Amos 9

Chap. IX. Ver. 1—15. Israel’s captivity certain; but its restoration under Messiah no less sure.—God is here represented as standing upon his own altar, and solemnly denouncing his judgments against Israel, in the general dispersion of the people, without showing them any more respect than to heathen nations to whom his providence also extended. The latter part of the chapter concludes the prophecy as usual with large and comfortable promises of restoration and prosperity under the kingdom of Messiah. Three things here merit our particular notice: 1. That God reckons his own people not according to the flesh, but according to the faith of their father Abraham, ((Romans 9:8).) 2. That when the true Israelites return, it shall be in harmony and union with converted Gentiles.

So (ver. 12) “the heathen called by my name” are Christians. 3. That when the Jews shall be brought back to God, together with converted Gentiles, they shall enjoy in common, as well the blessings of peace and temporal prosperity as those of grace and pardon. ‘‘Godliness hath as well the promises of this life,” as of ‘‘that which is to come.” ((1 Timothy 4:8).) Ver. 1. We have heard a rumour.—See (Jeremiah 49:14). Ver. 2. Small…. despised.—Edom was comparatively a small, mountainous territory, on the south of Canaan. Ver. 3. Dwellest in clefts, &c.—{Jerome observes, that all the southern parts of Palestine, from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Elath, were full of caverns hewn out of the rocks, and that the people had subterraneous dwellings similar to ovens.

The whole of Idumea was very mountainous, and these caverns are the clefts of the rock here referred to; in which they thought themselves safe, and that no power brought against them could dislodge them from their fastnesses.|—Bagster. Ver. 4. As the eagle.—(Jeremiah 49:16). 5 Ver. 5. Some grapes.—Newcome, “Gleanings of grapes.” (Jeremiah 49:5). Ver. 6. Sought up.—Newcome, “Inquired after.” Ver. 7. Men of thy confederacy.—{The Chaldeans, whose agents they became in persecuting the Jews.]—Bagster.—Have laid a wound.—This Newcome thinks unintelligible, and reads with ancient versions, “Laid a snare under thee.” But to us, to lay a wound under a person, appears to mean, to wound them secretly and unawares.

Ver. 8. Wise men out of Edom—‘Idumea (or Uz) was regarded by the Jews in the same light of elegance as Greece was by the Romans; and ‘Teman as the Athens of Arabia Petraea.’”—Good, in Job, introduction. See (Jeremiah 49:5, 7). a Ver. 9. O Teman.—{This was one of the strong places of Idumea; and is here and elsewhere used, to avoid monotony, and to give variety to the Poet’s versification, for Idumea itself: }—Bagster. Ver. 10. For thy violence, &c.—Instead of “Cut off by slaughter,” the ancient versions join the last word of the preceding verse with this, thus: “For slaughter and for violence against,” &c. Compare (Amos 1:11). So Newcome and Boothroyd. hy Ver. 11. Thou wast as one of them.—The following verses, by stating what Edom should not have done, give us to understand what they did do, which amounts (ver.

14.) to no less than robbery and murder. Ver. 12. Shouldest not have looked—(That is, “Thou shouldst not have looked with pleasure on the day of thy brother’s calamity.” These verses describe the guilty part which the Edomites took against the Jews, when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burnt the temple.]—Bagster. Ver. 16. As ye have drunk.—|This address is to the Jews. As they had drunk the cup of God’s indignation, even on mount so the heathen in.

Notes on the verses

Chap. IX, Ver. 1. Upon the altar.—What altar? Dr. Boothroyd thinks that at Beth-el; but the scene is the temple at Jerusalem, as appears by the next clause.—Smite the lintel of the door.—See margin. So Gesenius, The knop, or capital of a pillar, perhaps in the form of a pomegranate, or its flower.” See (Zephaniah 2:14).—I will slay the last—That is, the whole of them. Ver. 2. Into hell.—Newcome, “The grave;” Boothroyd, “Hades.” Compare (Psalms 139:8).—[All these energetic expressions were intended to show the utter impossibility of escape.]—Bagster. Ver. 3. Carmel.—A mountain of considerable extent, and said to contain great cavities. See 1 Kings Chap. xviii.—The serpent—That is, doubtless, the great sea serpent.

