Amos 3

3 : 1 HEAR this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against 2 the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth : therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities. 3, 4 Shall two walk together, except they have agreed ? Will a lion roar in the forest, when 5 he hath no prey ? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing ? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is set for him ? shall a snare spring up from 6 the ground, and have taken nothing at all ? Shall the trumpet be blown in a city, and the 7 people not be afraid ? shall evil befall a city, and the LORD hath not done it ? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. 8 The lion hath roared, who will not fear ? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy ? 9 Publish ye in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold what great tumults are 10 therein, and what oppressions in the midst thereof. For they know not to do right, saith 11 the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Therefore thus saith the Lord God : An adversary there shall be, even round about the land : and he shall bring down thy 12 strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled. Thus saith the LORD : As the shepherd rescueth out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear ; so shall the children of Israel be rescued that sit in Samaria in the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a 13 bed. Hear ye, and testify against the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God, the God of hosts. 14 For in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him, I will also visit the 15 altars of Beth-el, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground. And I will smite the winter house with the summer house ; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

4 : 1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which op- press the poor, which crush the needy, which say unto their lords, Bring, and let us drink. 2 The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that they 3 shall take you away with hooks, and your residue with fish hooks. And ye shall go out at the breaches, every one straight before her ; and ye shall cast yourselves into Harmon, saith the LORD. 4 Come to Beth-el, and transgress ; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression ; and bring your 5 sacrifices every morning, and your tithes every three days ; and offer a sacrifice of thanks- giving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings and publish them : for this 6 liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. And I also have given you clean- ness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places : yet have ye not returned 7 unto me, saith the LORD. And I also have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest : and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city : one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not 8 withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city to drink water, and were not satis- 9 fied : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew : the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees hath the palmerworm devoured : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 10 LORD. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt : your young men have I slain with the sword, and have carried away your horses ; and I have made the stink of your camp to come up even into your nostrils : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith 11 the LORD. I have overthrown some among you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor- rah, and ye were as a brand plucked out of the burning : yet have ye not returned unto me, 12 saith the LORD. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel : and because I will do this 13 unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth ; the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name.

Chap. 3. This chapter continues the same strain, exposing the sins of the people, showing that the Almighty awakes to judgment against them, and calls His prophet to reveal the fearful truth. Foreign nations are summoned to witness the sins of Samaria, and again her doom is announced. H. C.

2. Israel’s sins were not like those of other nations. They were sins against light and love. Mercy, favor and instruction had been lavished upon them. Thus they had more to answer for, their guilt was greater. Therefore He who chose them would punish them. But however severe the punishment, God visited His people in love. He did not cast them off. Chastisement was a token of His love. He would not let them be as others who knew Him not. By judgments, by warnings, by threats He would bring them back to Himself; and if they did not return to Him, it would be only because they would not.

3-8. The key to these short parables that follow is in the words of verses 7, 8. No prophet speaks his own words, utters his own thoughts, expresses his own fears and forebodings. He has been admitted to share some of the secret counsels of God (verse 7), whose servant he is. And he may not; nay, he cannot conceal what has been revealed to him. He must prophesy. Whether, therefore, Israel would listen or not, Amos has a message from God to deliver, he must give warning of impending judgments. And he explains the necessity that is laid upon him by illustrations drawn from ordinary life, all of which show that where there is a cause we look for an effect, and where we observe an effect we are sure that there must be a cause. Further, all the images employed except the first are such as fill the mind with alarm.

3. Two walk together? Does not their walking together necessarily imply that they previously agreed upon time and place of meeting, and that they have a common object in view? The question, if taken in connection with the previous verses, would suggest the thought of Israel’s stubborn refusal to walk in the ways of God, and it might remind them of the language used in the law. “If ye will not be reformed by Me, but will walk contrary unto Me; then will I also walk contrary unto you” (Lev. 26: 23, 24). B. C.

“While you continue to walk contrary to God, you can look for no other than that He should walk contrary to you.” We cannot expect that God should be present with us, or act for us, unless we be reconciled to Him.

God and man cannot walk together, except they be agreed; unless we agree with God in our end, which is His glory, we cannot walk with Him by the way. H.

3-6. I paraphrase thus, Can God and Israel walk together unless agreed in sympathy of purpose and character, as they are not now? Will the Lord roar out of Zion in premonitory foreshadowings of coming vengeance, when there is no prey to fall upon? Can the people fall under war and captivity where no war is, and no captivity, and there is no wrath of God to fear? Are these threatened judgments really nothing? Are not people wont to be afraid when they hear the clarion blast of war? And shall they not fear as much now, before the awful blast of Jehovah’s trumpet, calling out the nations to bring war on his land? Shall we not recognize God’s agency as including and working all the inflictions of calamity that fall on guilty cities? This “evil in the city” which verse 6 assumes that the Lord has done must be calamity, not sin. The strain of the whole passage is of natural evil—the judgments about to come from God on apostate and guilty Israel. To construe this evil, therefore, as being sin, and not calamity, is to ignore the whole current of thought, and to outrage the soundest, most vital laws of interpretation. Moreover, common justice toward God forbids this construction—“Shall there be sin in the city, and the Lord hath not done it?” This would assume that God is the doer of all the sin in our world! H. C.

5. Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is? As birds are not caught without the net of the fowler being already set and laid, and as the fowler doth not take up his nets before he has secured a prey, so neither doth God threaten these things without being prepared to execute His judgments, nor will He withdraw His hand, but will punish you except ye repent.

6. By the “evil” here spoken of is not to be understood sin or the evil of guiltiness, but affliction or trouble, or the evil of punishment; for God is not either the author or the cause of our sin, but we ourselves (cf. James 1: 13, 14; Hos. 13: 9). Danaus.

Let them know that all their troubles came from the hand of God’s providence, and from the counsel of His will; verse 6, Shall there be evil in a city, in a family, in a nation, and the Lord has not done it, appointed it and performed what He appointed? The evil of sin is from ourselves, it is our own doing; but the evil of trouble, personal or public, is from God, and is His doing; whoever are the instruments, God is the principal agent. Out of His mouth both evil and good proceed. H.

7. “Shall I hide from Abraham,” God says to Himself, “shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” When it is God’s purpose to accomplish here below a consecutive work, must He not of necessity, unless He is to work an infinite series of miracles, associate with Himself a certain number of free agents, who shall co operate with Him? For that end He must first draw them to Himself; then, in order that they may work intelligently and freely, He must initiate them into His plan, so far at least as they are to participate in its fulfilment; which presupposes one or more acts of revelation. One of the prophets expressed in the following words this fact, of which he felt himself the living proof: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed? . . . surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.” Godet.

8. The Lord is wont to forewarn His people by His prophets before He smites them with desolating judgments. This forewarning the prophet now gives, as verse 8 implies: “The lion hath roared.” God has uttered His fearful note of warning as one about to smite; who can refuse to prophesy when thus called to it of God? The prophet means to say that in the presence of such demonstrations of coming judgments, he should be not only false to God, but false to his countrymen, if he did not solemnly announce God’s message, and call them to repentance.

9. This is a call to the people of Ashdod and Egypt, and, by implication, to all the nations named and doomed in the first two chapters, to convene upon the mountains that overlook Samaria, and be witnesses to her great tumults, disorders and crimes, and to the oppressions done in the midst of her. Guilty as those nations are, they will see deeper guilt and more outrageous crime in Samaria. They are to be witnesses of her doom; let them first witness her sins.

10. These are the people of Samaria. Despite of all the light of nature and the superadded light of Divine revelation, they yet act as if they knew not how to do right. The trouble is not their ignorance, but their moral perverseness. Knowledge of duty does them no good: they will go on in sin as if they had no moral sense—no knowledge of right. H. C.

Who store up. In the Hebrew this is a participle, the storers, making the phrase more emphatic and personal. And what did they store up? To them it seemed that their palaces were filled with silver and gold, with corn and wine, with whatever could minister to their convenience or luxury. But in the eyes of the Lord they stored up violence and robbery, for all was gained unjustly, wrung by oppression from the weak. And they had been in fact only treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. B. C.

11. There shall come an enemy—one who shall pervade the whole land. He shall bring down thy strength, and shall spoil thy palaces. The Assyrians were this enemy. The desolation they wrought was complete, as the reader may see in 2 K. 17.

12. Some of the people might have fled to Damascus for refuge; hence this reference to the few left there. The devastation would be most terrific and complete.

13-15. The curse of extermination fell on Samaria mainly because her wealth was ill-gotten, and represented her cruel, iniquitous oppression of the poor and innocent.

Chap. 4. The prophet still addresses the proud, oppressive, but effeminate people of Samaria, describing them (verse 1); predicting their captivity (verses 2, 3); in irony, bidding them go on in their sins (verses 4, 5); reciting successive judgments from God—famine, drought, blasting, pestilence, and the overthrow of some of them even as Sodom—all, however, failing to bring them back to God (verses 6-11); therefore the Almighty bids them prepare to meet Him in His desolating judgments (verses 12, 13). H. C.

The reign of Jeroboam II. was one of brilliant military success and of profound moral degradation. No sterner picture of an utterly rotten social state was ever drawn than this book gives of the luxury, licentiousness and oppressiveness of the ruling classes. This chapter deals rather with the religious declension underlying the moral filth, and sets forth the self-willed idolatry of the people (verses 4, 5), their obstinate resistance to God’s merciful chastisement (verses 6-11), and the heavier impending judgment (verses 12, 13). A. M.

1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan. Hear this, ye great and rich men of Samaria, that feed full and carelessly, like the kine in the fat pastures of Bashan; ye who oppress the poor and crush the needy; and say to your princes and judges, Set deep fines and condemn freely, that we may feast upon the offences of the people. Bp. II.

1-3. Bashan, a region on the east of Jordan, was renowned for its rich pastures and breeds

of cattle, fine, fat and strong. (See De. 32:14; Ps. 22:12; Ezek. 39:18.) Especially the “bulls of Bashan,” as in David’s reference (Ps. 22:12), were fat, strong, fearless, ferocious: “Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.” Perhaps with a tacit but cutting allusion to them, Amos meant to say: “Ye cows (not bulls) of Bashan, fat enough indeed and well fed; fierce and cruel enough toward your helpless poor; but shamefully effeminate and cowardly where real danger lies—hear ye these words! The Lord is about to put His hook in your nose, and take you away to a hopeless captivity. Ye shall be driven out through the breaches made in your city walls, as a man drives out his cows through a gap in their fence—each cow straightforward. This is the general course of thought in these three verses. H. C.