (i.e. idolatry), so here the Syrian On may have been called, whether by Amos himself, or by the later scribes, Aven. These suppositions are however, mere conjectures. The statements of Macrobius and Lucian may be nothing more than inferences from the fact of two celebrated temples being dedicated to a similar cult; and there is no independent evidence that On was a name of the Syrian Heliopolis. (The LXX. rendering here τὸπεδίονὮν is not proof of it: for they represent On in Gen. and Ezek.

I will also break the bar of Damascus - In the East, every city was fortified; the gates of the stronger cities were cased in iron, that they might not be set on fire by the enemy; they were fastened

3-5. The sin and punishment of Damascus. Thus saith Jehovah — A solemn formula repeated before each denunciation (Amos 1:6; Amos 1:9; Amos 1:11; Amos 1:13; Amos 2:1; Amos 2:4; Amos 2:6).