Introduction to Amos

Theodoret: "He who made, one by one, the hearts of men, and understands all their works, knowing the hardness and contrariousness of the heart of Israel, reasons with them not through one prophet only, but, employing as His ministers many prophets and wondrous men, admonishes them and foretells the things to come, evidencing through the harmony of many the truthfulness of their predictions."

As the contradiction of false teachers gave occasion to Paul to speak of himself, so the persecution of the priest of Bethel has brought out such knowledge as we have of the life of Amos, before God called him to be a prophet. "I," he says, "was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son" Amos 7:14. He had not received any of the training in those schools of the prophets which had been founded by Samuel, and through which, amid the general apostasy and corruption, both religious knowledge and religious life were maintained in the remnant of Israel. He was a "herdsman," whether (as this word, בקר bâqâr, would naturally mean being used always of the "ox" or "herd" in contrast with the "flocks" of sheep or goats, and the name being derived from "plowing") "a cowherd" or (less obviously) "a shepherd." He was "among the herdsmen of Tekoah"; among them, and, outwardly, as they, in nothing distinguished from them.

The sheep which he tended (because he also kept sheep) may have been his own. There is nothing to prove or to disprove it. Anyhow, he was not like the king of Moab, "a sheep-master" , as the Jews, following out their principle, that "prophecy was only bestowed by God upon the rich and noble" (see the note at Joel 2:29), wish to make him. Like David, he was following the sheep , as their shepherd. But his employment as "a gatherer" (or, more probably, "a cultivator") "of sycamore fruit" designates him instead as one living by a rural employment for hire. Probably, the word designates the artificial means by which the sycamore fruit was ripened, irritating, scraping, puncturing, wounding it .

Amos does not say that these were his food, but that one of his jobs was to perform a gardener's function in maturing the figs. So he was something of a gardener and a shepherd among other shepherds. The sheep which he fed were also probably a matter of trade. The breed of sheep and goats, נקד naqad in keeping with his special name of shepherd נקד nôqêd, was derived, is still known by the same name in Arabia; a race, small, thin, short-legged, ugly, and stunted. It furnished a proverb, "viler than a naqad"; yet the wool of the sheep was accounted the very best. The goats were found especially in Bahrein. Among the Arabs also, the shepherd of these sheep was known by a name derived from them. They were called "naqad;" and their shepherd was called a "noqad" .

The prophet's birthplace, Tekoah, was a town which, in the time of Josephus and of Jerome, had dwindled into a "village" , "a little village" , on a high hill, twelve miles from Jerusalem, "which," Jerome adds, "we see daily." "It lay" Jerome says , "six miles southward from holy Bethlehem where the Saviour of the world was born, and beyond it is no village except some rude huts and movable tents. Such is the wide waste of the desert which stretches to the Red Sea, and the bounds of the Persians, Ethiopians, and Indians. And no grain whatever being grown upon this dry and sandy soil, it is all full of shepherds, in order, by the multitude of the flocks, to make amends for the barrenness of the land." From Tekoah Joab brought the "wise woman" 1 Samuel 14:2 to intercede for Absalom; Rehoboam built it 2 Chronicles 11:6; i. e., whereas it had been before (what it afterward again became) a village, and so was not mentioned in the Book of Joshua, he made it a fortified town toward his southeastern border.

The neighboring wilderness was called after it (2 Chronicles 20:20; 1 Macc. 9:33). Besides its sycamores, its oil was the best in Judah . War and desolation have extirpated both from this as well as from other parts of Palestine . Its present remains are Christian , "ruins of 4 or 5 acres." It, as well as so many other places near the Dead Sea, is identified by the old name, slightly varied in pronunciation, Theku'a, as also by its distance from Jerusalem . In the sixth century a.d. we hear of a chapel in memory of the holy Amos at Tekoa , where the separated monks of the lesser laura of Saba communicated on the Lord's day. The wide prospect from Tekoa embraced both the dead and the living - God's mercies and His judgments.

To the Southeast "the view is bounded only by the level mountains of Moab, with frequent bursts of the Dead Sea, seen through openings among the rugged and desolate mountains which intervene." On the North, the Mount of Olives is visible, at that time dear to sight, as overhanging the place, which God had "chosen to place His Name there." Tekoah, however, although the birthplace, was not the home of the prophet. He was "among the herdsmen from Tekoah" (מתקוע mı̂teqôa‛) their employment, as shepherds, leading them away "from Tekoah." In the wilds of the desert while he was following his sheep, God saw him and revealed Himself to him, as he had to Jacob and to Moses, and said to him, "Go prophesy unto My people Israel." And, just as the apostles left their nets and their father, and Matthew abandoned the receipt of custom, and followed Jesus, so Amos left his sheep and his cultivation of sycamores, and appeared suddenly in his shepherd's dress at the royal but idolatrous Amos 7:13 sanctuary, the temple of the state, to denounce the idolatry sanctioned by the state, to foretell the extinction of the Royal family, and the captivity of the people. This, like Hosea, he had to do in the reign of the mightiest of the sovereigns of Israel, in the midst of her unclouded prosperity. Bethel was only twelve miles north of Jerusalem , since Tekoah was twelve miles toward the southeast. Six or seven hours would suffice to transport the shepherd from his sheep and the wilderness to that fountain of Israel's corruption, the high places of Bethel, and for the inspired peasant to confront the priests and the prophets of the state-idolatry.

There doubtless he said, "the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste" Amos 7:9; and there, like the former "man of God," while standing opposite "the altar," he renewed the prophecy against it, and prophesied that in its destruction it should involve its idolatrous worshipers Amos 9:1. Yet although he did deliver a part of his prophecy at Bethel, still, like his great predecessors Elijah and Elisha, doubtless he did not confine his ministry there. His summons to the luxurious ladies of Samaria, whose expenses were supported by the oppressions of the poor Amos 4:1, was without question delivered in Samaria itself. The call to the pagan to look down into Samaria from the heights which girt in the valley out of which it rose (see the notes at Amos 3:9), thence to behold its din and its oppressions, to listen to the sound of its revelries and the wailings of its oppressed, and so to judge between God and His people, would also be most effectively given within Samaria. The consciences of the guilty inhabitants to whom he preached would populate the heights around them, their wall of safety, as they deemed, between them and the world, with pagan witnesses of their sins, and pagan avengers.

