In this chapter we have, 1. The general title of this prophecy, ver. 1. with the general scope of it, ver. 2. 2. God's particular contrar971 with Syria, ver. 3-5. with Pulestine, ver. 6-8. with Tyre, ver. 9, 10. with Edom, ver. 11, 12. and with Amnon, ver. 13-15. for their cruelty to his people, and the many injuries they had done them. i. e. herdman. a Chap. vii. 14. b Hef. i. 1. c Zech. xix, 1. THE words of Amos, who was among the herdfmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel, in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joath king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. The prophecy opens with an account of the writer Amos, an inhabitant of Tekoa, in the tribe of Judah; a herdfman, not brought up in the school of the prophets, nor probably surnished with human literature, but God can make the soofish things of the world to confound the wife; and when he speaks, who can but prophesy? chap. iii. 8. The ten tribes of Israel are chiefly the subject of the prophetic words which God revealed to Amos; and he saw the things he declares with the same evidence and clearness, as if they had been presented before his bodily eyes. The prophecy is dated in the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam the second, two years before the earthquake; a very remarkable event, which happened in Uzziah's reign, probably at the beginning of it. Compare 2 Kings xv. 1. with 2 Kings xiv. 23. 2. And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. 3. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Damafcus, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they have threshed Gilead with threshing-instruments of iron. 4. But I will send a fire into the house of Haziel, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. 5. I will break also the bar of Damafcus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, faith the LORD. 6. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. 7. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. 8. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philestines shall persh, faith the Lord GOD. 9. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembred not the brotherly covenant. 10. But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof. 11. Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of Edom, and for four I will not turn away the punssment thereof: because he did pursue his brother with the Before Chill The word, and did call off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and kept his wrath for ever. 12. But I will lend a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Jizzah. 13. ¶ Thus faith the LORD, For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because they have riot up the women with child of Gilcad, that they might enlarge their border. 14. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with throating in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind. 15. And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, faith the LORD. c. 2—15. The general tenor of the prophecy before us is intimated in these first words of it. The Lord will cure from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, loud and terrible as the lion roars, or as the voice of mighty thunderings. From between the cherubims, his feat of judgment, he denounces his wrath on the enemies of his people; the pursuits of the shepherd shall move, terrified with the sound, and the top of Carmel shall wather, scorched with the flushing lightnings; or, as is intimated chap. iv, is condemned with drought. The charge and sentence against these nations are nearly the same. Their multiplied iniquities and idolatrics, lignified by slave and four transgressions, and above all their persecution and oppression of God's heritage, cried for vengeance against them; and God, as the prophet declares, had fixed their doom, for he spake not of himself, but thus faith the Lord, able to execute all the threatening of his word, and solemnly engaging to do it, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, the enemies is gone forth, irreversible, immutable. 1. Damadus, the capital of Syria, is brought to the bar, besides the general charge of multiplied transgressions, her peculiar iniquity was, that they have threshed Gilcad with the glories of the men of iron, so terribly had Hazard ravaged that part of the country, 2 Kings x. 32, 33. xiii. 3—7. The wrath of God therefore, as devouring fire, shall continue the royal palaces and temples of Syria, and the invading enemy besiege and force their way into Damadus, the feat of empire; they shall cut off the inhabitants from the plain of drom, a delightful valley near it, the scene of their idolatry, and him that belittle the sceptre from the house of Eden, some pleasure-house probably of the kings of Syria; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kiz, faith the Lord, one circle of whose word shall never fail. See the accomplishment of the prophecy, 2 Kings vii. 19. 2. Gaza, a chief city of the Philistines, is next found guilty and punished. Because they carried away captive the whole captivity to deliver them up to Edom; the event referred to seems to be that, 2 Chron. xxii. 17. when they ravaged and plaindered the country, and seized all Jehoram's family except one son, and all his substance; for which the chief cities of Philistia, with the nobles and inhabitants, are doomed to destruction, and the remnant of them shall perish; God will leave them neither root nor branch, and such will at last be the fate of all the enemies and persecutors of God's people. 3. Tyre, like the other neighbours of Israel, notwithstanding the brotherly covenant which had subsisted of old between Solomon and Hiram, spared them not in the day of their calamity, but delivered up the whole captivity to Edom; either such as they had seized in some broad into the country, or those who had fled to Tyre for shelter from the invasion of their enemies; those they delivered up, or sold for slaves to their implausible enemies the Edomites: but the proud walls and palaces of Tyre shall be overthrown in just vengeance for such unkindness, as was done by Nebuchadnezzar after a thirteen years siege. Note, Unkindness is doubly grating from those, of whom we had just reason to expect every act of friendship. 4. Edom, with hereditary hatred, persecuted the seed of Jacob; and though brethren in blood, yet in enmity most inveterate: they pursued them with the sword, Numb. xx. 19. 2 Chron. xxviii. 17. and were ever ready to do them all possible mischief; but it shall be returned upon their own heads, and their cities and palaces shall be destroyed, as was done by Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards more terribly by the Maccabees, 1 Mac. v. 28. Note, (1.) The enmity which arises between nearest relations, hath steadily peculiar malignity. (2.) Such enmity is exceeding forful, and will provoke exemplary vengeance against the offenders and the implausible. 5. The children of Ammon, with Rabbah their capital, are devoted to ruin, and their king and princes doomed to an ignominious captivity; their judgment shall be favors, fudden, and irresistible, v. 14. as their crimes were atrocious; they have ripped up the women with child of Gilcad, that they might enlarge their border, with much inhuman cruelty enslavering the inhabitants, without pity, remorse, or distinction of age, sex, or condition. Note, (1.) Covetousness and cruelty are twin fathers; and the inordinate love of money is often seen to harden the heart against all the feelings of humanity. (2.) It is righteous in God Vol. II. to give those to the spoil, whose substance is the gain of oppression and injustice.