Amos 8:12

And they shall wander from sea to sea,.... From the sea of Tiberias, or Galilee; or from the Dead sea, the lake Asphaltites; or from the Red sea, which was to the south of the land of Israel, to the

And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

They shall wander from sea to sea; search all places for a prophet or a preacher from the Syrian or Midland Sea to that of Tiberias, to the Dead Sea, and to the Red Sea. From the north even to the east; that mountainous tract whither persecuted Elijah fled, and perhaps other prophets in like circumstances retired; proverbially, they shall search all corners for a prophet. They shall run to and fro; shall diligently and speedily, on every report that a prophet is, on hearsays, in such or such a place, hasten thither, as Ahab in his search for Elijah, . To seek the word of the Lord; hoping to hear some good news of an end of their miseries from God by a prophet. And shall not find it; they persecuted and slew such as foretold the beginning of this misery, and now it is come they shall neither hear the news nor see the hopes of an end. God did tell them it would be utter ruin, and no prophet of God can tell them any better news.

Amos 8:12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find [it].Ver. 12. And they shall wander from sea to sea] Trouble themselves to no purpose, take pains (as Esau did for venison, but lost his labour), run to all coasts and quarters to seek the word of the Lord. And shall not find it] And why? they despised it when it was in their power; they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, with those lawyers, Luke 7:30. He would have gathered them, but they would not be gathered; he would have purged them, but they would not be purged, Ezekiel 24:13-14, they are therefore miserable by their own election; as Saul was, who slighted Samuel while he was alive, and would have been fully glad of his counsel when he was dead. He that would not once worship God in Samuel worships at length Samuel in Satan; and no marvel. Satan was now become his refuge, and preacheth his funeral; his Urim now was darkness, his prophet a ghost: O woeful condition! But what should a parent do when the child loathes and spills his victuals? snatch it from him, and lay it out of his reach. Samaria felt this more severe famine, when carried captive especially; so did Jerusalem, after Malachi, whose prophecy the Jews fitly call Chathimath Chazon, the sealing up of vision. Bath Chol, or the echo from heaven, they had now and then after this time, Matthew 3:17 John 12:28; they had also the writings of Moses and the prophets interpreted after a sort by the Scribes and Pharisees, whom (while they sat close in Moses’ chair, and kept it warm) men were bound to hear, Matthew 23:2-3, which because Dives did not, he suffered hunger and thirst in hell for ever, Luke 16:24. And had he been granted the liberty of hearing again upon earth but one more sermon, how far would not he gladly have gone for it! and how, as for life, would he have listened to it! But this could not possibly be, for out of hell there is no redemption, Psalms 49:8-9, and when the night of death once comes men can work no more. Night is a time not of doing work, but of receiving wages; up therefore and be doing, while it is yet day, John 12:35-36. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found," Isaiah 55:6, seek him seasonably, seek him seriously: "Then shall ye seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart," Jeremiah 29:13. That was a dismal doom that our Saviour passed upon those stiffnecked Jews and uncircumcised in hearts and ears (as St Stephen rightly styles them, Acts 7:51), that were as good at resisting the Holy Ghost as ever their fathers had been before them.

(12) They shall wander from sea to sea . . .—Stagger and reel from east to west to find one seer who knows the mind of the Lord: they shall not find one. The reference to the east here has an instructive parallel in Isaiah 2:6, where the house of Jacob is enounced as being “full of the east.” Probably Delitzsch is right in interpreting the east there to mean Arabia as inclusive of the whole tract from the Sinaitic peninsula to the banks of the Euphrates. The north would mean Phœnicia and Aram. From these districts the distracted superstitious Hebrew sought vain help in idolatrous forms of divination.

Verse 12. They shall wander front sea to sea] From the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea or from west to east, and from north to south, to seek the word of the Lord; to find a prophet, or any person authorized by God to show them the end of their calamities. In this state they shall continue, because they have rejected Him who is the bread of life.

12. wander] go tottering (comp. on Amos 4:8), with allusion to the uncertain gait of persons partly (Amos 8:13) exhausted, and partly bewildered, not knowing where to find what they are in search of (cf. Lamentations 4:15). from sea to sea] i.e. from the Dead Sea, the S. limit of the kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 14:25), to the Mediterranean, its western boundary. and from the north even to the sun-rising] returning thus to the point from which they started, and so completing the circuit of the land. to seek the word of Jehovah] The expression may be illustrated from 1 Kings 22:5 (Jehoshaphat) “Inquire, I pray thee, first of the word of Jehovah,” Amos 8:7 “Is there not here besides a prophet of Jehovah that we might inquire of him?” (similarly 2 Kings 3:11); from the phrase “the word of Jehovah is with” such and such a prophet, 2 Kings 3:12, Jeremiah 27:18; and from the question put by Zedekiah in his anxiety to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 37:17) “Is there a word from Jehovah?” and shall not find it] Cf. 1 Samuel 28:6 (of Saul); Ezekiel 7:26.

They shall wander - Literally, “reel.” The word is used of the reeling of drunkards, of the swaying to and fro of trees in the wind, of the quivering of the lips of one agitated, and then of the

11-14. Some effects of the judgment. In the agony and despair of the judgment people will hunger and thirst for the word of Jehovah, but they will not find it.