Amos 1

Amos 1:1

In this chapter we have, 1. The general title of this prophecy, ver. 1. with the general scope of it, ver. 2. 2. God’s particular contrar971 with Syria, ver. 3-5. with Pulestine, ver. 6-8. with Tyre, ver. 9, 10. with Edom, ver. 11, 12. and with Amnon, ver. 13-15. for their cruelty to his people, and the many injuries they had done them.

i. e. herdman. a Chap. vii. 14. b Hef. i. 1. c Zech. xix, 1.

THE words of Amos, who was among the herdfmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel, in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joath king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

The prophecy opens with an account of the writer Amos, an inhabitant of Tekoa, in the tribe of Judah; a herdfman, not brought up in the school of the prophets, nor probably surnished with human literature, but God can make the soofish things of the world to confound the wife; and when he speaks, who can but prophesy? chap. iii. 8.

The ten tribes of Israel are chiefly the subject of the prophetic words which God revealed to Amos; and he saw the things he declares with the same evidence and clearness, as if they had been presented before his bodily eyes.

The prophecy is dated in the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam the second, two years before the earthquake; a very remarkable event, which happened in Uzziah’s reign, probably at the beginning of it. Compare 2 Kings xv. 1. with 2 Kings xiv. 23.

2. And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the habitations

of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. 3. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Damafcus, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they have threshed Gilead with threshing-instruments of iron. 4. But I will send a fire into the house of Haziel, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. 5. I will break also the bar of Damafcus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, faith the LORD. 6. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. 7. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. 8. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philestines shall persh, faith the Lord GOD. 9. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembred not the brotherly covenant. 10. But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof. 11. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Edom, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because he did pursue his brother with the

Before Chill

The word, and did call off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and kept his wrath for ever. 12. But I will lend a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Jizzah. 13. ¶ Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because they have riot up the women with child of Gilcad, that they might enlarge their border. 14. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with throating in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind. 15. And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, faith the LORD.

c. 2—15. The general tenor of the prophecy before us is intimated in these first words of it. The Lord will cure from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, loud and terrible as the lion roars, or as the voice of mighty thunderings. From between the cherubims, his feat of judgment, he denounces his wrath on the enemies of his people; the pursuits of the shepherd shall move, terrified with the sound, and the top of Carmel shall wather, scorched with the flushing lightnings; or, as is intimated chap. iv, is condemned with drought.

The charge and sentence against these nations are nearly the same. Their multiplied iniquities and idolatrics, lignified by slave and four transgressions, and above all their persecution and oppression of God’s heritage, cried for vengeance against them; and God, as the prophet declares, had fixed their doom, for he spake not of himself, but thus faith the Lord, able to execute all the threatening of his word, and solemnly engaging to do it, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, the enemies is gone forth, irreversible, immutable.

1. Damadus, the capital of Syria, is brought to the bar, besides the general charge of multiplied transgressions, her peculiar iniquity was, that they have threshed Gilcad with the glories of the men of iron, so terribly had Hazard ravaged that part of the country, 2 Kings x. 32, 33. xiii. 3—7. The wrath of God therefore, as devouring fire, shall continue the royal palaces and temples of Syria, and the invading enemy besiege and force their way into Damadus, the feat of empire; they shall cut off the inhabitants from the plain of drom, a delightful valley near it, the scene of their idolatry, and him that belittle the sceptre from the house of Eden, some pleasure-house probably of the kings of Syria; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kiz, faith the Lord, one circle of whose word shall never fail. See the accomplishment of the prophecy, 2 Kings vii. 19.

2. Gaza, a chief city of the Philistines, is next found guilty and punished. Because they carried away captive the whole captivity to deliver them up to Edom; the event referred to seems to be that, 2 Chron. xxii. 17. when they ravaged and plaindered the country, and seized all Jehoram’s family except one son, and all his substance; for which the chief cities of Philistia, with the nobles and inhabitants, are doomed to destruction, and the remnant of them shall perish; God will leave them neither root nor branch, and such will at last be the fate of all the enemies and persecutors of God’s people.

3. Tyre, like the other neighbours of Israel, notwithstanding the brotherly covenant which had subsisted of old between Solomon and Hiram, spared them not in the day of their calamity, but delivered up the whole captivity to Edom; either such as they had seized in some broad into the country, or those who had fled to Tyre for shelter from the invasion of their enemies; those they delivered up, or sold for slaves to their implausible enemies the Edomites: but the proud walls and palaces of Tyre shall be overthrown in just vengeance for such unkindness, as was done by Nebuchadnezzar after a thirteen years siege. Note, Unkindness is doubly grating from those, of whom we had just reason to expect every act of friendship.

4. Edom, with hereditary hatred, persecuted the seed of Jacob; and though brethren in blood, yet in enmity most inveterate: they pursued them with the sword, Numb. xx. 19. 2 Chron. xxviii. 17. and were ever ready to do them all possible mischief; but it shall be returned upon their own heads, and their cities and palaces shall be destroyed, as was done by Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards more terribly by the Maccabees, 1 Mac. v. 28. Note, (1.) The enmity which arises between nearest relations, hath steadily peculiar malignity. (2.) Such enmity is exceeding forful, and will provoke exemplary vengeance against the offenders and the implausible.

5. The children of Ammon, with Rabbah their capital, are devoted to ruin, and their king and princes doomed to an ignominious captivity; their judgment shall be favors, fudden, and irresistible, v. 14. as their crimes were atrocious; they have ripped up the women with child of Gilcad, that they might enlarge their border, with much inhuman cruelty enslavering the inhabitants, without pity, remorse, or distinction of age, sex, or condition. Note, (1.) Covetousness and cruelty are twin fathers; and the inordinate love of money is often seen to harden the heart against all the feelings of humanity. (2.) It is righteous in God

Vol. II.

to give those to the spoil, whose substance is the gain of oppression and injustice.

