Amos 3:9,10

The heathen themselves are invited to bear witness whether the sins of Samaria do not deserve judgement.

Publish&c. proclaim it (lit. make it to be heard) over the palaces in Ashdod, &c., i.e. on their flat roofs, whence all can hear (cf. Matthew 10:27): the nobles of Ashdod (Amos 1:8) and Egypt are to be invited to come and judge for themselves of the moral condition of Samaria. The persons addressed may be the prophets; or, more probably, those, whoever they might be, capable of bearing the message; cf. Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 57:14; Isaiah 62:11; Jeremiah 5:1; Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 5:20, &c.

the mountains of Samaria i.e. surrounding Samaria. Samaria, the hill which Omri fortified and made his capital (1 Kings 16:24), and which, in the days of its prosperity, must have presented to the eye an imposing -crown" (Isaiah 28:1) of battlements, is a fine rounded eminence, standing in the centre of a magnificent amphitheatre of mountains, with the Mediterranean visible through a gap in the distance. Upon these mountains the prophet pictures the inhabitants of the palaces of Ashdod and Egypt assembled, for the purpose of looking down into the Israelite capital and observing the malpractices rampant within her.

the great tumults or confusions, disorders, the result of a state in which might rules over right. Cf. Ezekiel 22:5 (of Jerusalem).

the oppressed rather, oppression, as Job 35:9. Cf. Jeremiah 6:6; Ezekiel 22:7; Ezekiel 22:12; Ezekiel 22:29.