See exposition, (Isaiah 27:1). and note. Ver. 5. It shall rise up.—Compare (Amos 8:8). Ver. 6. His stories in the heaven.—{Or, spheres. Heb. ascensions. Maaloth, upper chambers,” which in eastern houses are the principal apartments.— CONCLUDING REMARKS Amos was by profession a herdsman and a dresser of the sycamore fruit; and hence, as Dr. Newcome observes, he ‘borrows many images from the scenes in which he was engaged; but he introduces them with skill, and gives them tone and dignity by the eloquence and grandeur of his manner. We shall find in him many affecting and pathetic, many elegant and sublime passages. No prophet has more magnificently described the Deity. Perhaps there is a reference here to the various systems which God has created in illimitable space, transcending each other as the planets do in our system.

|—Bagster. Compare (Psalms 104:3).—Troop.—[Aguddah, probably is the same as the Arabic ijad, ‘an arch, vault,” and may here denote the vault of heaven, or atmosphere, which God “hath founded, or established, upon, or over, all the earth,” and into which “he calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth.”]—Bagster. Ver. 7. Children of the Ethiopians.—Heb. “Cushites.” The Arabian Cushites, who, according to Bochart, were a powerful, though despised people. They were freebooters and idolaters.—The Philistines from Caphtor.—See note on (Jeremiah 47:4). The sense of the verse is, that ‘God had raised up and transplanted other nations, as well as the Israelites,”

they must not, therefore, infer from their being brought up from Egypt, that they should never be rejected. See Boothroyd. Ver. 9. Yet shall not the least grain—That is, no true Israelite, no child of Abraham by faith. Ver. 12. That they may possess the remnant of Edom.—For Edom, the LXX. Arabic, and some Syriac MSS. read Adami, or “men,” and so St. James quotes the passage, (Acts 15:17). See note there. Ver. 13. The ploughman shall overtake the reaper—That is, instead of the greater part of the year being spent in military campaigns, the whole shall be spent in cultivating and gathering in the fruits of the earth. Comp. (Isaiah 2:4). Ver. 15. No more pulled up.—{As the Jews, after their return from Babylon, were driven from their land by the Romans, this can only refer to their future conversion and restoration; and to the security and peace of the church.

}—Bagster. ON THE BOOK OF AMOS. or more gravely rebuked the luxurious, or reproved injustice and oppression with greater warmth, and a more generous indignation.” Jerome is of opinion, that there is nothing great or sublime in the style of Amos; and calls him “rude in speech, but not in knowledge,” applying to him what St. Paul modestly professes of himself. ((2 Corinthians 11:6).) Calmet and many others have followed the authority of Jerome, in speaking of this prophet, as if he were Ver. 11. Calm unto us.—See margin. Literally, “from above us;” i.e. case from dashing its billows over us. So ver. 12. Ver. 13. Rowed.—Heb. “Digged hard:” i.e. with their oars.—[There was a [party] deeply affected with the candid confession, the disinterested submissive gratitude of humanity and tender feeling in these men.

They were pro[tectors] of the disobedient prophet, and were unwilling to cast him into the deep till they found that every effort to save themselves was in vain.]—B. Ver. 15. Ceased.—Heb. “Stood” from her (or its) raging.—And offered.—Heb. “Sacrificed a sacrifice, and vowed vows.” Ver. 17. The belly.—Heb. “Bowels,” or entrails. It is applied particularly to the womb of women, (Genesis 25:24). (Ruth 1:11). The LXX. call this fis ketos, which word is used by St. Matthew, and properly signifies a whale, but may certainly be applied to any sea-monster.