Amos 8:8-9

A hyperbolical description of the terrible nature of the coming judgement. On account of such enormities, the land will tremble, and rise up in mighty convulsions against the offenders; and darkness at noon-day will envelope the heavens.

Shall not on this account &c. Cf. (esp. in the Heb.) Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 5:29; Jeremiah 9:9 (Hebrews 8).

mourn viz. in terror, as they feel the earth beginning to shake.

and it shall rise up, all of it, as the Nile, and it shall be tossed about (Isaiah 57:20), and sink (again), as the Nile of Egypt As the Nile, at the time of its annual inundation, rises, overflows, and sinks again, so will the land of Israel, in all its length and breadth, heave, and be convulsed, as by an earthquake, as it labours to rid itself of its guilty inhabitants (Isaiah 24:19-20). The acquaintance shewn by Amos with a natural phenomenon peculiar to Egypt is interesting; comp. the knowledge of Egypt shewn by Isaiah (Isaiah 19:2; Isaiah 19:5-9), and Nahum (Amos 3:8). There was no doubt more intercourse between Canaan and Egypt, during the period of the kings, than is commonly supposed. The verse (except the first clause) is repeated with unsubstantial alterations in Amos 9:5.