Amos 6:10

A grim episode imagined by the prophet (cf. Isaiah 3:6 f.) for the purpose of illustrating vividly the terrors of the time: the relative of a deceased man enters his house to perform the last duties to his corpse: he finds no living person in it except one, secreted in a far corner, who tells him he is the solitary survivor of the household, all the others having perished (cf. Amos 5:9): so desperate is the outlook that men dread even to mention Jehovah's name, for fear lest it should call down a fresh judgement upon them.

a man's uncle His father and brother are supposed to be dead: so his uncle is his next-of-kin, and, as such, has the care of his interment.

and he that burneth him As a rule, the Hebrews did not burn their dead, but buried them, the only exceptions noted in the O.T. being the cases of criminals (Leviticus 20:14; Leviticus 21:9; Joshua 7:15; Joshua 7:25; cf. Genesis 38:24), and of Saul and his son, whose bodies were burnt by the men of Jabesh-Gilead, after they had rescued them from the wall of Beth-shean. If the rendering given be correct, it must be supposed that Amos pictured burial as being impossible, either on account of the limited space available, in a besieged city, or because of the virulence of the plague. The Heb. is however, literally, not he that burneth him, but his burner; and as the terms used seem to imply that some recognised custom is alluded to, it is quite possible that the reference is to the practice of burning fragrant spices in honour of the dead: see Jeremiah 34:5; and esp. 2 Chronicles 16:14 ("and they laid him [Asa] in the bed [bier], which was filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices, prepared by the perfumer, and they burnt for him avery great burning"); 2 Chronicles 21:19 b.

by the sides in the innermost parts (R.V.), the same word which is used of the furthest or innermost parts of a cave (1 Samuel 24:3), of Sheol (Isaiah 14:15), and, as here, of a house, Psalms 128:3.

Is there yetany with thee? viz. alive.

Then shall he say And he shall say: the subject is still the survivor, speaking from the corner of the house, the words -and he shall say" being inserted merely for the purpose of separating two parts of the answer which have no immediate connexion with each other (Hitzig compares 2 Kings 6:27 f.; see also Genesis 16:10-11; Genesis 21:7).

Hold thy tongue Hush! the exclamation found also in Amos 8:3; Judges 3:19; Habakkuk 2:20; Zephaniah 1:7; Zechariah 2:13; and in the plural, treated as a verb, Nehemiah 8:11.

forwe must not mention, &c. lest, namely such, at least, appears to be the meaning by an injudicious utterance some fresh judgement should be invoked upon the panic-stricken survivors. It may have been the custom, upon occasion of a death, to offer some prayer or invocation to Jehovah; and the speaker, unmanned by the terrible mortality about him, feels a superstitious dread of mentioning Jehovah's name, lest He should be moved by it to manifest some fresh token of His displeasure (comp. partly Isaiah 19:17).