Amos 7:5

Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee,.... From destroying the land; suffer not this calamity to proceed any further; using the same argument as before: by whom shall Jacob arise?

Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. No JFB commentary on these verses.

Amos 7:5 Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he [is] small.Ver. 5. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee] See Amos 7:2; and persevering in prayer for the public remember to plead, not merit, but misery, Psalms 79:8-9, and with all humility to acknowledge that "it is of the Lord’ s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not," Lamentations 3:22.

(5, 6) Instead of “forgive,” the prophet now only ventures to say “cease,” a cry for arrest of judgment. Yet the same plea for pity is urged as before. Jeroboam II. and his house are spared for awhile. But another awful vision comes to the prophet.

4–6. The second vision. The devouring fire. called to contend by fire] Jehovah arraigns His people: and fire is the agent which he summons against them (cf. to dispute, or litigate, with fire, Isaiah 66:16). For the idea of Jehovah’s contending (in a forensic sense) with His people, comp. Isaiah 3:13; Jeremiah 2:9; Hosea 4:1; Micah 6:2 (where the corresponding substantive is rendered controversy); and for calleth, comp. on Amos 7:8. and it devoured the great deep, and would have devoured the portion] The imagery is suggested, no doubt, by the conflagrations which, in the East, break out in field and forest during the dry season (Joe 1:19-20), and spread with alarming rapidity (comp. Psalms 83:14, Isaiah 9:18; and see Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 291–293). So fierce was the flame thus kindled that it even dried up the ‘great deep’ (Genesis 7:11), the subterranean waters upon which the Hebrews imagined the earth to rest (Genesis 1:7; Exodus 20:4; Psalms 24:2), and whence they supposed all its springs and fountains to have their supply; when these were exhausted, “it seemed as if the solid framework of the land, described with very apt pathos as the Portion (i.e. the portion [Micah 2:3, &c.] assigned by God to His people), would be the next to disappear” (G. A. Smith, p. 111). The judgement is thus a more severe one than that of the locusts.

As our Lord repeated the same words in the Garden, so Amos interceded with God with words, all but one, the same, and with the same plea, that, if God did not help, Israel was indeed helpless. Yet a second time God spared Israel.

4-6. The devouring fire — A second vision, presenting essentially the same truth as the first. Called to contend by fire — Called the fire to contend with it.