Amos 1:17-21

Before Christ of their warriors, will then be able to avail them: God hath infuriated the crusiels of the one, and panic fear feizes the others, doomed to the Daughter; so that not a man of them shall escape. Thus when God contends he will surely overcome: our wisdom will prove folly, our strength weakness, our confidence delusion, when he is our foe.

1 Gen. xxvii. 41. PC. excess. 7. Exch. xxv 14. & xxxv 1. dom. i. 11. 2. Exch. xxxv. 9. Mal. i. 4. 1 Jer. br. 9. 11. Or his audience. 10. Heb. degraded thy mouth. PC. excess. Or force. Or that up.

10. ¶ 1 For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and 2 thou shalt be cut-off for ever. 11. In the day that thou shoudest on the other side, in the day that 3 the strangers carried away captive 4 his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and 4 cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou 5 used as one of them. 12. But thou shouldst not have looked on the day of thy brother, in the day that he became a stranger; 6 neither shouldst thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldst thou have 7 spoken proudly in the day of distress. 13. 8 Thou shouldst not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldst not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity; nor have laid hands on their 9 substance in the day of their calamity. 14. Neither shouldst thou have stood in the cross-way, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldst thou have 10 delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. 15. For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: 11 as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee, thy reward shall return upon thine own head. 16. For 12 as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, 13 yea, they shall drink, and they shall 14 swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not born.

Or lay up. v. 10—16. If Edom’s doom be heavy, her sins have provoked it; and, amidst all the other iniquities of that devoted people, none come deeper into the account than their violence against their brother Jacob, whose relation to them by blood, and the peculiar favour God had shewn him, should have engaged their affection and assistance in the day of calamity: but too often we see nearest relations shew us the least regard.

1. They had, with most malicious comity, rejoiced in the ruin of Israel, and in a variety of instances helped forward their distress. God tells them what they should not have done, and therein upbraids them with what they had done. Instead of affording the Jews a friendly hand, or at least commiserating their calamity, and dropping a tear of tender compassion over their afflictions, they stood in the other side, not merely unconcerned spectators, but pleased with the scene, and helping forward the ruin of Jerusalem, when the Chaldeans entered the city, led the inhabitants captive, and divided the spoil, v. 11. nay, they inflicted the unhappy sufferers, and mocked at their distress, v. 12. Eager to plunder, they rushed with the befingers into the city, and pillaged whatever they laid their hands upon, v. 13. and with savage inhumanity stood in the cross-way to seize the few who escaped from the Chaldean sword, and murdered them in cold blood, or delivered them up to their cruel enemies, v. 15. For such atrocious wickedness,

2. Vengeance, such as their crimes deserved, descends upon them. The day of the Lord, that great and terrible day of wrath, approaches, when he will recompense the wickedness of the heathen, and Edom shall drink deep of the cup of his indignation. Since judgment had begun at the house of God, Edom may not think to escape. At thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee; when other heathen nations are destroyed, Edom shall fall in the general ruin; and, whilst the Jews only were captives

for a while, and would be again restored, and preserved still as a people, the Edomites shame would be continued, they shall be cut off for ever, and be as though they had not born, their nation extirpated, and not a trace of them remain. And thus shall the enemies of Christ and his church be at last destroyed for ever, and every antichristian foe shall be cast as a millstone into the sea, and sink, and never rise up again, Rev. xviii. 21. So let all those enemies perish, O Lord!

1. ¶ But upon mount Zion shall be 2 deliverance, and 3 there shall be holiness, and 4 the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. 18. And 5 the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for Stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them, and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it. 19. And they of the south 6 shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain, the Englishes; and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 20. And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even 7 unto Zarephath, and the captivity of Jerusalem, 8 which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south. 21. And 9 favours shall come upon mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau, and 10 the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

Thus some cloud, which looked so dark and terrible towards the Egyptians, afforded heightness and comfort to Israel’s camp. Thus the destruction of the church’s enemies, before threatened, is accompanied with great and precious promises to her friends, in which, to the latest ages, they may rejoice.

1. Upon mount Zion there shall be deliverance. God will raise up a deliverer for them in distress, as Cyrus, and afterwards Judas Maccabeus; but a greater deliverance than these seems here intended, even that which Jesus hath obtained for his people from the bondage of Satan, sin, and death.

2. And there shall be holiness, in the gospel church, in consequence of the deliverance obtained for them: all Christ’s redeemed people shall partake of the landfishing influences of his Spirit, and be made pure within; this being a distinguished part of the salvation he hath wrought, that we should be delivered from the power as well as punishment of our sins.

3. The church of the redeemed shall be extended for and wide. The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions, as was spiritually the case when, by the preaching of the ministers of the gospel, the Gentiles gave themselves up unto the Lord: then, like fire, the word of God spread on every side, the hearts of sinners were pierced, and their most beloved sins consumed, v. 18. the borders of the church were then greatly enlarged; and they shall continue to be so, till at last they shall spread from pole to pole, when the sinners, those who publish the glad tidings of salvation, shall go forth, clothed with divine energy, convincing men of sin, and turning them unto the Lord; and then the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ.

Some suppose a more literal accomplishment of the prophecy, when in the last days the Jews shall be converted, and return to their own land; their borders be greatly enlarged; and, judgment being executed upon all the persecuting powers, papal, pagan, or Mahometan, Christ shall reign on mount Zion, and ever his ancients gloriously. This however at least we are sure of, that the day of the Lord will come, which shall burn as an even, when all the proud persecutors, and all who do wreckily, shall be confirmed together, and God’s despised and persecuted people shall reign with Jesus their king in glory everlasting.

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