Amos 8:7

The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob,.... Not by the ark, as R.

The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

The Lord; who changeth not, whose words and purposes are immutably true and stedfast, who hath often told you, that unless you repent he will punish for your sins, now he hath sworn it, and sends you word by me, that he hath in most solemn and irrevocable manner determined, published, and expressly declared that he will visit all your sins upon you. By the excellency of Jacob; by himself, for God cannot swear by any greater, and he is called the excellency of Jacob, . Surely, Heb. If; if I am a God, I will remember and punish. I will never forget, or let pass unpunished; I will never remit the punishment by an act of pardon, nor ever omit to punish by an act of forgetfulness. Any of their works; not one of all those their abominable injustices and irreligion, not one of these cruelties.

Amos 8:7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.Ver. 7. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob] i.e. by himself, the matter of Jacob’ s chief boasting, there being no God like unto their God (their enemies themselves being judges, Deuteronomy 32:31), neither any nation so great as to have God so nigh unto them as Israel had, in all things that they called upon him for, Deuteronomy 4:7. So that this oath of God grates upon their ingratitude for such imparallel privileges, and it is uttered in great wrath, as appeareth by the following angry aposiopesis, wherein the apodosis is not set down but understood. lf I ever forget any of their works] Forget to punish them. These oaths, cum reticentia, are very dreadful. Take heed lest by stubbornness we provoke God to swear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest, Psalms 95:11. Take heed lest a promise of entering being left us, and a proffer made us, we should seem to come short of it, to come lag or late, Hebrews 4:1, υστερηκεναι, a day after the fair, an hour after the feast. God is now more quick and peremptory than ever in rejecting men that neglect so great salvation, Hebrews 2:3; the time is shorter, he will not wait so long as he was wont to do. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark 16:16. Surely God "will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will he make in the earth," Romans 9:28. "The time is short," saith the apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:29, a metaphor, say some, from a piece of cloth rolled up (συνεσταλμενος), only a little left at the end. "Let us therefore fear" (as the same apostle inferreth upon the consideration of God’ s oath, Hebrews 3:18; Hebrews 4:1, and let our fear not weaken but waken our diligence in well doing, lest he swear and repent not, lest he come to a resolution and decree (God’ s oath is nothing else but his inviolable and invariable decree) to cast us off as he did Saul, for his wilful disobedience, 1 Samuel 15:20-23. Saul lived long after his utter rejection, and men could see no alteration in his outward condition; but God had sworn, as here, never to forget any of his works. Now, saith Samuel to him (and it is fearful), the eternity of Israel (the excellency of Jacob) "will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent," 1 Samuel 15:29. Do not think this a case that seldom comes; it is done every day upon some or other, saith a great Divine; but woe be to that man upon whom it is done! it had been much better for him that he had not been born, Matthew 26:24.

(7) Excellency of Jacob.—In the previous use of this remarkable expression (Amos 6:8) Jehovah is said to abhor it, but here He swears by it. The “excellency” which He abhorred was the miserable substitute which they had made for His great Name. Here He gives it the value which, in itself, it ought to possess.

Verse 7. By the excellency of Jacob] By the state of eminence to which he had raised the descendants of Jacob; or, by the excellent ONE of Jacob, that is, HIMSELF. The meaning is: "As surely as I have raised you to such a state of eminence, so surely will I punish you in proportion to your advantages and your crimes."

7. Such heartless dishonesty arouses Jehovah’s indignation; and He swears by the pride of Jacob, that He will never forget any of their works, but bring them, namely, into account. The pride of Jacob may be Jehovah Himself (cf. 1 Samuel 15:29 “the splendour of Israel,” of Jehovah; and for the oath by Himself, Amos 6:8); or, as the expression is not elsewhere used of Jehovah, but denotes Israel’s vain-glorious self-confidence (Amos 6:8; cf. Hosea 5:5; Hosea 7:10), it may have that sense here: Jehovah swears—ironically—by that which, however deeply He disapproves of it, He knows to be unalterable. The oath, as Amos 4:2, Amos 6:8,—each time provoked by the spectacle of some crying moral wrong.

By the excellency of Jacob - that is, by Himself who was its Glory, as Samuel calls Him “the Strength” 1 Samuel 15:29 or the Glory of Israel.

7. The heartless greed and dishonesty has aroused the indignation of Jehovah and makes judgment inevitable. Hath sworn — See on Amos 4:2. Excellency of Jacob — Jehovah (Amos 6:8).