Amos 2:3

And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof,.... Either from the midst of Moab, the country in general; or from Kerioth in particular, so Kimchi; meaning their principal governor, their king,

And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.

I will cut off, by the sword of the enemy, the judge; the governor, i. e. every one of them; the singular being put for the plural, to intimate the destruction of all of them. From the midst thereof; either of Kirioth the metropolis, or of every city in which were judges appointed to govern and minister justice to the people; and these should be cut off in these cities, and in the midst of their government. The princes; either by birth, or by office, or by excellent endowments, the chief among the Moabitish people. With him; with the supreme governor, before threatened. Saith the Lord; noting to us the certainty of the thing, the irrevocable sentence passed upon Moab, its king, princes, and judges, who being cut off, the people must needs perish, and come to nothing.

Amos 2:3 And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.Ver. 3. And I will cut off the judge] i.e. the king, who sometimes sits himself in judgment, as King Henry VIII did here, at the condemnation of Lambert, martyr; as the king of Persia doth often to this day. I have seen him (saith a traveller) many times to alight from his horse, only to do justice to a poor body. The Grand Seignior himself sits one day in the week to receive the poor’ s petitions, and punish the faulty grandees about him. For as he styles himself, Awlem Penawh, that is, the world’ s refuge; so he would have the world to take notice, that such as lament unto him shall be sure to have redress and succour from him, although his ministers fail them, or abuse them, through their injustice; hence few viziers die in their beds. From the midst thereof] i.e. of Kerioth, the chief city where the court was kept, as Kimchi saith, with a great deal of pomp and pride. We have heard of the pride of Moab. See Jeremiah 48:7; Jeremiah 48:11; Jeremiah 48:14; Jeremiah 48:18 Zephaniah 2:8; Zephaniah 2:10. It was their national sin, and forerunner of their fall.

Verse 3. I will cut off the judge] It shall be so destroyed, that it shall never more have any form of government. The judge here, שופטים shophet, may signify the chief magistrate. The chief magistrates of the Carthaginians were called suffetes; probably taken from the Hebrew JUDGES, shophetim.

3. the judge] Why is the judge mentioned rather than, as would naturally be expected, the king? One answer is that Moab was at this time subject to Jeroboam II., and hence there was no ‘king’ of Moab, but only an Israelitish deputy or governor. The terms of 2 Kings 14:25 (which describes how Jeroboam II. recovered the old territory of Israel, as far as the Dead Sea) do not, however, prove that Moab was included in Jeroboam’s conquests: and Mesha, at the time when Moab was dependent upon Israel, is still spoken of as ‘king’ (2 Kings 3:4). More probably judge, as in Micah 5:1, is a designation of the king,—derived from the fact that the administration of justice among his subjects was one of the primary duties of an Oriental monarch (2 Samuel 8:15; 2 Samuel 15:2; 1 Kings 7:7; Jeremiah 21:12, &c.). Both Ammon and Moab are frequently mentioned in the Inscriptions that have been already referred to as paying tribute to the Assyrians,—Sanib of Ammon, and Salman of Moab, for instance, to Tiglath-pileser; Puduil of Ammon, and Kamoshnadab of Moab, to Sennacherib; and Mussuri, king of Moab, to Esarhaddon (K.A.T[143][144], pp. 258, 291, 356). Isaiah, in a striking prophecy, foretells invasion and disaster for Moab (Isaiah 15-16): Jeremiah, a century later, does the same, in a prophecy containing many reminiscences of the oracle of his great predecessor (ch. 48): he also prophesies against Ammon (Jeremiah 49:1-6). Ezekiel uttered prophecies against both nations (Ezekiel 25:1-11; cf. Ezekiel 21:28-32), charging them in particular with malicious exultation over Judah’s fall, and predicting their ruin. See also Zephaniah 2:8-10; and Isaiah 25:10 f. (post-exilic). [143] .A.T. … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation. [144] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

And I will cut off the judge - The title “judge” (shophet) is nowhere used absolutely of a king.

1-3. The sin and punishment of Moab. Moab — The third nation east of the Jordan closely related to the Hebrews (Amos 1:11; Amos 1:13). The territory of the Moabites was to the south of Ammon, on the uplands east of the Dead Sea.