Amós 5:8

Connected by E.V. with Amós 5:6 through the verb “seek ye,” so that it may thus be linked to Amós 5:7. To regard it as a solemn assertion “There is one who maketh, &c.,” is not satisfactory. We prefer to render, As for him who made the Pleiades... Jehovah is his name, i.e., The God of the Hebrews is the supreme universal Lord (comp. Amós 4:13). This is profoundly impressive, since the prophets were surrounded by the pompous nature-worship of the East.

The Heb. word for the Pleiades (seven stars) means properly “heap” or “cluster,” and that for Orion signifies “stout, strong one.” The appearance of the Pleiades indicated the “sweet influences” of spring, that of Orion the winter solstice. Observe that Amos the herdsman, and Job the Arabian Emir, accustomed to the naked sky of the desert, make these special references to astronomical facts. The death-shadow suggests the darkest experiences of human life. Jehovah pours His light upon the deepest gloom of our lot. He, too, can make the day dark with night, covering the noonday sky with funereal pall, as at the Crucifixion. God is also made the perennial source of the rain, that “river of God which is full of water,” and which is ever rising at His command from the great sea.