Amos 4:3

shall go outat the breaches Amos pictures Samaria as captured, and the self-indulgent ladies forced to leave the city, as captives, through the breaches made in the walls by the foe.

everycow at that which is before her every one straight before her, forced to go on in the train of captives, unable to turn aside or go back to save anything which she has left behind her, perhaps (if the fig. of Amos 4:1 be still in the prophet's mind) "as a herd of cows go one after another through a gap in a fence." For the Hebrew idiom employed, see Joshua 6:5; Joshua 6:20.

and ye shall castthem into the palace The words are very obscure; and indeed, in all probability, corrupt. The slightest change would be to read, with the alteration of a vowel-point in the verb (supported by Sept. Pesh. Vulg.), And ye shall be cast into Harmon: Harmon would then be the name of the place of exile, or disgrace, into which they were to be -cast" or -flung": the word is used mostly of a corpse, as Jeremiah 22:19, but not always so (see Jeremiah 22:28, -cast into"). No place, however, named Harmon is known; nor is the word an appellative in Hebrew. Some of the ancients saw in -Harmonah" an allusion to Armenia: thus the Targ. renders, -And they shall carry you into exile beyond the mountains of Harmini"; Pesh. -And they shall be cast to the mountain of Armenia"; Symm. -into Armenia"; cf. Jerome (in his note), "Et projiciemini in locis Armeniae, quae vocantur Armona." In this case we should read, for ההרמנה, הר מני : in Jeremiah 51:27 Minni(Targ. Harmini, as here; Pesh. Armenia) is the name of a people on the S.E. of Ararat, the Mannaiof the Assyrian Inscriptions (Schrader, K.A.T[150][151], pp. 423 f.); this would yield a sense in harmony with Jeremiah 51:27 ("beyond Damascus"). It is however doubtful whether it is the original reading; very possibly the corruption lies deeper, and the original reading is irrecoverable.

[150] .A.T.… Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[151] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.