Amos 4 - Introduction
_HE REPROVETH ISRAEL FOR OPPRESSION, FOR IDOLATRY, AND FOR THEIR INCORRIGIBLENESS._ _Before Christ 787._... [ Continue Reading ]
_HE REPROVETH ISRAEL FOR OPPRESSION, FOR IDOLATRY, AND FOR THEIR INCORRIGIBLENESS._ _Before Christ 787._... [ Continue Reading ]
YE KINE OF BASHAN— See the note on Psalms 22:12 and Ezekiel 39:18. After having testified in the preceding chapter against the sumptuous palaces, the luxury and extravagance of Samaria, the prophet here attacks the covetousness, softness, and violence of the powerful women of this city; who abused t... [ Continue Reading ]
AND YE SHALL GO OUT, &C.— _And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow after the other, and shall betake yourselves to the mountains of Mona, saith the Lord._ But Houbigant supposes the metaphor in the preceding verses to be kept up; and he translates it, _And ye shall come out by the apertures w... [ Continue Reading ]
COME TO BETH-EL— This and the following verses are spoken ironically. See Hosea 4:15; Hosea 12:11. "Signalize your zeal and your diligence in those things which the Lord abhorreth most." Instead of, _after three years,_ Houbigant reads with the Vulgate, _in three days;_ which perhaps were those pres... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I ALSO HAVE GIVEN— _For this cause have I given,_ &c. "The famine which I have sent upon the cities and territories of Israel, has not brought you to a sense of your sins, or any sincere purposes of amendment." The famine alluded to is recorded 2 Kings 8:1. See Calmet.... [ Continue Reading ]
AND ALSO I HAVE WITHHOLDEN THE RAIN— These verses apparently refer to the withholding of those rains which filled their _reservoirs of water for drinking;_ and our translators should have used the term _dried up,_ as they did in translating the same word, Job 14:11 instead of _withered._ It is not t... [ Continue Reading ]
YE WERE AS A FIRE-BRAND, &C.— A proverbial expression, used both by sacred and prophane writers to signify a narrow escape out of imminent danger. The comparison expresses perfectly well the state to which the Syrians reduced the Israelites in the war here referred to. "They shall see one part of th... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THUS WILL I DO UNTO THEE, &C.— _But now what shall I do unto thee, O Israel, after I have done these things? Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!_ Amos 4:13. _For lo, he is at hand, who formeth,_ &c. Houbigant. "Thy God himself will come to take full vengeance upon thee." Others paraphrase i... [ Continue Reading ]