3 Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have sold the righteous for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, And didn't remember the brotherly covenant;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have rejected Yahweh's law, And have not kept his statutes, And their lies have led them astray, After which their fathers walked;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Moab, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they carried away captive the whole community, To deliver them up to Edom;
Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil news, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it can't be quiet. Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy? Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh of Hosts. I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.
The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, says Yahweh of Hosts.
An oracle. The word of Yahweh is against the land of Hadrach, And will rest upon Damascus; For the eye of man And of all the tribes of Israel is toward Yahweh;
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because he pursued his brother with the sword, And cast off all pity, And his anger raged continually, And he kept his wrath forever;
In those days Yahweh began to cut off from Israel: and Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel; from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.
Hazael said, Why weeps my lord? He answered, Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strongholds will you set on fire, and their young men will you kill with the sword, and will dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child.
It shall happen, that he who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu kill; and he who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha kill.
For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people;
Give a portion to seven, yes, even to eight; For you don't know what evil will be on the earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Amos 1
Commentary on Amos 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Prophecy of Amos
Chapter 1
In this chapter we have,
Amo 1:1-2
Here is,
Amo 1:3-15
What the Lord says here may be explained by what he says Jer. 12:14, Thus said the Lord, against all my evil neighbours that touch the inheritance of my people Israel, Behold, I will pluck them out. Damascus was a near neighbour to Israel on the north, Tyre and Gaza on the west, Edom on the south, Ammon and (in the next chapter) Moab on the east; and all of them had been, one time, one way, or other, pricking briers and grieving thorns to Israel, evil neighbours to them; and, because God espouses his people's cause, he there calls them his evil neighbours, and here comes forth to reckon with them. The method is taken in dealing with each of them is, in part, the same, and therefore we put them together, and yet in each there is something peculiar.