The prophet could only know the coming destruction of the house of Jeroboam and the captivity of Israel by inspiration. The sins which he rebuked, he probably knew from being among them. As Paul's "spirit was stirred in him" at Athens, "when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry" Acts 17:16, so the spirit of Amos must have been stirred to its depths by that grievous contrast of luxury and penury side by side, which he describes in such vividness of detail. The sins which he rebukes are those of the outward prosperity especially of a capital, the extreme luxury Amos 3:12, Amos 3:15; Amos 4:1; Amos 5:11; Amos 6:4-6, revelries Amos 2:8; Amos 3:9, debauchery Amos 2:7, of the rich, who supported their own reckless expenditure by oppression of the poor Amos 2:7-8; Amos 3:9; Amos 4:1; Amos 5:11; Amos 6:3; Amos 8:4-6, extortion Amos 3:10, hard bargains with their necessities Amos 2:8, perversion of justice Amos 2:7; Amos 5:7, Amos 5:12, with bribing, Amos 2:6; Amos 5:12, false measures Amos 8:5, a griping, hard-fisted, and probably usurious sale of grain Amos 8:5-6. In grappling with sin, Amos deals more with the details and circumstances of it than Hosea. Hosea touches the center of the offence; Amos shows the hideousness of it in the details into which it branches out. As he is everywhere graphic, so here he points out the events of daily life in which the sin showed itself, as the vile price or, it may be, the article of luxury, "the pair of sandals" Amos 2:6; Amos 8:6, for which the poor was sold, or the "refuse of wheat" (he coins the term) which they sold, at high prices and with short measure to the poor Amos 8:6.

According to the title which Amos prefixes to his prophecy, his office fell within the 25 years, during which Uzziah and Jeroboam II were contemporaries (809-784 B. C). This falls in with the opinion already expressed that the bloodshed mentioned by Hosea in the list of their sins, was instead political bloodshed in their revolutions after the death of Jeroboam II, than individual murder. For Amos, while upbraiding Israel for the sins incidental to political prosperity and wealth (such as was the time of Jeroboam II) does not mention bloodshed.

It has been thought that the mention of the earthquake, two years before which Amos began his prophecy, furnishes us with a more definite date. That earthquake must have been a terrible visitation, since it was remembered after the captivity, two and a half centuries afterward. "Ye shall flee," says Zechariah Zechariah 14:5, as of a thing which his hearers well knew by report, "as ye fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah." Josephus connects the earthquake with Uzziah's act of pride in offering the incense, for which God struck him with leprosy. He relates it as a fact (Antiquities ix. 10): "Meanwhile a great earthquake shook the ground, and, the temple parting, a bright ray of the sun shone forth, and fell upon the king's face, so that immediately the leprosy came over him. And before the city, at the place called Eroge, the Western half of the hill was broken off and rolled half a mile to the mountain Eastward, and there stayed, blocking up the ways and the king's gardens." This account of Josephus, however, is altogether unhistorical. Not to argue from the improbability, that such an event as the rending of the temple itself should not have been mentioned, Josephus has confused Zechariah's description of an event yet future with the past earthquake under Uzziah. Nor can the date be reconciled with the history. For when Uzziah was stricken with leprosy, "Jotham, his son, was over the king's house, judging the people of the land" 2 Chronicles 26:21. But Jotham was only 25 years old at his father's death, "when he himself began to reign" 2 Chronicles 27:1. And, Uzziah survived Jeroboam by 26 years. So Jotham, who judged for his father after his leprosy, was not born when Jeroboam died. Uzziah then must have been stricken with leprosy some years after Jeroboam's death; and consequently, after the earthquake also, since Amos, who prophesied in the days of Jeroboam, prophesied "two years before the earthquake."

An ancient Hebrew interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah, "within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it is no more a people" Isaiah 7:8, assumed that Isaiah was foretelling the commencement of the captivity under Tiglath-Pileser or Sargon, and since the period of Isaiah's own prophecy to that captivity was not 65 years, supposed that Isaiah counted from a prophecy of Amos, "Israel shall surely be led captive out of his own land" Amos 7:11, Amos 7:17. They placed this prophecy of Amosin the 25th year of Uzziah. Then his remaining 27 years, Jotham's 16 years, Ahaz' 16 years, and the first 6 years of Hezekiah would have made up the 65 years. This calculation was not necessarily connected with the error as to the supposed connection of the earthquake and the leprosy of Uzziah. However, it is plain from the words of Isaiah, "in yet threescore and five years," that he is dating from the time when he uttered the prophecy; and so the prophecy relates, not to the imperfect captivity which ended the "kingdom" of Israel, but to that more complete deportation under Esarhaddon Ezra 4:2; 2 Chronicles 33:11; 2 Kings 17:24, when the ten tribes ceased to be "anymore a people" (Ahaz-14 years + Hezekiah-29 years + Manasseh-22 years equals 65 years total). Neither then does this fix the date of Amos.

Nor does the comparison, which Amos bids Israel make between his own borders, and those of Calneh, Hamath and Gath, determine the date of the prophecy. Since Uzziah broke down the walls of Gath 2 Chronicles 26:6, and Hamath was recovered by Jeroboam II to Israel 2 Kings 14:28, it is probable that the point of comparison lay between the present disasters of these nations, and those with which Amos threatened Israel, and which the rich men of Israel practically did not believe. For it follows, "ye that put far away the evil day" Amos 6:3. It is probable then that Calneh (the very ancient city Genesis 10:10 which subsequently became Ctesiphon,) on the other side of the Euphrates, had lately suffered from Assyria, as Gath and Hamath from Judah and Israel. But we know none of these dates. Isaiah speaks of the Assyrian as boasting that "Calno" was "as Carchemish Isaiah 10:9, Hamath as Arpad, Samaria as Damascus." But this relates to times long subsequent, when Hamath, Damascus, and Samaria, had fallen into the hands of Assyria. Our present knowledge of Assyrian history gives us no clue to the event, which was well known to those to whom Amos spoke.

