Amos 5:27

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,.... The chief city of Syria; and which, as Aben Ezra says, lay to the east of the land of Israel, and was a very strong and fortified

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus.

Therefore, for all your idolatry and other sins in which you have obstinately continued, will I cause you to go into captivity; you shall certainly be subdued and captivated; and this shall be done so that my hand shall appear evidently in it. Beyond Damascus, into Assyria, and into parts beyond Damascus: it is not certain into what corners of the world they were sent, but probably to those parts that lay about the Caspian Sea, more remote from their own country than ever to hope they may get back again. Or thus, You shall be carried into a captivity more grievous by Shalmaneser, than was the captivity of those whom Tiglathpileser led captive when he slew Resin, took Damascus, and wasted Israel in the days of Pekah, when some Israelites were carried captives; but this shall be a more grievous captivity.

Amos 5:27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name [is] The God of hosts.Ver. 27. Therefore will cause you] Idolatry is a land desolating sin. Beyond Damascus] And not only so, but also beyond Babylon, Acts 7:43, by the way of Damascus, by Tiglathpileser, sent for by Ahaz for that purpose, Isaiah 8:4 2 Kings 15:29.

Verse 27. Will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus] That is, into Assyria, the way to which, from Judea, was by Damascus. But St. Stephen says, Acts 7:43, beyond Babylon; because the Holy Spirit that was in him chose to extend the meaning of the original text to that great and final captivity of the Jews in general, when Zedekiah, their last king, and the people of Judea, were carried into Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Media; see 2Kg 17:7; 2Kg 17:24. This captivity happened after the time of Amos.

26–27. But ye shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwβn your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves; and I will cause you to go into exile beyond Damascus, saith Jehovah] You and your idols (cf. Jeremiah 43:7 b, Jeremiah 49:3 b; Isaiah 46:1-2) will go into exile together: this will be the end of your self-chosen course[159]. But though the general sense of the verse is clear, some of the details are obscure. Sakkuth (probably read as sukkath) was taken by the ancients as an appellative, LXX. σκηνή, Vulg. tabernaculum, hence A.V. tabernacle, i.e., here, the shrine of an image: but more probably R.V. Siccuth—or better, disregarding the Massoretic punctuation[160], Sakkuth—is correct, Sakkuth being a name of Adar, the Assyrian god of war and the chase (also of the sun, light, fire, &c.), and said to mean “chief of decision,” i.e. “chief arbiter” (viz. in warfare): see Schrader, K.A.T[161][162] p. 443, Tiele, Bab.-Ass. Gesch. p. 528 f.; Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 7, 151–154. Chiun (R.V.) should in all probability be pointed Kκwβn or Kaiwβn; it will then be identical with the Assyrian name of the planet Saturn, Ka-ai-va-nu (whence also Kκwβn and Kaiwβn, the Syriac, Persian, and Arabic names of the same planet[163]): so the Pesh., Ibn Ezra, Schrader, and many other moderns. The middle part of the verse does not, however, seem to be altogether in order; images (in the plural), for instance, being strange as applied to Kaiwβn alone; and perhaps we should either (with Schrader) transpose two groups of words, and read “Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwβn your star-god, the images which ye made” &c., or (with Wellhausen) omit φμξιλν, “your images,” and λελα, “the star of” (or “star”), as glosses on ΰμδιλν, “your god” and λιεο, “Kaiwβn,” respectively. The reference must be to star-worship introduced into Israel from Assyria: cf., somewhat later, in Judah, Deuteronomy 4:19; Deuteronomy 17:3, 2 Kings 23:12 &c.[164] The context appears to shew, as W. R. Smith remarks (Proph. p. 140), that the cult alluded to was not a rival service to that of Jehovah, but was attached in some subordinate way to the offices of His sanctuary. [159] The rendering of A.V., R.V., have borne, is possible grammatically, but not probable: the reason which decisively excludes it is that a reference to idolatries practised in the wilderness is entirely alien to the line of the prophet’s thought. (In the Heb., there is no therefore in Amos 5:27.) [160] Which may be intended to suggest the word shiḳ ?ḳ ?utz, “detestable thing,” often applied to idols (Deuteronomy 29:17, etc.). [161] .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. [162] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888).

Therefore - (And) this being so, such having been their way from the beginning until now, will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus Syria was the most powerful enemy by whom God had

26, 27. The sentence. The translation of Amo 5:26 and its relation to the context are matters of much dispute. Does it refer to the past, the present, or the future?