Amos 9:8

Behold, the eyes of the Lord God [are] upon the sinful kingdom,.... God is omniscient, and his eyes are everywhere, and upon all persons, good and bad, and upon all kingdoms, especially upon a sinful

Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.

Behold; consider things better, and argue more like men of reason. The eyes of the Lord God; God of infinite purity and knowledge, whose nature hateth all sin, and whose office it is to punish sinners, his eyes behold all the children of men, they run to and fro, as . Are upon the sinful kingdom; every sinful kingdom, and on the kingdom of the ten tribes as notoriously the sinning kingdom, as the Hebrew. And I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; and I will ruin any such kingdom for their sins, that it shall cease to be a kingdom on earth. Saving that I will not utterly destroy; and so would I do with the kingdom of Israel, but that I have by covenant with their fathers engaged to be their God for ever, which promise I will keep to a remnant of their seed for ever. The house of Jacob; the seed of Jacob, which God will not utterly extirpate, though he do extirpate other nations, . Saith the Lord: this is added to confirm the gracious word concerning the remnant which shall be spared.

Amos 9:8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD [are] upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.Ver. 8. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom] Be it Ethiopia, Palestina, Syria, or Israel, but especially Israel, Amos 3:2, not his eye only, his εκδικονομμα, his jealous eye, as Amos 9:4, for evil, and not for good; but both his eyes, yea, his seven eyes, for he is ολοφθαλμος, all eye, to look through and through the sinful kingdom, to judge and punish, to inflict "tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first," because of his privileges, "and also of the Gentile," Romans 2:9. "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond," Jeremiah 17:1, and Israel is therefore worse than others, because he ought to have been better. His whole kingdom is a kingdom of sin, a merum seclus, from pure wickedness, a very Poneropolis, as that place in Thraeia was called whither Philip had assembled all the infamous persons and men of evil demeanour. "What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria?" Micah 1:5; their capital sins were most in their capital cities; and thence overflowed the whole kingdom; called therefore here a sinful kingdom, wholly given to idolatry (as Athens was, Acts 17:16, κατειδωλος), which is that sin with an accent, that wickedness with a witness, Exodus 32:21 1 Kings 12:30; 1 Kings 15:3; 1 Kings 15:30, that land desolating sin, Jeremiah 22:7-9 Psalms 78:58-62. And I will destroy it] See here the venomous nature of sin, and shun it, else we shall prove traitors to the state, and have our hands, if not upon the great cart ropes, yet upon the lesser cords, that draw down vengeance upon the land. And here some one sinner may destroy much good, Ecclesiastes 9:18, how much more a rabble of rebels, conspiring to provoke the eyes of God’ s glory! Saying that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob] A remnant shall be left for royal use, reliquas faciam reliquias, and so make a manifest difference, see Jeremiah 30:11, remembering my promise, Leviticus 26:40, which is a special text touching the rejecting and conversion of the Jews, as is also this in some men’ s judgments. For here (say they) is a threatening of extreme desolation with some comfort interlaced of a remnant to be reserved; among whom it is further promised, 1. That the kingdom of David through Christ shall be set up as glorious as ever it was before, in the most flourishing times of David or Solomon, Amos 9:11 2. Next, other nations shall join with them and be made partakers of one common inheritance, Amos 9:12. So doth James, Acts 15:16-17, expound it. 3.

(8) Sinful nation.—The kingdom of the ten tribes which had so utterly revolted from the true centre and spiritual ideas of the worship of Jehovah.

Verse 8. The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom] The kingdom of Israel, peculiarly sinful; and therefore to be signally destroyed by the Assyrians. I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob] The race shall not become extinct: I will reserve them as monuments of my justice, and finally of my mercy.

7–10. An objection met. The Israelites were only too ready to argue (cf. Amos 3:2; Jeremiah 7:1-15) that Jehovah, after the many marks of favour which He had bestowed upon His people, would never cast them off, as He had now declared that He would do (Amos 9:1-6). He replies, Is Israel, merely as Israel, apart from moral qualifications, more to Me than other nations? It is true, I led Israel out of Egypt, and gave them a home in Palestine: but I directed similarly the migrations of other nations, the Philistines, for example, and the Syrians: the sinful kingdom, whether it be Israel or any other nation, will perish before Me, the only limitation being that I will not absolutely annihilate the house of Jacob. Are ye not as the sons of the Kushites unto me?] The Kushites, or Ethiopians, are mentioned as a distant people, far removed from the grace and knowledge of God, despised on account of their dark colour (cf. Jeremiah 13:23), and perhaps also on account of slaves being often drawn from them. Degenerate Israel is no more in Jehovah’s eyes than these despised Kushites. Kush is often named in the O.T. (e.g. Genesis 10:6-7; Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 18:1; Isaiah 20:3-5; Isaiah 37:9; Isaiah 43:3): it was the name (in Egyptian Inscriptions Késh) borne by the people inhabiting the region to the south of Egypt (corresponding generally to the modern Soudan, i.e. the country of the Blacks (Arab, aswad, “black”). Their capital was Napata, on the Nile. Did I not bring up Israel out of the land of Egypt?] cf. Amos 2:10. and the Philistines from Caphtor] guiding them therefore not less than I guided Israel. Caphtor is in all probability Crete[200]. It is named elsewhere as the original home of the Philistines; see Deuteronomy 2:23 and Jeremiah 47:4 (where the Philistines are called “the remnant of the isle [or coast-land] of Caphtor”). These passages make it probable that in the ethnographical table of Genesis 10, in Amos 9:14, “and the Casluhim, from whom the Philistines came forth, and the Caphtorim,” the clause respecting the Philistines is misplaced, and should be transposed to follow Caphtorim. A connexion with Crete is also rendered probable by the name Kerçthim, which in other passages (Ezekiel 25:16; Zephaniah 2:5; cf. 1 Samuel 30:14) is that of a tribe closely associated, if not (Zephaniah 2:5) identical, with the Philistines. [200] Sayce formerly, with Ebers, identified it with the coast-land of the Delta; but he now (Academy, Apr. 14, 1894, p. 314) regards this view as untenable.and Aram from Kir] See on Amos 1:5.

Behold the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom - The sinful kingdom may mean each “sinful kingdom,” as Paul says, God “will render unto every man according to his deeds - unto them who do