Although, however, the precise time of the prophetic office of Amos cannot thus be fixed, it must have fallen within the reign of Jeroboam, to whom Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, accused him Amos 7:10-11. For this whole prophecy implies that Israel was in a state of prosperity, ease, and security, whereas it fell to a state of anarchy immediately upon Jeroboam's death. "The mention of the entering in of Hamath" Amos 6:14 as belonging to Israel implies that this prophecy was after Jeroboam had recovered it to Israel 2 Kings 14:25; and the ease, pride, luxury, which he upbraids, evince that the foreign oppressions 2 Kings 14:26 had ceased for some time. This agrees with the title of the prophecy, but does not limit it further. Since he prophesied while Uzziah and Jeroboam II reigned together, Amos' prophetic office must have fallen between 809 b.c. and 784 b.c. - in the last 25 years of the reign of Jeroboam II. His office, then, began probably after that of Hosea, and closed long before its close. He is, in a manner then, both later and earlier than Hosea, later than the earliest period of Hosea's prophetic office, and far earlier than the latest.

Within this period, there is nothing to limit the activity of Amos to a very short time. The message of Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, implies that Amos' words of woe had shaken Israel through and through. "Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words" Amos 7:10. It may be that God sent him to the midst of some great festival at Bethel, as, at Jeroboam's dedication-feast, He sent the prophet who afterward disobeyed Him, to foretell the desecration of the altar, which Jeroboam was consecrating, in God's Name, against God. In this case, Amos might, at once, like Elijah, have been confronted with a great. concourse of the idol-worshipers. Yet the words of Amaziah seem, in their obvious meaning, to imply that Amos had had a more pervading influence than would be produced by the delivery of God's messsage in one place. He says of "the land," that is, of all the ten tribes generally, it "is not able to bear all his words." The accusation also of a "conspiracy" probably implies, that some had not been only shaken, but they had been converted by the words of Amos, and were known by their adherence to him and his belief.

Amos seems also to speak of the prohibition to God's prophets to prophesy, as something habitual, beyond the one opposition of Amaziah, which he rebuked on the spot. "I raised up of your sons for prophets; but ye commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not" Amos 2:11-12. Nor, strictly speaking, was Amos a son of Ephraim. The series of images in Amos 4:1-13 seem to be an answer to the objection as to why he prophesied among them. People, he would say, were not, in the things of nature, surprised that the effect followed the cause. God's command was the cause; Amos' prophesying was the effect Amos 3:3-8. "Then they put away from them the evil day" Amos 6:3, forgetting future evil in present luxury; or they professed that God was with them; "the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken" Amos 5:14; or trusting in their half-service of God and His imagined presence among them, they jeered at Amos' prophecies of ill, and professed to desire the Day of the Lord, with which he threatened them; they said that evil would not reach them; "Woe unto you that desire the Day of the Lord! To what end is it to you?" Amos 5:18. "All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, which say, the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us" Amos 9:10. They showed also in deed that they hated those who publicly reproved them Amos 5:10; and Amos, like Hosea, declares that they are hardened, so that wisdom itself must leave them to themselves Amos 5:13. All this implies a continued contact between the prophet and the people, so that his function was not discharged in a few sermons, so to say, or inspired declarations of God's purpose, but must have been that of a pastor among them over the course of several years. His present book (like Hosea's book) is a summary of his prophecies.

That book (since Amos himself subsequently gathered his prophetic teaching into a whole) is one well-ordered whole. He himself (in the title) states that it had been spoken before it was written. For in that he says, these are "the words" which in prophetic vision he "saw, two years before the earthquake," this portion of his prophecies must have preceded his writings by those two years at least. That terrible earthquake was probably the occasion of his collecting those prophecies. But that earthquake doubtless was no mere note of time. If he had intended only a date, he would probably have named (as other prophets do) the year of the king of Judah. He himself mentions earthquakes Amos 4:11, as one of the warnings of God's displeasure. This more destructive earthquake was probably the first great token of God's displeasure during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II, the first herald of those heavier judgments which Amos had predicted, and which broke upon Israel, wave after wave, until the last, carried him away captive. For two years, Israel had been forewarned; now "the beginning of sorrows" Matthew 24:8 had set in.

Amos, at the beginning of his book (as has been already noticed) joins on his book with the book of the prophet Joel. Joel had foretold, as instances of God's judgments on sin, how He would recompense the wrong, which Tyre, Zidon, Philistia and Edom had done to Judah, and that He would make Egypt desolate. Amos, omitting Egypt, adds Damascus, Amman and Moab, and Judah itself. It may be, that he selects seven nations in all, as a sort of whole (since that number is so often used), or that he includes all the special enemies of the theocracy, the nations who hated Israel and Judah, because they were the people of God, and God's people itself, as far as it too was alienated from its God. Certainly, the sins denounced are sins against the theocracy or government of God. It may be, that Amos would exhibit to them the truth, that "God is no respecter of persons;" that He, the Judge of the whole earth, punishes every sinful nation; and that he would, by this declaration of God's judgments, prepare them for the truth, from which sinful man so shrinks; - that God punishes most, where He had most shown His light and love Amos 3:2. The thunder-cloud of God's judgments, having passed over all the nations round about, Syria and Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and even discharged the fire from heaven on Judah and Jerusalem, settles finally upon Israel. The summary which closes this circle of judgments on Israel, is fuller in regard to their sins, since they were the chief objects of his mission. In that summary Amos gathers into one the sins with which he elsewhere upbraids them, and sets before them their ingratitude and their endeavors to extinguish the light which God gave them.

Our chapters follow a natural division, in that each (like those of Hosea) ends in woe. Amos 3:1-15, Amos 4:1-13, and Amos 5 are distinguished by the threefold summons - "Hear ye this word!" In each, he sets before them some of their sins, and in each he pronounces God's sentence upon them. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus" (Amos 3:11; Amos 4:12; Amos 5:16, as before, Amos 2:14). On this follows a twofold woe, "Woe unto you that desire" Amos 5:18; "Woe to them that are at ease" Amos 6:1; both which sections alike end in renewed sentences of God's judgment; the first, of the final captivity of Israel "beyond Damascus;" the second, of their nearer afflictions through the first invasion of Tiglath-pileser (see the note at Amos 6:14). In Amos 7 he begins a series of visions. In the first two visions, God forgives, at the intercession of the prophet Amos 7:3, Amos 7:6.

