Amos 8:10

The lamentation to be produced by such an alarming spectacle.

And I will turn your pilgrimages into mourning The sacred pilgrimages (Amos 5:21) were occasions of rejoicing: cf. Isaiah 30:29; Hosea 2:11 "And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her pilgrimages, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her sacred seasons." Comp. also Lamentations 5:15 "our dance is turned into mourning."

into lamentation into a dirge (Amos 5:1). Not unrestrained wailings, but a regularly constructed dirge (see on Amos 5:1), is what Amos pictures as taking the place of joyous songs.

bring up upon Heb. cause to come up upon, the correlative of come up upon, said idiomatically of a garment (Leviticus 19:19; Ezekiel 44:17).

sackcloth i.e. rough, coarse hair-cloth, which was bound about the loins in times of mourning (2 Samuel 3:31; Jeremiah 4:8; Jeremiah 48:37 &c.).

baldness Artificial baldness, produced by shaving off the hair on the forehead (Deuteronomy 14:1), was another sign of mourning, often alluded to by the prophets, as resorted to, both by the Israelites, and among other nations: see Isaiah 3:24; Isaiah 15:2 (in Moab), Isaiah 22:12 (where Jehovah "calls" to it in Jerusalem); Micah 1:16; Jeremiah 47:5; Jeremiah 48:37 (also in Moab); Ezekiel 7:18 ("and on all your heads baldness"), Ezekiel 27:31 (of Tyrian mariners). It is prohibited in Deuteronomy 14:1, on account (as it seems) of its heathen associations.

and I will make it viz. the lamentation of Israel in that day.

of an onlyson] Cf. Jeremiah 6:26; Zechariah 12:10 end.

and the end thereof as a bitter day Most griefs at length wear themselves out: the end of this grief should be not an alleviation, but an aggravation of the distress; it should introduce, viz., a further stage in the threatened doom.