14 they that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, [As] thy god, O Dan, liveth! and, [As] the way of Beer-sheba liveth! even they shall fall, and never rise up again.
And seek not Bethel, neither go to Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.
and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, so that if he found any who were of the way, both men and women, he might bring [them] bound to Jerusalem.
And the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. And he said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt! And he set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, and ground it very small, until it became fine dust; and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that flowed down from the mountain.
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast [thee] off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will they be incapable of purity? For from Israel is this also: -- a workman made it, and itis no God: for the calf of Samaria shall be [broken in] pieces.
And there took place at that time no small disturbance about the way.
But when some were hardened and disbelieved, speaking evil of the way before the multitude, he left them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
and them that bow down to the host of the heavens upon the housetops; and them that bow down to Jehovah, that swear by [him], and swear by Malcham;
The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more arise: she is cast down upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calf of Beth-aven; for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the idolatrous priests thereof shall tremble for it, for its glory, because it is departed from it.
Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah trespass; and come ye not unto Gilgal, neither go up to Beth-aven, nor swear [As] Jehovah liveth!
and shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise, because of the evil that I will bring upon it: and they shall be weary. Thus far the words of Jeremiah.
who bringeth forth chariot and horse, army and power -- they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched as tow:
He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and without remedy.
There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and are not able to rise.
But they mocked at the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the fury of Jehovah rose against his people, and there was no remedy.
And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver; and built on the hill, and called the name of the city that he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria.
And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, wherewith he has sinned, and made Israel to sin.
but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to thee, Eat no bread and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come to the sepulchre of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled the ass for him, for the prophet that he had brought back; and he departed. And a lion met him by the way and slew him; and his corpse was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it; the lion also stood by the corpse. And behold, men passed by, and saw the corpse cast in the way and the lion standing by the corpse; and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And the prophet that brought him back from the way heard [of it] and said, It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of Jehovah; therefore Jehovah has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and slain him, according to the word of Jehovah which he spoke to him. And he spoke to his sons saying, Saddle me the ass; and they saddled it. And he went and found his corpse cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the corpse: the lion had not eaten the corpse, nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the corpse of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back; and the old prophet came into the city, to mourn and to bury him. And he laid his corpse in his own sepulchre; and they mourned over him [saying], Alas, my brother! And it came to pass after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons saying, When I am dead, bury me in the sepulchre in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the word that he cried by the word of Jehovah against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria, shall certainly come to pass. After this thing Jeroboam turned not from his evil way, but made again from all classes of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became [one] of the priests of the high places. And by this thing there was sin on the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made; and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Amos 8
Commentary on Amos 8 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Ripeness of Israel for Judgment - Amos 8:1-14
Under the symbol of a basket filled with ripe fruit, the Lord shows the prophet that Israel is ripe for judgment (Amos 8:1-3); whereupon Amos, explaining the meaning of this vision, announces to the unrighteous magnates of the nation the changing of their joyful feasts into days of mourning, as the punishment from God for their unrighteousness (Amos 8:4-10), and sets before them a time when those who now despise the word of God will sigh in vain in their extremity for a word of the Lord (Amos 8:11-14).
Vision of a Basket of Ripe Fruit. - Amos 8:1. “Thus did the Lord Jehovah show me: and behold a basket with ripe fruit. Amos 8:2. And He said, What seest thou, Amos? And I said, A basket of ripe fruit. Then Jehovah said to me, The end is come to my people Israel; I will not pass by them any more. Amos 8:3. And the songs of the palace will yell in that day, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah: corpses in multitude; in every place hath He cast them forth: Hush!” כּלוּב from כּלך , to lay hold of, to grasp, lit., a receiver, here a basket (of basket-work), in Jeremiah 5:27 a bird-cage. קיץ : summer-fruit (see at 2 Samuel 16:1); in Isaiah 16:9; Isaiah 28:4, the gathering of fruit, hence ripe fruit. The basket of ripe fruit ( qayits ) is thus explained by the Lord: the end ( qēts ) is come to my people (cf. Ezekiel 7:6). Consequently the basket of ripe fruit is a figurative representation of the nation that is now ripe for judgment, although qēts , the end, does not denote its ripeness for judgment, but its destruction, and the word qēts is simply chosen to form a paronomasia with qayits . לא אוסיף וגו as in Amos 7:8. All the joy shall be turned into mourning. the thought is not that the temple-singing to the praise of God (Amos 5:23) would be turned into yelling, but that the songs of joy (Amos 6:5; 2 Samuel 19:36) would be turned into yells, i.e., into sounds of lamentation (cf. Amos 8:10 and 1 Maccabees 9:41), namely, because of the multitude of the dead which lay upon the ground on every side. השׁליך is not impersonal, in the sense of “which men are no longer able to bury on account of their great number, and therefore cast away in quiet places on every side;” but Jehovah is to be regarded as the subject, viz., which God has laid prostrate, or cast to the ground on every side. For the adverbial use of הס cannot be established. The word is an interjection here, as in Amos 6:10; and the exclamation, Hush! is not a sign of gloomy despair, but an admonition to bow beneath the overwhelming severity of the judgment of God, as in Zephaniah 1:7 (cf. Habakkuk 2:20 and Zechariah 2:13).