In the third vision God interprets that He would no longer forgive Amos 7:8. Upon this followed the prohibition from Amaziah to prophesy, and God's sentence against him. In Amos 8:1-14, Amos resumes (as though nothing had intervened), the series of visions, upon which Amaziah had broken in. He resumes them exactly where he had been stopped. Amaziah interrupted when Amos declared that God would not "pass by" the house of Israel "anymore," but would desolate the idol-sanctuaries of israel and bring a sword against the house of Jeroboam. The vision (in which Amos resumes) renews the words, "I will not again pass by them anymore" Amos 8:2, and foretells that the songs of the idol-temple should be turned into howlings. Amos heads the last chapter with a vision, that not only should the idol-altar and temple be destroyed, but that it should be the destruction of its worshipers Amos 9:1. Amos makes each of these visions a theme which he expands, both ending in woe; the first, with the utter destruction of the idolaters of Israel Amos 8:14; the second, with that of the sinful "kingdom" of Israel Amos 9:8. With this he unites the promise to the "house" of Israel, that, "sifted" as they would be "among the nations, not one grain would fall to the earth" Amos 9:9. To this he, like Hosea, adds a closing promise (the first in his whole book) that God would raise the fallen tabernacle of David, convert the pagan, and therewith restore the captivity of Israel, amid promises, which had already (in Joel) symbolized spiritual blessings Amos 9:13.

Amos, like Hosea, was a prophet for Israel. After the second chapter in which he includes Judah in the circle of God's visitations, because he had "despised the law of the Lord" Amos 2:4-5, Amos only notices him incidentally. He there foretells that Jerusalem should (as it was) be burned with fire. Judah also must be included in the words, "against the whole family which God brought up out of the land of Egypt" Amos 3:1, and "woe" is pronounced against those who are "at ease in Zion Amos 6:1. Elsewhere, "Israel," "the house of Israel," "the virgin of Israel," "the sanctuaries of Israel," "Jacob," "the house of Jacob," and (in the same sense) "the high places of Isaac," "the house of Isaac"; "the house of Joseph," "the remnant of Joseph," "the affliction of Joseph," "the mountain," or "the mountains of Samaria," "Samaria" itself, "Bethel" Amos 3:9, Amos 3:12-14; Amos 4:1, Amos 4:4-5, Amos 4:12; Amos 5:1, Amos 5:4, Amos 5:6, Amos 5:15, Amos 5:25; Amos 6:1, Amos 6:6, Amos 6:8, Amos 6:14; Amos 7:2, Amos 7:5, Amos 7:8-9, Amos 7:16-17; Amos 8:2, Amos 8:14; Amos 9:7-8, occur interchangeably as the object of his prophecy. Amaziah's taunt, that his words, as being directed against Israel and Bethel, would be acceptable in the kingdom of Judah, implies the same; and Amos himself declares that this was his commission, "go, prophesy unto My people Israel." In speaking of the idolatry of Beersheba, Amos uses the word, "pass not over to Beersheba" Amos 5:5, adding the idolatries of Judah to their own. The word, "pass not over," could only be used by one prophesying in Israel. Therefore, it must have been the more impressive to the faithful in Israel, that Amos closed his prophecy by the promise, not to them primarily, but to the house of David, and to Israel through its restoration. Amos, like Hosea, foretells the utter destruction of "the kingdom of Israel," even while pronouncing that God would not utterly destroy "the house of Jacob" Amos 9:8-10, but would save the elect within it.

The opposition of Amaziah stands out, as one signal instance of the manifold cry, "Prophesy not," with which people to drown the Voice of God. Jeroboam left the complaint unheeded. His great victories had been foretold to him by the prophet Jonah; and he would not interfere with the prophet of God, although he predicted, not as Amaziah distorted his words, that "Jeroboam" should "die by the sword," but that "the house of Jeroboam" Amos 7:9 would so perish. But his book is all comprised within the reign of Jeroboam and the kingdom of Israel. He was called by God to be a prophet there; nor is there even the slightest trace of his having exercised his function in Judah, or having retired there in life.

A somewhat late tradition places Amos among the many prophets whom our Lord says His people killed. The tradition bore, "that after he (Amos) had been beaten often (the writer uses the same word which occurs in Hebrews 11:35) by Amaziah the priest of Bethel, the son of that priest, Osee, pierced his temples with a stake. He was carried half-dead to his own land, and, after some days, died

The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen - "Amos begins by setting forth his own nothingness, and withal the great grace of his Teacher and Instructor, the Holy Spirit, referring all to His glory." He, like David, Peter, Paul, Matthew, was one of "the weak things of the world, whom God chose to confound the mighty." He was himself a herdsman only "among herdsmen;" but the words which he spake were not his own. They were words which he saw, not with eyes of flesh, but "with that vision wherewith words can be seen, the seer's vision in the mind." They were "words concerning," or rather "upon Israel," heavy words coming upon the heavy transgressions of Israel. The Hebrew word "saw" is not of mere sight, but of a vision given by God. Amos only says that they were "his" words, in order immediately to add, that they came to him from God, that he himself was but the human organ through which God spake.

Two years before the earthquake - This earthquake must plainly have been one of the greatest, since it was vividly in people's memories in the time of Zechariah, and Amos speaks of it as "the earthquake." The earthquakes of the east, like that of Lisbon, destroy whole cities. In one, a little before the birth of our Lord , "some ten thousand were buried under the ruined houses." This terrific earthquake (for as such Zechariah describes it) was one of the preludes of that displeasure of God, which Amos foretold. A warning of two years, and time for repentance, were given, "before the earthquake" should come, the token and beginning of a further shaking of both kingdoms, unless they should repent. In effect, it was the first flash of the lightning which consumed them.

