Amos 9:13

A hyperbolical description of the fertility of the soil. So rapid will be the growth of the crops, that the ploughman will hardly have finished breaking up the ground for seed, when the corn will be ready for the reaper; so abundant will be the vintage, that before the grapes are all trodden out, the time will have arrived for sowing seed for the following year: mountains and hills, also, will flow with sweet wine. The time for ploughing would correspond to our October; seed was sown in November: barley and wheat would be ripe in April May; the vintage was gathered in Aug. Sept. There is a similar promise in Leviticus 26:5 "your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing-time" so abundant, namely, will be the crops.

Behold, days are coming] See on Amos 4:2.

the treader of grapes The freshly gathered grapes were thrown into the "wine-press" (gath) usually a trough excavated in the natural rock where they were "trodden" (דרך) by the feet of men, and the expressed juice, as it ran down, was received into the "wine-fat" (i.e. the "wine- vat": Heb. yéḳeb), generally another trough excavated similarly in the rock at a somewhat lower level (see O.C. Whitehouse, A Primer of Hebrew Antiquities, p. 99 f.). There are many allusions in the O.T. to this process of treading the grapes (as Judges 9:27; Isaiah 63:2-3; Nehemiah 13:15): it was an occasion of rejoicing, and the shouts or huzzahs (hêdâd), with which those engaged at it enlivened their toil, supply the prophets with suggestive imagery (Isaiah 16:9-10; Jeremiah 25:30; Jeremiah 48:33; Jeremiah 51:14).

him that soweth the seed Lit. that draweth out, or traileth, the seed: cf. (in the Heb.) Psalms 126:6.

shall cause sweet wine to drop down] sweet wine, as Joel 1:5; Joel 3:18; Isaiah 49:26 [204]; Heb. -âsîs, from -âsas, to treador press down(Malachi 4:3). LXX., here and Joel 3:18, γλυκασμός; in Isaiah 49:26 οἶνος νέος. The reference is probably to some kind of sweet wine (γλυκὺς οἶνος or vinum dulce), such as was made by the ancients, by partially drying the grapes in the sun, and afterwards allowing the process of fermentation to continue in the juice only 5 7 days, instead of 9 (which was the usual time). See Pliny H.N.xiv. 9; and the Dict. of Classical Antiquities, s.v. Vinum.

[204] Also Song of Solomon 8:2; but here it denotes a wine made from pomegranates (see D.B.s.v. Pomegranate).

shall melt more lit. dissolve themselves:so abundant will be the produce of the vineyards, that it will be "as though the hills dissolved themselves in the rich streams which they poured down." Comp. Joel 3 (4):18, "The mountains shall drop with sweet wine, and the hills shall run with milk, and all the channels of Judah shall run with water"; also, for the hyperbole, the common description of Canaan as "a land flowingwith milk and honey."