Amos 3:14

That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground. THAT - rather, Since or For. This verse is not as the English version translates, the thing which the witnesses cited are to "testify" (), but the reason why God calls on the pagan to witness Samaria's guilt-namely, in order to justify the punishment which He here declares He will inflict. I WILL ALSO VISIT THE ALTARS OF BETH-EL - the golden calves, which were the source of all "the transgression of Israel" (cf. ; , where the man of God denounces the altar of Bethel as doomed to be defiled by Josiah's, offering...

Amos, I have no doubt, added this passage, to show that the superstitions, in which he knew the Israelites falsely trusted, would be so far from being of any help to them, that they would, on the contrary, lead them to ruin, because the people were by them provoking God’s wrath the more against themselves. When the Israelites heard that God was offended with them, they looked on their sacrifices and other superstitions, as their shield and cover: for thus do hypocrites mock God. But we know that the sacrifices offered at Bethel were mere profanations; for the whole worship was spurious. God had indeed chosen to himself a place where he designed sacrifices to be offered. The Israelites built a temple without any command, nay, against the manifest prohibition of God. Since then they had thus violated and corrupted the whole worship of God, strange was their madness to dare to obtrude on Go...

9-15 That power which is an instrument of unrighteousness, will justly be brought down and broken. What is got and kept wrongfully, will not be kept long. Some are at ease, but there will come a day of visitation, and in that day, all they are proud of, and put confidence in, shall fail them. God will inquire into the sins of which they have been guilty in their houses, the robbery they have stored up, and the luxury in which they lived. The pomp and pleasantness of men's houses, do not fortify against God's judgments, but make sufferings the more grievous and vexatious. Yet a remnant, according to the election of grace, will be secured by our great and good Shepherd, as from the jaws of destruction, in the worst times....

Verse Amos 3:14. _IN THE DAY THAT I SHALL VISIT_] When Josiah made a reformation in the land he destroyed _idolatry_, pulled down the temples and altars that had been consecrated to idol worship, and even burnt the bones of the priests of Baal and the golden calves upon their own altars. See 2 Kings 23:15-12, c....

IN THE DAY THAT I SHALL VISIT THE TRANSGRESSION OF ISRAEL UPON, HIM, I WILL ALSO VISIT (UPON) THE ALTARS OF BETHEL - Israel then hoped that its false worship of “nature” would avail it. God says, contrariwise, that when He should punish, all their false worship, so far from helping them, should itself be the manifest object of His displeasure. Again God attests, at once, His long-suffering and His final retribution. Still had He foreborne to punish, “being slow to anger and of great goodness;” but when that day, fixed by the divine Wisdom, should come, wherein He should vindicate His own holiness, by enduring the sin no longer, then He would “visit their transgressions,” that is, all of them, old and new, forgotten by man or remembered, “upon them.” Scripture speaks of “visiting offences upon” because, in God’s Providence, the sin returns upon a man’s own head. It is not only the cause o...

EXPOSITION VERSE 1-CH. 6:14 Part II. THREE ADDRESSES PARTICULARIZING THE SINS OF ISRAEL AND ANNOUNCING IMMINENT JUDGMENT. AMOS 3:1 _§ 1. First address: the prophet begins by showing Israel's ingratitude for past mercies _(Amos 3:1, Amos 3:2)_, and his own commission to announce the coming judgment _(Amos 3:3). They have drawn this upon themselves by iniquities which astonish even heathen

THAT IN THE DAY THAT I SHALL VISIT THE TRANSGRESSIONS OF ISRAEL UPON HIM,.... The three or four mentioned in the preceding chapter, the great multitude of them, their profaneness, uncleanness, and luxury, their injustice and oppression of the poor; when he should visit and punish for these sins, as he would by the hand of the Assyrian, he would not forget their idolatry; though no notice is taken of this before, in the appeal to the Heathen princes, who were likewise guilty of it: I WILL ALSO VISIT THE ALTARS OF BETHEL; where one of the calves Jeroboam made was set up and worshipped; and where was an altar erected, and sacrifice offered on it, 1 Kings 12:28; and here the plural number is put for the singular; though it may be, that in process of time more altars might be set up as they increased in idolatry, and as seems from...

II. THE PROPHETIC MESSAGES UNCOVERING THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE CHAPTER 3 The First Discourse _ 1. There is cause for judgment (Amos 3:1) _ 2. The coming judgment visitation (Amos 3:9) Amos 3:1. “Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You have I only known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.” This is the solemn beginning of the special messages addressed to the nation by the humble herdman of Tekoa. The Lord had singled them out from the other nations. He had separated them unto Himself. With His mighty power and outstretched arm He had del

GUILT AND DOOM OF SAMARIA. The prophet proceeds to apply the lesson. The peoples are summoned to proclaim the fate that has befallen (Amos 3:9 *) the castles of Ashdod and those in the land of Egypt, and then to assemble and witness the sins of Samaria. From the mountains of Samaria, the city presents a spectacle of great turmoil and deep-rooted oppression. And the reason is (Amos 3:10) that the ruling classes have no proper sense of what is right or straightforward. Wrong thought brings wrong doing, and wrong doing inevitably brings punishment. Therefore an adversary will succeed in encompassing the land and will be the means of bringing low the proud and rich potentates. Amos knew by experience that when the lion attacks the sheep, often all that can be saved is two legs or the piece of an ear ...

IN THE DAY THAT, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Exodus 32:34). App-92. GROUND. earth. Hebrew. _erez_....