The Lord will roar - Amos joins on his prophecy to the end of Joel's, in order at once in its very opening to attest the oneness of their mission, and to prepare people's minds to see, that his own prophecy was an expansion of those words, declaring the nearer and coming judgments of God. Those nearer judgments, however, of which he spake, were but the preludes of the judgments of the Great Day which Joel foretold, and of that last terrible voice of Christ, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," of whom Jacob prophesies; "He couched, He lay down as a lion, and as a young lion; who shall raise Him up?" Genesis 49:9. God is said to "utter His" awful "voice from Zion and Jerusalem," because there He had set His Name, there He was present in His Church. It was, as it were, His own place, which He had hallowed by tokens of His presence, although "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him." In the outset of his prophecy, Amos warned Israel, that there, not among themselves in their separated state, God dwelt. Jeremiah, in using these same words toward Judah, speaks not of Jerusalem, but of heaven; "The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation" Jeremiah 25:30. The prophecy is to the ten tribes or to the pagan: God speaks out of the Church. He uttereth His Voice out of Jerusalem, as He saith, "Out of Zion shall go forth, the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" Isaiah 2:3, "where was the Temple and the worship of God, to shew that God was not in the cities of Israel, that is, in Dan and Bethel, where were the golden calves, nor in the royal cities of Samaria and Jezreel, but in the true religion which was then in Zion and Jerusalem."

And the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn - Perhaps, with a feeling for the home which he had loved and left, the prophet's first thought amid the desolation which he predicts, was toward his own shepherd-haunts. The well-known Mount Carmel was far in the opposite direction in the tribe of Asher. Its name is derived from its richness and fertility, perhaps "a land of vine and olive yards." In Jerome's time, it was "thickly studded with olives, shrubs and vineyards." "Its very summit of glad pasturcs."

It is one of the most striking natural features of Palestine. It ends a line of hills, 18 miles long, by a long bold headland reaching out far into the Mediterranean, and forming the south side of the Bay of Acco or Acre. Rising 1,200 feet above the sea , it stands out "like some guardian of its native strand;" yet withal, it was rich with every variety of beauty, flower, fruit, and tree. It is almost always called "the Carmel," "the rich garden-ground." From its neighborhood to the sea, heavy dews nightly supply it with an ever-renewed freshness, so that in mid-summer it is green and flowery . Travelers describe it, as "quite green, its top covered with firs and oaks, lower down with olives and laurels, and everywhere excellently watered." "There is not a flower," says Van de Velde , "that I have seen in Galilee or on the plains along the coasts, that I do not find here again on Carmel. It is still the same fragrant lovely mountain as of old." : "Its varied world of flowers attracts such a number of the rarer vari-colored insects that a collector might for a whole year be richly employed." "It is a natural garden and repository of herbs."

Its pastures were rich, so as to equal those of Bashan. "It gives rise to a number of crystal streams, the largest of which gushes from the spring of Elijah" Jeremiah 50:19; Nahum 1:4. It had abundant supplies in itself. If it too became a desert, what else would be spared? "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Luke 23:31. All, high and low, shall be stricken in one common desolation; all the whole land, fromm "the pastures of the shepherds" in the south to Mount Carmel in the North. And this, as soon as God had spoken. "He spake, and it was made." So now, contrariwise, He uttercth His Voice, and Carmel hath languished. Its glory hath passed away, as in the twinkling of an eye. God hath spoken the word, and it is gone.

What depended on God's gifts, abides; what depended on man, is gone. There remains a wild beauty still; but it is the beauty of natural luxuriance. "All," says one who explored its depths , "lies waste; all is a wilderness. The utmost fertility is here lost for man, useless to man. The vineyards of Carmel, where are they now? Behold the long rows of stones on the ground, the remains of the walls; they will tell you that here, where now with difficulty you force your way through the thick entangled copse, lay, in days of old, those incomparable vineyards to which Carmel owes its name."

The order of God's threatenings seems to have been addressed to gain the hearing of the people. The punishment is first denounced upon their enemies, and that, for their sins, directly or indirectly, against themselves, and God in them. Then, as to those enemies themselves, the order is not of place or time, but of their relation to God's people. It begins with their most oppressive enemy, Syria; then Philistia, the old and ceaseless, although less powerful, enemy; then Tyre, not an oppressor, as these, yet violating a relation which they had not, the bonds of a former friendship and covenant; malicious also and hardhearted through covetousness. Then follow Edom, Ammon, Moab, who burst the bonds of blood also. Lastly and nearest of all, it falls on Judah, who had the true worship of the true God among them, but despised it. Every infliction on those like ourselves finds an echo in our own consciences. Israel heard and readily believed God's judgments upon others. It was not tempted to set itself against believing them. How then could it refuse to believe of itself, what it believed of others like itself? "Change but the name, the tale is told of thee ," was a pagan saying which has almost passed into a proverb. The course of the prophecy convicted "them," as the things written in Holy Scripture "for our ensamples" convict Christians. "If they" who "sinned without law, perished without law" Romans 2:12, how much more should they who "have sinned in the law, be judged by the law." God's judgments rolled round like a thunder-cloud, passing from land to land, giving warning of their approach, at last to gather and center on Israel itself, except it repent. In the visitations of others, it was to read its own; and that, the more, the nearer God was to them. "Israel" is placed the last, because on it the destruction was to fall to the uttermost, and rest there.

For three transgressions and for four - These words express, not four transgressions added to the three, but an additional transgression beyond the former, the last sin, whereby the measure of sin, which before was full, overflows, and God's wrath comes. So in other places, where the like form of words occurs, the added number is one beyond, and mostly relates to something greater than all the rest. So, "He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee" Job 5:19. The word, "yea," denotes, that the seventh is some heavier trouble, beyond all the rest, which would seem likely to break endurance. Again, "give a portion to seven, and also to eight" Ecclesiastes 11:2. Seven is used as a symbol of a whole, since "on the seventh day God rested from all which He had made," and therefore the number seven entered so largely into the whole Jewish ritual. All time was measured by seven.

The rule then is; "give without bounds; when that whole is fulfilled, still give." Again in that series of sayings in the book of Proverbs Prov. 30, the fourth is, in each, something greater than the three preceding. "There are three" things that "are never satisfied;" yea, "four" things "say not," it is "enough" Proverbs 30:15-16. The other things cannot be satisfied; the fourth, fire, grows fiercer by being fed. Again, "There be three" things "which go well; yea, four are comely in going" Proverbs 30:29-31. The moral majesty of a king is obviously greater than the rest. So "the handmaid which displaceth her mistress" Proverbs 30:21-23 is more intolerable and overbearing than the others. The art and concealment of man in approaching a maiden is of a subtler kind than things in nature which leave no trace of themselves, the eagle in the air, the serpent on the rock, the ship in its pathway through the waves Proverbs 30:18-19. Again, "Sowing discord among brethren" Proverbs 6:16-19, has a special hatefulness, as not only being sin, but causing widewasting sin, and destroying in others the chief grace, love. Soul-murder is worse than physical murder, and requires more devilish art.

