Amos 7:9

The high places of Isaac] i.e. Beersheba (Amos 5:5), which was especially associated with Isaac (Genesis 27:23; Genesis 28:10).

10, 11. Amaziah, being a royal official, intervenes as soon as the king's name is brought in (Amos 7:9). He sends a message to Jeroboam II at Samaria (2 Kings 14:23), charging the prophet with stirring up sedition at the very centre of the national life. And he exaggerates. Amos had not said that the king himself should be killed.

12, 13. How contemptuous Amaziah is! His words literally are: 'Seer, go, flee thee away,' etc. There is a proverbial saying, 'Eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue.'

The king's chapel] RV 'The king's sanctuary': his 'Chapel Royal.' The king's court] RV 'a royal house': one of his residences (Daniel 4:30).

14. We catch the emphasis if we render: 'No prophet am I, and no son of a prophet am I.' The latter expression may mean that he had not been trained in one of the schools for prophets (1 Samuel 19:24; 2 Kings 4:38; 2 Kings 9:1), but it is better to understand it as referring to the Oriental custom of the son following his father's occupation. A gatherer of sycomore fruit] RV 'A dresser of sycomore trees.' The sycomore fig required pinching or scraping to bring it to ripeness. It was not thought much of in Palestine.

15. Cp. 2 Samuel 7:8; 1 Kings 19:19; Psalms 78:70; Galatians 1:1.