Amos 8:3

And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God,.... Not the songs sung by the Levites in the temple of Jerusalem, this prophecy respects the ten tribes only; but those

And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

The songs; which were composed by choicest wits, and set to sweetest tunes, and chanted out by most skilful singers to the best musical instruments. Of the temple; either to take in Judah, and foretell the desolation of their temple; or else, by an irony, the idol temples; or else of the palace, as the word in the Hebrew. All court mirth and jollity, balls and music entertainments. Shall be howlings, Heb. shall howl; be turned into the hideous out cries of undone and despairing men. In that day; when God shall execute his judgments threatened, as he did begin on the death of Jeroboam, and continued that day of vengeance till Shalmaneser finished the work in the ruin of Samaria and its captivity. Saith the Lord God: this is added to assure Israel that what Amos did foretell should be accomplished, for God spake it. There shall be many dead bodies; so there were when Shallum slew Zachariah, so there were when Menahem slew Shallum, when he came with his army against Samaria, when he ripped up the women with child in Tiphsah, , and when other usurpers pressed through blood and treason to the crown; beside the howlings when Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser cruelly wasted all. In every place; in cities, towns, and country, in palaces and temples too, in all which the bloody effects of enemies’ swords, the wastes of famine and pestilence, should be seen. They, who howl, who see this, shall cast them forth with silence; either shall secretly bury them, so some, or, to rid themselves of that trouble, shall cast them out wherever they can, with silence, that none may observe them; so great calamitous mortality, that the living suffice not to bury the dead; or so great cruelty by the enemy used against them, that they dare not bury them, or if they do, it must be undiscerned: see .

Amos 8:3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: [there shall be] many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast [them] forth with silence.Ver. 3. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings] Heb. shall howl, shall be turned into the black santis, as they call it ( cantus in planctum laetitia in lachrymas), such as I hate, Amos 5:23, and feel it grating mine ears, as an harmonia discors. There shall be many dead bodies in every place] Either through pestilence or sword. Others read it thus, In every place it shall be said, Proiece, sile, Out with them, make no words; an earnest aposiopesis q.d. Patiently acquiesce in the just judgment of so mighty a God. Or, throw these dead bodies into pits, and say nothing; lest we be sequestered as unclean by the law. It is no small misery to be under hard and heavy crosses, and yet to be forced to dissemble and suppress them; to bite in pain, and to digest grief, as horses do their choler by biting on the bridle. "I was dumb with silence," saith David, "I held my peace, even from good"; that is, from just defense; "but my sorrow was stirred thereby"; my sore was exulcerate, renewed (as the Greek there saith) and increased, Psalms 39:2. Give sorrow a vent, and it will wear away. A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed. ŒD

(3) Temple.—The word thus rendered (hêchal) also signifies “palace,” and this is probably the meaning in this passage. The “songs” have been already spoken of in Amos 6:5. The construction of the following clauses in the original is somewhat doubtful. Some commentators would break up the sentence into abrupt ejaculations. Thus Keil:—“corpses in multitude; in every place he hath cast them forth: Hush!” For “he hath cast,” some would read (with 2 Heb. MSS.) the imperative, “cast them forth.” But it would be better, and more in consonance with the style of Amos, to connect the clauses together thus: There shall be many corpses in every place that one hath cast away in hushed silence. The words describe the reign of death and doom, with none to bury or make lamentation—a full end.

Verse 3. The songs of the temple] Instead of שירות shiroth, songs, Houbigant reads שורות shoroth, the singing women; and Newcome follows him: "And the singing women of the palace shall howl in that day." Instead of joyous songs, they shall have nothing but lamentation. They shall cast them forth with silence.] Every place shall be filled with the dead, and a dreadful silence shall reign universally; the few that remain being afraid either to speak or complain, or even to chant a funeral dirge for the most respectable of the dead.

3. The nature of the ‘end’ more fully described: the songs of the temple will be turned into loud cries of woe; so many will be the slain that they will be flung out unburied and unlamented. temple] The word might equally be rendered palace; and hence some have thought the allusion to be to the sounds of revelry (Amos 6:5), which were heard in the “palaces” (Hosea 8:14) of Israel. But more probably the reference is to the songs (Amos 5:23) of the worshippers assembled (Amos 9:1) in the sanctuary of Beth-el. shall be howlings] lit. shall howl,—a mark of uncontrolled grief, as Isaiah 15:2-3; Isaiah 16:7; Micah 1:8 &c. Used of “songs,” however, the expression is a strange one; Hoffmann and Wellh. would read shârôth “singing-women” for shîrôth “songs.” many the corpses! in all places have they cast them forth: hush!] By the use of the perfect tenses the prophet represents the future vividly as already accomplished (the “prophetic perfect,” frequent in the prophets, e.g. Isaiah 9:2-3). He sees the corpses flung forth heedlessly and indiscriminately upon the ground. There is no time, or place, for honourable burial. The survivors do their work in despairing silence, stopping any one who would say a word, as before (Amos 6:10), with Hush!

The songs of the temple shall be howlings - Literally, “shall howl.” It shall be, as when mirthful music is suddenly broken in upon, and, through the sudden agony of the singer, ends in a shriek or yell of misery.

THE BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT, Amos 8:1-3.Under the figure of a basket filled with ripe fruit Jehovah shows the prophet that Israel is ripe for judgment.