Amos 7

Chap. VII. Ver. 1—17.— God’s judgments against Israel represented in three distinct visions.—In this chapter God represents to Amos, by three several visions, the judgments he was about to bring on Israel; but most of which were averted or mitigated by the intercession of the Prophet. The first is a plague of locusts, threatening to cut off the hopes of the harvest, by attacking it in the time of the second growth; the first luxuriances of the crop being probably mowed (or cut off) for the king’s horses. The second vision threatens a destructive judgment by fire, which would consume _a great part of the nation; and the third judgment, which is declared irreversible, a total overthrow of Israel, levelling the people, as it were, by a measuring line.

The rest of the chapter is a denunciation of heavy judgments against Amaziah, priest of Bethel, who had brought an accusation to the king against this Prophet. This Amaziah was one of the courtly priests of Jeroboam’s calves, and felt quite indignant that the rural Prophet should presume to interfere in his department: ‘‘It is the king’s chapel,” and in “the king’s court.” But the herdsman of Tekoah puts to shame the priest of Bethel.

Notes on the verses

Chap. VII. Ver. 1. He formed grasshoppers.—See margin. (Heb. Gobai) generally considered to be a species of locusts, as Parkhurst thinks, in their caterpillar state, wherein they do the greatest mischiefs.—[This is supposed to have been an emblem of the first invasion of the Assyrians.]—Bagster. See Harris’s Nat. Hist. of the Bible in Locust; also, Harmer’s Obs.—Mowings—[Or rather, peckings or grazings, as the people of the East make no hay. This was probably in the month of March, which is the only time of the year that the Arabs to this day feed their horses with grass.]—Bagster. Ver. 3. The Lord repented.—See exposition of (Genesis 6:1-7). Ver. 4. Contend by fire.—(This is supposed to denote the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, which threatened entire destruction.)—Bagster.—It devoured the great deep.—This seems to have been a subterraneous fire, which raised up a part of the bottom of the sea.

Ver. 8. Behold, I will set a plumb-line, &c.—That is, according to Nevocome, “I will destroy and level, as it were, by a line.” See (2 Samuel 18:2). (2 Kings 21:13). [This was an emblem of strict justice; and intimated that God would now visit them according to their iniquities.]—Bagster. Ver. 10. Amos hath conspired.—(This was truly a lying prophet: there was not one word of truth in his message to Jeroboam.)—Bagster. Ver. 13. Prophesy not any more.—Heb. “Add not to prophecy?”—For it is the king’s chapel.—See margin.—Beth-el—Signifies ‘‘the house of Ver. 14. I was no prophet.—Not brought up at the college, &c.—A gatherer (Harmer, “a dresser”) of sycamore fruit (or wild figs.) This fruit grows from the tree, without leaves, and requires skill in dressing it, to make it good.

[Rather, as bolais is rendered by the LXX. and Vulgate, ‘a scraping,” or a scraper of sycamores; for the fruit does not ripen till it is rubbed with iron combs. See Theophrastus, Pliny, and Hasselquist.]—Bagster.