To this vision the prophet attaches the last admonition to the rich and powerful men of the nation, to observe the threatening of the Lord before it is too late, impressing upon them the terrible severity of the judgment. Amos 8:4. “Hear this, ye that gape for the poor, and to destroy the meek of the earth, Amos 8:5. Saying, When is the new moon over, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may open wheat, to make the ephah small, and the shekel great, and to falsify the scale of deceit? Amos 8:6. To buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and the refuse of the corn will we sell.” The persons addressed are the השּׁאפים אביון , i.e., not those who snort at the poor man, to frighten him away from any further pursuit of his rights (Baur), but, according to Amos 2:6-7, those who greedily pant for the poor man, who try to swallow him (Hitzig). This is affirmed in the second clause of the verse, in which שׁאפים is to be repeated in thought before להשׁבּית : they gape to destroy the quiet in the land ( ענוי־ארץ = ענוים , in Amos 2:7), “namely by grasping all property for themselves, Job 22:8; Isaiah 5:8” (Hitzig). Amos 8:5 and Amos 8:6 show how they expect to accomplish their purpose. Like covetous usurers, they cannot even wait for the end of the feast-days to pursue their trade still further. Chōdēsh , the new moon, was a holiday on which all trade was suspended, just as it was on the Sabbath (see at Numbers 28:11 and 2 Kings 4:23). השׁבּיר שׁבר , to sell corn, as in Genesis 41:57. פּתח בּר , to open up corn, i.e., to open the granaries (cf. Genesis 41:56). In doing so, they wanted to cheat the poor by small measure (ephah), and by making the shekel great, i.e., by increasing the price, which was to be weighed out to them; also by false scales ( ‛ivvēth , to pervert, or falsify the scale of deceit, i.e., the scale used for cheating), and by bad corn ( mappal , waste or refuse); that in this way they might make the poor man so poor, that he would either be obliged to sell himself to them from want and distress (Leviticus 25:39), or be handed over to the creditor by the court of justice, because he was no longer able to pay for a pair of shoes, i.e., the very smallest debt (cf. Amos 2:6).
Such wickedness as this would be severely punished by the Lord. Amos 8:7. “Jehovah hath sworn by the pride of Jacob, Verily I will not forget all their deeds for ever. Amos 8:8. Shall the earth not tremble for this, and every inhabitants upon it mourn? and all of it rises like the Nile, and heaves and sinks like the Nile of Egypt.” The pride of Jacob is Jehovah, as in Hosea 5:5 and Hosea 7:10. Jehovah swears by the pride of Jacob, as He does by His holiness in Amos 4:2, or by His soul in Amos 6:8, i.e., as He who is the pride and glory of Israel: i.e., as truly as He is so, will He and must He punish such acts as these. By overlooking such sins, or leaving them unpunished, He would deny His glory in Israel. שׁכח , to forget a sin, i.e., to leave it unpunished. In Amos 8:8 the negative question is an expression denoting strong assurance. “For this” is generally supposed to refer to the sins; but this is a mistake, as the previous verse alludes not to the sins themselves, but to the punishment of them; and the solemn oath of Jehovah does not contain so subordinate and casual a thought, that we can pass over Amos 8:7, and take על זאת as referring back to Amos 8:4-6. It rather refers to the substance of the oath, i.e., to the punishment of the sins which the Lord announces with a solemn oath. This will be so terrible that the earth will quake, and be resolved, as it were, into its primeval condition of chaos. Râgaz , to tremble, or, when applied to the earth, to quake, does not mean to shudder, or to be shocked, as Rosenmüller explains it after Jeremiah 2:12. Still less can the idea of the earth rearing and rising up in a stormy manner to cast them off, which Hitzig supports, be proved to be a biblical idea from Isaiah 24:20. The thought is rather that, under the weight of the judgment, the earth will quake, and all its inhabitants will be thrown into mourning, as we may clearly see from the parallel passage in Amos 9:5. In Amos 8:8 this figure is carried out still further, and the whole earth is represented as being turned into a sea, heaving and falling in a tempestuous manner, just as in the case of the flood. כּלּהּ , the totality of the earth, the entire globe, will rise, and swell and fall like waters lashed into a storm. This rising and falling of the earth is compared to the rising and sinking of the Nile. According to the Parallel passage in Amos 9:5, כּאר is a defective form for כּיאר , just as בּוּל is for יבוּל in Job 40:20, and it is still further defined by the expression כּיאור מצרים , which follows. All the ancient versions have taken it as יאור , and many of the Hebrew codd. (in Kennicott and De Rossi) have this reading. Nigrash, to be excited, a term applied to the stormy sea (Isaiah 57:20). נשׁקה is a softened form for נשׁקעה , as is shown by שׁקעה in Amos 9:5.
