Amos 3:2

You only&c. The pron. is emphatic by its position, in the Heb., as in the English.

known i.e. known favourably, noticed, regarded: so Genesis 18:19, "I have knownhim to the end that he may command his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of Jehovah," &c.; Hosea 13:5, "I did knowthee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought"; Psalms 1:6; Psalms 37:18, and elsewhere. Israel was the only nation whom Jehovah -knew" in this special sense, and visited with the tokens of His friendship.

families of the earth Genesis 12:3; Genesis 28:14.

therefore I will punish you&c. The Israelites argued, from the privileges bestowed upon them, that they were the recipients of God's favour, irrespectively of their deeds: Amos retorts that, so far from this being the case, their privileges augment their responsibilities: instead of proving Himself their saviour, whether they are obedient to His will or not, He will, if they are disobedient, visit their iniquities upon them. So in Jeremiah 7 the men of Judah point to the material Temple in their midst as the palladium of their security; but the prophet retorts in a similar strain, that, if they desire to merit Jehovah's protection, and wish Jerusalem to escape the fate of Shiloh, they must -amend their ways," and practise more consistently than they have done hitherto the ordinances of civil righteousness (Jeremiah 7:3-15).

punish you for R.V. more lit., visit upon you, as the same phrase is often rendered, Amos 3:14; Exodus 20:5; Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 5:29; Jeremiah 23:2 (but punish, Jeremiah 11:22; Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:32, &c.). The expression is particularly frequent in Jeremiah.

iniquities the conventional, and sufficient rendering of -âwôn. Etymologically, however, as Arabic shews (where the corresponding verb ghawâmeans to err, or go astray), the idea expressed by it is that of deviation from the right track, error:so the corresponding verb, 2Sa 7:14; 2 Samuel 24:17; 1 Kings 8:47 al.Comp. the writer's Notes on the Hebrew Text of Samuel, on 1 Samuel 20:30.