Amos 7

By three several visions God represents to Amos the judgments he is bringing upon Israel, which are mitigated by the intercession of the prophet; who being accused of sedition by Amaziah the priest of Beth-el to king Jeroboam, he denounces judgment against Amaziah and his family.

Amos 7:1

He formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth. Most commentators suppose this vision to denote the invasion of Pul king of Assyria, mentioned 2 Kings xv. 19. But this and the following calamities may as probably relate to those tumults and commotions which happened after Jeroboam’s death, during an anarchy which lasted eleven years, from that time till his son’s settlement on the throne, as appears by comparing the times of the kings of Israel and Judah. This was cutting Israel short, after they had begun to flourish again under the prosperous reign of Jeroboam, and so might fitly be represented by the grasshoppers devouring the latter or second growth of the grass. It teas the latter growth after the king’s moivings.~\ The first crop of grass was set apart for the use of the king’s stables.

Amos 7:2

By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. If thou suffer these calamities to proceed to extremity, by what means shall the small remains of the riches and strength of the kingdom be rescued from utter destruction? Some translate the words, Who shall rise up, or stand for Jacob? but the interrogative pronoun mi, who, may stand for bemi, by whom; as it does, Isa. li. 19.

Amos 7:3

The Lord repented for this, &c. The Lord was pleased to hearken to my earnest supplication, and to promise, that the threatened judgment should not proceed to an utter destruction of the whole kingdom.

Amos 7:4

The Lord God called to contend by fire, which devoured the great deep, and did eat up apart. This represents a sorer judgment than the former, and in the opinion of most expositors denotes the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, who carried a great paTt of Israel away captive, (2 Kings xv. 29.) and so was properly represented by a raging fire, which consumed the sea by turning it into vapours, and then devoured a great part of the land.

Amos 7:7

Hie Lord stood by a wall made by a plumbline, &c. God’s judgments are sometimes represented by a line and a plummet, to denote that they are measured out by the exactest niles of justice. (See 2 Kings xxi. 13. Isa. xxviii. 17.) The instruments which are designed for building are sometimes used to mark out those places which are to be pulled down or destroyed. (See 2 Sam. viii. 2. Isa. xxxiv. 11. Lam. ii. 8.) The vision imports, that as God formerly built up his people, he would now.pluck them down and destroy them. (See Jer. i. 10. xxxi. 28.)

Amos 7:8

I will not again pass by them any more. I will not any longer pass over their transgressions. (Compare viii. 2. Mieah vii. 18.) Or, I will not pass through them to destroy them any more, (see v. 17.) because I will do it once for all. (Compare Nahum i. 9.)

Amos 7:9

And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate. The altar and grove at Beer-sheba, where Isaac dwelt and built an altar, (Gen. xxvi. 25. xlvi. 1.) This place was afterward abused to idolatry. (See the note upon v. 5.) And the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste.] The places set apart for idolatrous worship: such were Beth-el, Gilgal, and Beer-sheba. (See iii. 14. v. 5.) The word sanctuary is used for an idolatrous temple, Isa. xvi. 12. And I tvill rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.] This was fulfilled when Shallum conspired against Zechariah the son of Jeroboam, and slew him, (2 Kings xv. 10.) who was the last of that family who reigned.

Amos 7:10

Then Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el, sent to Jeroboam. This was* a priest, not of the tribe of Levi, but such a one as those were, whom Jeroboam, the first of that name, had consecrated to perform the idolatrous service at Beth-el. (See 1 Kings xii. 31.).477*0$ hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel.] i. e. In an open and barefaced manner. He traduces the prophet as a stirrer up of sedition: the same crime was objected to Jeremiah, Jer. xxvi. 9, 10. to Christ, Lukexxiii.2. and to St. Paul, Acts xxiv. 5. The land is not able to bear all his words.] The friends of the government cannot patiently hear them, and the enemies of it will take advantage from them to make some disturbance.

Amos 7:11

For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword. This was a plain perverting of the prophet’s words; for he did not prophesy against the king himself, but against his family or posterity.

Amos 7:12

O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there. There thou mayest find better encouragement and reception, than thou art like to do here.

Amos 7:13

For it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court. Beth-el is the place where the king performs his religious worship in person, and often resides there with his court, that he may the better attend upon the service performed at this place. (See 1 Kings xiii. 1.)

Amos 7:14

Then answered Amos — I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son. I was not a prophet by profession, nor bred up in the schools of the prophets, as those usually were who took that office upon them. (See 2 Kings ii. 5, &c. iv. 38. vi. 1.) But I was a herdman.] A herdman, or a husbandman, is spoken of as an employment not consistent with that of a prophet, Zech. xiii. 5. except where there is an extraordinary call. And a gatherer of sycamore fruit.] One that gafliered a sort of wild fig, by some called an Egyptian fig. They that gathered it opened the skin, that the fruit might ripen the sooner: so the LXX. interpret the Hebrew word boles, kv(%(x)v avKQfxiva, opening the sycamore fruit: which agrees uiyiiizeu uy iviicrusun vo/ (Nat. Hist. [chap. viii. \yith Pliny’s account of ordering this fruit lib. xiii. cap. 7.)

Amos 7:16

Drop not thy word agahist the home of Isaac. The verb hittith, to drop, signifies in its primary sense to instil doctrine or instruction by easy and gentle degrees: (see Deut. xxxii. 2.) from thence it comes to denote prophecy, being one sort of instruction accompanied with exhortation. See Ezek. xxi. 2. Micah ii. 6. where the word is translated prophesy by our English interpreters. Tlie house of Isaac may be taken in the same sense with the high places of Isaac, ver. 9. meaning Bcer-sheba: or it may be equivalent to Jacob or Israel, in which sense most expositors understand it.

Amos 7:17

Tliy wife shall be a harlot in the city. When Beth-el shall be taken by the Assyrians, (sec Hos. x. 5, 6.) (he soldiers shall abuse thy wife, and treat her as a common harlot. (Compare Isa. xiii. 1G. Lam. v. 11. Zech. xiv. 2.) And this shall befal her as a punishment of her idolatry, which is spiritual whoredom. (See Hos. iv. 13.) Thy land shall be divided by line.] Among the Assyrians: in the division of land it was customary to mark out every one’s share by a line. (See Psal. lxxviii. 55.) And thou shalt die in a polluted land.] Thou shalt be carried captive out of thine own country, and die in a land where the inhabitants arc idolaters, and where it will be impossible to converse without committing legal pollutions. (Sec Ezek. iy. 13. Hos. ix. 3.)