“And it will come to pass on that day, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, I cause the sun to set at noon, and make it dark to the earth in clear day. Amos 8:10. And turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and bring mourning clothes upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and make it like mourning for an only one, and the end thereof like a bitter day.” The effect of the divine judgment upon the Israelites is depicted here. Just as the wicked overturn the moral order of the universe, so will the Lord, with His judgment, break through the order of nature, cause the sun to go down at noon, and envelope the earth in darkness in clear day. The words of the ninth verse are not founded upon the idea of an eclipse of the sun, though Michaelis and Hitzig not only assume that they are, but actually attempt to determine the time of its occurrence. An eclipse of the sun is not the setting of the sun ( כּוא ). But to any man the sun sets at noon, when he is suddenly snatched away by death, in the very midst of his life. And this also applies to a nation when it is suddenly destroyed in the midst of its earthly prosperity. But it has a still wider application. When the Lord shall come to judgment, at a time when the world, in its self-security, looketh not for Him (cf. Matthew 24:37.), this earth's sun will set at noon, and the earth be covered with darkness in bright daylight. And every judgment that falls upon an ungodly people or kingdom, as the ages roll away, is a harbinger of the approach of the final judgment. Amos 8:10. When the judgment shall burst upon Israel, then will all the joyous feasts give way to mourning and lamentation (compare Amos 8:3 and Amos 5:16; Hosea 2:13). On the shaving of a bald place as a sign of mourning, see Isaiah 3:24. This mourning will be very deep, like the mourning for the death of an only son (cf. Jeremiah 6:26 and Zechariah 12:10). The suffix in שׂמתּיה (I make it ) does not refer to אבל (mourning), but to all that has been previously mentioned as done upon that day, to their weeping and lamenting (Hitzig). אחריתהּ , the end thereof, namely, of this mourning and lamentation, will be a bitter day ( כ is caph verit. ; see at Joel 1:15). This implies that the judgment will not be a passing one, but will continue.
And at that time the light and comfort of the word of God will also fail them. Amos 8:11. “Behold, days come, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that I send a hungering into the land, not a hungering for bread nor a thirst for water, but to hear the words of Jehovah. Amos 8:12. And they will reel from sea to sea; and from the north, and even to the east, they sweep round to seek the word of Jehovah, and will not find it.” The bitterness of the time of punishment is increased by the fact that the Lord will then withdrawn His word from them, i.e., the light of His revelation. They who will not now hear His word, as proclaimed by the prophets, will then cherish the greatest longing for it. Such hunger and thirst will be awakened by the distress and affliction that will come upon them. The intensity of this desire is depicted in Amos 8:12. They reel ( נוּע as in Amos 4:8) from the sea to the sea; that is to say, not “from the Dead Sea in the east to the Mediterranean in the west,” for Joel 2:20 and Zechariah 14:8 are not cases in point, as the two seas are defined there by distinct epithets; but as in Psalms 72:8 and Zechariah 9:10, according to which the meaning is, from the sea to where the sea occurs again, at the other end of the world, “the sea being taken as the boundary of the earth” (Hupfeld). The other clause, “from the north even to the east,” contains an abridged expression for “from north to south and from west to east,” i.e., to every quarter of the globe.
“In that day will the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst. Amos 8:14. They who swear by the guilt of Samaria, and say, By the life of thy God, O Dan! and by the life of the way to Beersheba; and will fall, and not rise again.” Those who now stand in all the fullest and freshest vigour of life, will succumb to this hunger and thirst. The virgins and young men are individualized, as comprising that portion of the nation which possessed the vigorous fulness of youth. עלף , to be enveloped in night, to sink into a swoon, hithp. to hide one's self, to faint away. הנּשׁבּעים refers to the young men and virgins; and inasmuch as they represent the most vigorous portion of the nation, to the nation as a whole. If the strongest succumb to the thirst, how much more the weak! 'Ashmath Shōm e rōn , the guilt of Samaria, is the golden calf at Bethel, the principal idol of the kingdom of Israel, which is named after the capital Samaria (compare Deuteronomy 9:21, “the sin of Israel”), not the Asherah which was still standing in Samaria in the reign of Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13:6); for apart from the question whether it was there in the time of Jeroboam, this is at variance with the second clause, in which the manner of their swearing is given, - namely, by the life of the god at Dan, that is to say, the golden calf that was there; so that the guilt of Samaria can only have been the golden calf at Bethel, the national sanctuary of the ten tribes (cf. Amos 4:4; Amos 5:5). The way to Beersheba is mentioned, instead of the worship, for the sake of which the pilgrimage to Beersheba was made. This worship, again, was not a purely heathen worship, but an idolatrous worship of Jehovah (see Amos 5:5). The fulfilment of these threats commenced with the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, and the carrying away of the ten tribes into exile in Assyria, and continues to this day in the case of that portion of the Israelitish nation which is still looking for the Messiah, the prophet promised by Moses, and looking in vain, because they will not hearken to the preaching of the gospel concerning the Messiah, who appeared as Jesus.