These things - Job says, "worketh God twice and thrice with man, to bring back his soul from the pit" Job 33:29. The last grace of God, whether sealing up the former graces of those who use them, or vouchsafed to those who have wasted them, is the crowning act of His love or forbearance.

In pagan poetry also, as a trace of a mystery which they had forgotten, three is a sacred whole; from where "thrice and fourfold blessed" stands among them for something exceeding even a full and perfect blessing, a super-abundance of blessings.

The fourth transgression of these pagan nations is alone mentioned. For the prophet had no mission to "them;" he only declares to Israel the ground of the visitation which was to come upon them. The three transgressions stand for a whole sum of sin, which had not yet brought down extreme punishment; the fourth was the crowning sin, after which God would no longer spare. But although the fourth drew down His judgment, God, at the last, punishes not the last sin only, but all which went before. In that the prophet says, not, "for the fourth," but "for three transgressions and for four," he expresses at once, that God did not punish until the last sin, by which "the iniquity" of the sinful nation became "full" Genesis 15:16, and that, "then," He punished for all, for the whole mass of sin described by the three, and for the fourth also. God is longsuffering and ready to forgive; but when the sinner finally becomes a "vessel of wrath" Romans 9:22, He punishes all the earlier sins, which, for the time, He passed by.

Sin adds to sin, out of which it grows; it does not overshadow the former sins, it does not obliterate them, but increases the mass of guilt, which God punishes. When the Jews killed the Son, there, "came on" them "all the righteous bloodshed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias" Matthew 23:35-36; Luke 11:50-51. All the blood of all the prophets and servants of God under the Old Testament came upon that generation. So each individual sinner, who dies impenitent, will be punished for all which, in his whole life, he did or became, contrary to the law of God. Deeper sins bring deeper damnation at the last. So Paul speaks of those who "treasure up to" themselves "wrath against the Day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" Romans 2:5. As good people, by the grace of God, do, through each act done by aid of that grace, gain an addition to their everlasting reward, so the wicked, by each added sin, add to their damnation.

Of Damascus - Damascus was one of the oldest cities in the world, and one of the links of its contact. It lay in the midst of its plain, a high table-land of rich cultivation, whose breadth, from Anti-libanus eastward, was about half a degree. On the west and north its plain lay sheltered under the range of Anti-libanus; on the east, it was protected by the great desert which intervened between its oasis-territory and the Euphrates. Immediately, it was bounded by the three lakes which receive the surplus of the waters which enrich it. The Barada (the "cold") having joined the Fijeh, (the traditional Pharpar" , a name which well designates its tumultuous course ), runs on the north of, and through the city, and then chiefly into the central of the three lakes, the Bahret-el-kibliyeh, (the "south" lake;) thence, it is supposed, but in part also directly, into the Bahret-esh-Shurkiyeh (the "east" lake ). The 'Awaj (the "crooked") (perhaps the old Amana, "the never-failing," in contrast with the streams which are exhausted in irrigation) runs near the old south boundary of Damascus , separating it probably from the northern possessions of Israel beyond Jordan, Bashan (in its widest sense), and Jetur or Ituraea. The area has been calculated at 236 square geographical miles .

This space rather became the center of its dominions, than measured their extent. But it supported a population far beyond what that space would maintain in Europe. Taught by the face of creation around them, where the course of every tiny rivulet, as it burst from the rocks, was marked by a rich luxuriance , the Damascenes of old availed themselves of the continual supply from the snows of Hermon or the heights of Anti-libanus, with a systematic diligence , of which, in our northern clime, as we have no need, so we have no idea. "Without the Barada," says Porter , "the city could not exist, and the plain would be a parched desert; but now aqueducts intersect every quarter, and fountains sparkle in almost every dwelling, while innumerable canals extend their ramifications over the vast plain, clothing it with verdure and beauty. Five of these canals are led off from the river at different elevations, before it enters the plain. They are carried along the precipitous banks of the ravine, being in some places tunnelled in the solid rock. The two on the northern side water Salahiyeh at the foot of the hills about a mile from the city, and then irrigate the higher portions of the plain to the distance of nearly twenty miles. Of the three on the south side, one is led to the populous village Daraya, five miles distant; the other two supply the city, its suburbs, and gardens."

The like use was made of every fountain in every larger or lesser plain. Of old it was said , "the Chrysorrhoas (the Barada) "is nearly expended in artificial channels." : "Damascus is fertile through drinking up the Chrysorrhoas by irrigation." Fourteen names of its canals are still given ; and while it has been common to select 7 or 8 chief canals, the whole have been counted up even to 70 . No art or labor was thought too great. The waters of the Fijeh were carried by a great aqueduct tunnelled through the side of the perpendicular cliff . Yet this was as nothing. Its whole plain was intersected with canals, and tunneled below. : "The waters of the river were spread over the surface of the soil in the fields and gardens; underneath, other canals were tunnelled to collect the superfluous water which percolates the soil, or from little fountains and springs below. The stream thus collected is led off to a lower level, where it comes to the surface. : "The whole plain is filled with these singular aqueducts, some of them running for 2 or 3 miles underground. Where the water of one is diffusing life and verdure over the surface, another branch is collecting a new supply." "In former days these extended over the whole plain to the lakes, thus irrigating the fields and gardens in every part of it."

