Amos 7:6

_THEN SAID I, O LORD GOD, CEASE, I BESEECH THEE: BY WHOM SHALL JACOB ARISE? FOR HE IS SMALL._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

He adds, that God was again pacified. We must ever bear in mind the object he had in view; for ungodly men thought the Prophets to be liars, whenever God did not immediately execute the vengeance he had denounced: but Amos here reminds them, that when God defers punishment, he does not in vain threaten, but waits for men to repent; and that if they still go on in abusing his patience, they will have at last to feel how dreadful is the vengeance which awaits all those who thus pervert the goodness of God, who hear not God inviting them so kindly to himself. This is the meaning. It follows —...

1-9 God bears long, but he will not bear always with a provoking people. The remembrance of the mercies we formerly received, like the produce of the earth of the former growth, should make us submissive to the will of God, when we meet with disappointments in the latter growth. The Lord has many ways of humbling a sinful nation. Whatever trouble we are under, we should be most earnest with God for the forgiveness of sin. Sin will soon make a great people small. What will become of Israel, if the hand that should raise him be stretched out against him? See the power of prayer. See what a blessing praying people are to a land. See how ready, how swift God is to show mercy; how he waits to be gracious. Israel was a wall, a strong wall, which God himself reared as a defence to his sanctuary. The Lord now seems to stand upon this wall. He measures it; it appears to be a bowing, bulging wall...

As our Lord repeated the same words in the Garden, so Amos interceded with God with words, all but one, the same, and with the same plea, that, if God did not help, Israel was indeed helpless. Yet a second time God spared Israel. To human sight, what so strange and unexpected, as that the Assyrian and his army, having utterly destroyed the kingdom of Damascus, and carried away its people, and having devoured, like fire, more than half of Israel, rolled back like an ebb-tide, swept away to ravage other countries, and spared the capital? And who, looking at the mere outside of things, would have thought that that tide of fire was rolled back, not by anything in that day, but by the prophet’s prayer some 47 years before? Man would look doubtless for motives of human policy, which led Tiglath-pileser to accept tribute from Pekah, while he killed Rezin; and while he carried off all the Syrian...

EXPOSITION VERSE 1-CH. 9:10 Part III. FIVE VISIONS, WITH EXPLANATIONS, CONTINUING AND CONFIRMING THE PREVIOUS PROPHECY. The afflictions are climactic, increasing in intensity. The first two symbolize judgments which have been averted by the prophet's intercession; the third and fourth adumbrate judgments which are to fall inevitably; and the fifth proclaims the overthrow of the temple and the old theocracy. AMOS 7:1 _§ 1. The first vision, of locusts, represents Israel as a field eaten down to the ground, but shooting up afresh, and its utter destruction postponed at the prophet's prayer._...

THE LORD REPENTED FOR THIS,.... He heard the prophet's prayer, and desisted from going on with the threatened destruction: THIS ALSO SHALL NOT BE, SAITH THE LORD GOD; the whole land shall not be destroyed, only a part of it carried captive....

Amos 7:1. _Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small. The Lord repented for this: it shall not be, saith the LORD._ In a vision, the prophet saw the locusts or grasshoppers come to devour all the green things of the land, a very terrible visitation. If you have never seen it, you cannot realize how utterly bare everything is made after the visit of the locusts. The prophet put up a vehement and earnest prayer; he cried, «O Lord God, forgive» and, no sooner was the intercession offered than the Lord said, «It shall not be.» Thus the impending judgment was turned aw...

III. THE FIVE VISIONS OF THE PROPHET CHAPTER 7 Three Visions and the Opposition Against Amos _ 1. The vision of locusts (Amos 7:1) _ 2. The vision concerning the fire (Amos 7:4) 3. The vision of the plumbline (Amos 7:7) 4. Opposition against Amos (Amos 7:10) Amos 7:1. In the first vision Amos saw how the Lord prepared locusts (not grasshoppers as in the A.V. They started in with their destructive work, just as they did in the day of Joel. Then Amos interceded in behalf of the sinful nation, “O Lord, GOD, forgive, I beseech Thee, by whom

THE VISION OF FIRE. Another time the prophet saw a fire-phenomenon. Yahweh (Amos 7:4) called down a fire to punish (or judge). This devoured the great deep (Genesis 1:6 f.*), whence came the rivers and fountains, and would have devoured the tilled land, when the prophet interceded (Amos 7:5) and Yahweh relented (Amos 7:6)....

The second vision. The devouring fire. _called to contend by fire_ Jehovah arraigns His people: and fire is the agent which he summons against them (cf. _to dispute_, or _litigate, with fire_, Isaiah 66:16). For the idea of Jehovah's _contending_(in a forensic sense) with His people, comp. Isaiah 3:13; Jeremiah 2:9; Hosea 4:1; Micah 6:2 (where the corresponding substantive is rendered _controversy_); and for _calleth_, comp. on Amos 7:8. and it devoured the great