Amos 4:3

And ye shall go out at the breaches,.... Not at the gates of the city, as they had used to do at pleasure; but at the breaches of the walls of it, made by the enemy, in order to make their escape, if

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD. And ye shall go out at the breaches - namely, of the city walls broken through by the enemy.

And ye, kine of Bashan, oppressors distressed by the just hand of God, and by the violent hand of your enemy, shall go out, endeavour to make your escape by flight, at the breaches, which the besieging enemy made in your walls, when Samaria is besieged. Every cow at that which is before her: it shall be a universal flight, and with great consternation, they not able to forecast where the safest, but taking which way is readiest. Ye shall cast them into the palace; either cast away all the riches and ornaments of your palaces, or the prey and bribes you had laid up there, or ye shall abandon the palaces ye dwelt in.

Amos 4:3 And ye shall go out at the breaches, every [cow at that which is] before her; and ye shall cast [them] into the palace, saith the LORD.Ver. 3. And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow] Qua data porta ruitis, ye shall be glad to get out at any breach to save your lives, which now hang in suspense, Deuteronomy 28:66, yea, to ride one upon the back of another for haste, as kine do, in a narrow strait. Or, ye shall be led into captivity, after the taking and dismantling of your cities; see Ezekiel 12:5; Ezekiel 12:12. And ye shall cast them into the palace] Or, ye shall cast away the things of the palace. Ye shall cast them, that is, your children and nephews, into the palace; either that ye may not see their destruction, as Genesis 21:16, or that they might with greater celerity provide for their own safety. That was a singular example of the Vindelici (now called Suevians) subdued by Drusius, the Roman general, under Augustus, but not without great resistance; the women throwing their young children at the Romans instead of darts. These were monstrous mothers, mad cows indeed.

(3) Every cow . . .—Render each one (ref. to the women, Amos 4:1) straight before her. The enemy shall have broken down the city’s defences, and the women shall tamely go forth through the breaches into captivity. The next clause is very obscure. It is best to take the verb as passive, Ye shall be thrown out. The word that follows is rendered “the palace” by the E.V. with Kimchi and other authorities, under the assumption that the Heb. harmôn is another form of the word elsewhere used in Amos armôn. But this is mere guess-work, and yields no good sense. It would be better to adopt a slight emendation of our text, and treat the obscure word as a proper name (LXX., Targ., Syr., Vulg.). Many commentators (Michaelis, G. Baur, De Wette) follow the Targ. and Syr. and render “Ye shall be cast out to the mountains of Armenia” (their place of banishment). For further information see Excursus. A (Amos 4:3). The rendering of the LXX., “to the mountain Remman (or Romman),” has suggested to Ewald the interpretation, And shall cast Rimmona to the mountain, i.e., in their flight (comp. Isaiah 2:18-21), Rimmona being the idol-goddess of love, corresponding to the masculine deity Rimmon (2 Kings 5:18). In this ingenious, though somewhat far-fetched, interpretation of a difficult passage, it will be observed that Ewald takes the Hebrew verb as an active, and not a passive. In this he is supported by most MSS. But the credit of suggesting the most plausible explanation belongs to Hitzig, who, in his commentary, proposes to read Hadad-Rimmon, and translates, Ye shall be cast away to Hadad-Rimmon. On Zechariah 12:11, there is a long note by Steiner supporting the supposition that Hadad-Rimmon was a modified designation of the sun-god, and was likewise the counterpart of the Greek Adonis, over whose wounding and death there was an annual lamentation, in which the women took part, and gave way to all kinds of excess. Hadad-Rimmon was, therefore, the name of the deity and the locality of his worship (comp. Ashtaroth Karnaim and other examples), now called Rummâne, four miles south of Ledshûn (Megiddo). To this spot the women were to be carried off for purposes of prostitution. (Comp. the threat pronounced by the prophet, Amos 7:17.)

Verse 3. And ye shall go out at the breaches] Probably the metaphor is here kept up. They shall be caught by the hooks, or by the nets; and though they may make breaches in the latter by their flouncing when caught, they shall be taken out at these very breaches; and cast, not in the palace, but into a reservoir, to be kept awhile, and afterwards be taken out to be destroyed. Samaria itself is the net; your adversaries shall besiege it, and make breaches in its walls. At those breaches ye shall endeavour to make your escape, but ye shall be caught and led into captivity, where most of you shall be destroyed. See Houbigant on this passage.

3. shall go out at the breaches] Amos pictures Samaria as captured, and the self-indulgent ladies forced to leave the city, as captives, through the breaches made in the walls by the foe. every cow at that which is before her] every one straight before her, forced to go on in the train of captives, unable to turn aside or go back to save anything which she has left behind her,—perhaps (if the fig. of Amos 4:1 be still in the prophet’s mind) “as a herd of cows go one after another through a gap in a fence.” For the Hebrew idiom employed, see Joshua 6:5; Joshua 6:20. and ye shall cast them into the palace] The words are very obscure; and indeed, in all probability, corrupt. The slightest change would be to read, with the alteration of a vowel-point in the verb (supported by Sept. Pesh. Vulg.), And ye shall be cast into Harmon: Harmon would then be the name of the place of exile, or disgrace, into which they were to be ‘cast’ or ‘flung’: the word is used mostly of a corpse, as Jeremiah 22:19, but not always so (see Jeremiah 22:28, ‘cast into’). No place, however, named Harmon is known; nor is the word an appellative in Hebrew. Some of the ancients saw in ‘Harmonah’ an allusion to Armenia: thus the Targ. renders, ‘And they shall carry you into exile beyond the mountains of Harmini’; Pesh. ‘And they shall be cast to the mountain of Armenia’; Symm. ‘into Armenia’; cf. Jerome (in his note), “Et projiciemini in locis Armeniae, quae vocantur Armona.’ In this case we should read, for δδψξπδ, δψξπι: in Jeremiah 51:27 Minni (Targ. Harmini, as here; Pesh. Armenia) is the name of a people on the S.E. of Ararat, the Mannai of the Assyrian Inscriptions (Schrader, K.A.T[150][151], pp. 423 f.); this would yield a sense in harmony with Jeremiah 51:27 (“beyond Damascus”). It is however doubtful whether it is the original reading; very possibly the corruption lies deeper, and the original reading is irrecoverable. [150] .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. [151] … 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.

Ye shall go out through the breaches - Samaria, the place of their ease and confidence, being broken through, they should go forth one by one, “each straight before her,” looking neither to the right