Damascus then was, of old, famed for its beauty. Its white buildings, embedded in the deep green of its engirdling orchards, were like diamonds encircled by emeralds. They reach nearly to Anti-libanus westward , "and extend on both sides of the Barada some miles eastward. They cover an area at last 25 (or 30) miles in circuit, and make the environs an earthly Paradise." Whence the Arabs said , "If there is a garden of Eden on earth, it is Damascus; and if in heaven, Damascus is like it on earth." But this its beauty was also its strength. "The river," says William of Tyre , "having abundant water, supplies orchards on both banks, thick-set with fruit-trees, and flows eastward by the city wall. On the west and north the city was far and wide fenced by orchards, like thick dense woods, which stretched four or live miles toward Libanus. These orchards are a most exceeding defense; for from the density of the trees and the narrowness of the ways, it seemed difficult and almost impossible to approach the city on that side." Even to this day it is said , "The true defense of Damascus consists in its gardens, which, forming a forest of fruit-trees and a labyrinth of hedges, walls and ditches, for more than 7 leagues in circumference, would present no small impediment to a Mussulman enemy."

The advantage of its site doubtless occastoned its early choice. It lay on the best route from the interior of Asia to the Mediterranean, to Tyre, and even to Egypt. Chedorlaomer and the four kings with him, doubtless, came that way, since the first whom they smote were at Ashteroth Karnaim Genesis 14:5-6 in Jaulan or Gaulonitis, and thence they swept on southward, along the west side of Jordan, smiting, as they went, first the "Zuzim," (probably the same as the Zamzummim Deuteronomy 2:2 O) in Ammonitis; then "the Emim in the plain of Kiriathaim" in Moab Deuteronomy 9, 11, then "the Horites in Mount Seir unto Elparan" (probably Elath on the Gulf called from it.) They returned that way, since Abraham overtook them at Hobah near Damascus Genesis 14:15. Damascus was already the chief city, through its relation to which alone Hobah was known. It was on the route by which Abraham himself came at God's command from Haran (Charrae of the Greeks) whether over Tiphsaeh ("the passage," Thapsacus) or anymore northern passage over the Euphrates. The fact that his chief and confidential servant whom he entrusted to seek a wife for Isaac, and who was, at one time, his heir, was a Damascene Genesis 15:2-3, implies some intimate connection of Abraham with Damascus. At the time of our era, the name of Abraham was still held in honor in the country of Damascus ; a village was named from him "Abraham's dwelling;" and a native historian Nicolas said, that he reigned in Damascus on his way from the country beyond Babylon to Canaan. The name of his servant "Eliezer" "my God is help," implies that at this time too the servant was a worshiper of the One God. The name Damascus probably betokened the strenuous , energetic character of its founder.

Like the other names connected with Aram in the Old Testament , it is, in conformity with the common descent from Aram, Aramaic. It was no part of the territory assigned to Israel, nor was it molested by them. Judging, probably, of David's defensive conquests by its own policy, it joined the other Syrians who attacked David, was subdued, garrisoned, and became tributary 2 Samuel 8:5-6. It was at that time probably a subordinate power, whether on the ground of the personal eminence of Hadadezer king of Zobah, or any other. Certainly Hadadezer stands cut conspicuously; the Damascenes are mentioned only subordinately.

Consistently with this, the first mention of the kingdom of Damascus in Scripture is the dynasty of Rezon son of Eliada's, a fugitive servant of Hadadezer, who formed a marauding band, then settled and reigned in Damascus 1 Kings 11:23-24. Before this, Scripture speaks of the people only of Damascus, not of their kings. Its native historian admits that the Damascenes were, in the time of David, and continued to be, the aggressors, while he veils over their repeated defeats, and represents their kings, as having reigned successively from father to son, for ten generations, a thing unknown probably in any monarchy. : "A native, Adad, having gained great power, became king of Damascus and the rest of Syria, except Phoenicia. He, having carried war against David, king of Judaea, and disputed with him in many battles, and that finally at the Euaphrates where he was defeated, had the character of a most eminent king for prowess and valor. After his death, his descendants reigned for ten generations, each receiving from his father the name (Hadad) together with the kingdom, like the Ptolemies of Egypt. The third, having gained the greatest power of all, seeking to repair the defeat of his grandfather, warring against the Jews, wasted what is now callcd Samaritis." They could not brook a defeat, which they had brought upon themselves.

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And I will send a fire on the house of Hazael - The fire is probably at once material fire, whereby cities are burned in war, since he adds, "it shall devour the palaces of Benhadad," and also stands as a symbol of all other severity in war as in the ancient proverb, "a fire is gone out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it hath consumed Ar of Moab, the lords of the high places of Arnon" Numbers 21:28; and again of the displeasure of Almighty God, as when He says, "a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and it shall burn unto the lowest hell" Deuteronomy 32:22. For the fire destroys not the natural buildings only, but "the house of Hazael," that is, his whole family. In these prophecies, a sevenfold vengeance by fire is denounced against the seven people, an image of the eternal fire into which all iniquity shall be cast.

The palaces of Benhadad - Hazael, having murdered Benhadad his master and ascended his throne, called Iris son after his murdered master, probably in order to connect his own house with the ancient dynasty. Benhadad, that is, son or worshiper of the idol "Hadad," or "the sun," had been the name of two of the kings of the old dynasty. Benhadad III was at this time reigning. The prophet foretells the entire destruction of the dynasty founded in blood. The prophecy may have had a fulfillment in the destruction of the house of Hazael, with whose family Rezin, the king of Syria in the time of Ahaz, stands in no known relation. Defeats, such as those of Benhadad III by Jeroboam II who took Damascus itself, are often the close of an usurping dynasty. Having no claim to regard except success, failure vitiates its only title. The name Hazael, "whom God looked upon," implies a sort of owning of the One God, like Tab-el, "God is good," El-iada', "whom God knoweth," even amid the idolatry in the names, Tab-Rimmon, "good is Rimmon;" Hadad-ezer, "Hadad is help;" and Hadad, or Benhadad. Bad men abuse every creature, or ordinance, or appointment of God. It may be then that, as Sennacherib boasted, "am I now come up without the Lord against this land" to destroy it? the Lord said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it" Isaiah 36:10; so Hazael made use of the prophecy of Elisha, to give himself out as the scourge of God, and thought of himself as one "on whom God looked."

Knowledge of futurity is an awful gift. As "Omniscience alone can wield Omnipotence," so superhuman knowledge needs superhuman gifts of wisdom and holiness. Hazael seemingly hardened himself in sin by aid of the knowledge which should have been his warning. Probably he came to Elisha, with the intent to murder his master already formed, in case he should not die a natural death; and Elisha read him to himself. But he very probably justified himself to himself in what he had already purposed to do, on the ground that Elisha had foretold to him that he should be king over 2 Kings 8:13, and, in his massacres of God's people, gave himself out as being, what he was, the instrument of God. "Scourges of God" have known themselves to be what they were, although they themselves were not the less sinful, in sinfully accomplishing the Will of God (see the note at Hosea 1:4). We have heard of a Christian Emperor, who has often spoken of his "mission," although his "mission" has already cost the shedding of much Christian blood.

In Isaiah 51:8, Eden is referred to as a country well known, and as distinguished for its fertility:

For Yahweh shall comfort Zion;

He will comfort all her waste places,

And he will make her wilderness like Eden,

And her desert like the garden of Yahweh.

Thus also in Ezekiel 27:23, we find Eden mentioned in connection with Haran and Canneh. Canneh was probably the same as Calneh Genesis 10:10, the Calno of Isaiah Isa 10:9, and was, doubtless, situated in Mesopotamia, since it is joined with cities that are known to have been there (compare also Ezekiel 31:9, Ezekiel 31:16, Ezekiel 31:18). All these passages demonstrate that there was such a country, and prove also that it was either in Mesopotamia, or in a country adjacent to Mesopotamia. It is not, however, possible now to designate its exact boundaries.

In Telassar - This place is nowhere else mentioned in the Scriptures. Nothing, therefore, is known of its situation. The connection demands that it should be in Mesopotamia. The names of ancient places were so often lost or changed that it is often impossible to fix their exact locality.

Amos 1:5I will also break the bar of Damascus - In the East, every city was fortified; the gates of the stronger cities were cased in iron, that they might not be set on fire by the enemy; they were fastened within with bars of brass 1 Kings 4:13 or iron (Psalm 107:16; Isaiah 45:2; compare Isaiah 48:14; Jeremiah 51:3 O). They were flanked with towers, and built over, so that what was naturally the weakest point and the readiest access to an enemy became the strongest defense. In Hauran the huge doors and gates of a single stone 9 and 10 feet high , and 1 12 foot thick , are still extant, and "the place for the ponderous bars," proportioned to such gates, "may yet be seen." The walls were loosened with the battering-ram, or scaled by mounds: the strong gate was seldom attacked; but, when a breach was made, was thrown open from within. The "breaking of the bar" laid open the city to the enemy, to go in and come out at his will. The whole strength of the kingdom of Damascus lay in the capital. It was itself the seat of the empire and was the empire itself. God says then, that He Himself would shiver all their means of resistance, whatever could hinder the inroad of the enemy.

And cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven - Literally, "from the vale of vanity," the "Bik'ah" being a broad vale between hills . Here it is doubtless the rich and beautiful valley, still called el-bukaa by the Arabs, La Boquea by William of Tyre , lying between Lebanon and Anti-libanus, the old Coele-Syria in its narrowest sense. It is, on high ground, the continuation of that long deep valley which, along the Jordan, the Dead sea, and the Arabah, reaches to the Red Sea. lts extreme length, from its southern close at Kal'at-esh-shakif to Hums (Emesa) has been counted at 7 days journey ; it narrows toward its southern extremity, expands at its northern, yet it cannot any how be said to lose its character of a valley until 10 miles north of Riblah .

Midway, on its ," was Baalbek, or Heliopolis, where the Egyptian worship is said to have been brought of old times from their "city of the sun ." Baalbek, as the ruins still attest, was full of the worship of the sun. But the whole of that beautiful range, "a magnificent vista" , it has been said, "carpeted with verdure and beauty" , "a gem lying deep in its valley of mountains," was a citadel of idolatry. The name Baal-Hermon connects Mount Hermon itself, the snow-capped height which so towers over its southeast extremity, with the worship of Baal or the sun, and that, from the time of the Judges Jdg 3:3. The name Baal-gad connects "the valley of Lebanon," that is, most probably the south end of the great valley, with the same worship, anterior to Joshua Jos 11:17; Joshua 12:7; Joshua 13:5.

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Gaza - Was the southernmost city of the Philistines, as it was indeed of Canaan Genesis 10:19 of old, the last inhabited place at the beginning of the desert, on the way from Phoenicia to Egypt . Its situation was wonderfully chosen, so that, often as a Gaza has been destroyed, a new city has, if even after long intervals, risen up again in the same immediate neighborhood . The fragments of the earlier city became materials for the later. It was first Canaanite Genesis 10:19; then Philistine; then, at least after Alexander, Edomite ; after Alexander Janneus, Greek ; conquered by Abubekr the first Khalif, it became Arabian; it was desolated in their civil wars, until the Crusaders rebuilt its fort ; then again, Muslim. In the earliest times, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gaza was the south angle of the border of the Canaanites, from where it turned to the south of the Dead Sea. Even then it was known by its name of strength, 'Azzah "the strong," like our "Fort."

For a time, it stood as an island-fort, while the gigantic race of the Avvim wandered, wilder probably than the modern Bedaween, up to its very gates. For since it is said, "the Avvim dwelt in open villages as far as Gaza" Deuteronomy 2:23; plainly they did not dwell in Gaza itself, a fortified town. The description assigns the bound of their habitations, up to the furthest town on the southeast, Gaza. They prowled around it, infested it doubtless, but did not conquer it, and were themselves expelled by the Caphtorim. The fortress of the prince of Gaza is mentioned in the great expedition of Tothmosis III , as the conquest of Ashkelon was counted worthy of mention in the monuments of Raamses II . It was strengthened doubtless by giving refuge to the Anakim, who, after Joshua had expelled them "from Hebron" and neighboring cities, "and the mountains of Judah and Israel, remained in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod" Joshua 11:21-23.

Its situation, as the first station for land-commerce to and from Egypt, whether toward Tyre and Sidon, or Damascus and the upper Euphrates, or toward Petra, probably aggrandized it early. Even when the tide of commerce has been diverted into other channels, its situation has been a source of great profit. A fertile spot, touching upon a track through a desert, it became a mart for caravans, even those which passed, on the pilgrim-route to Mekka, uniting traffic with their religion. Where the five cities are named together as unconquered, Gaza is mentioned first, then Ashdod Joshua 13:3. Samson, after he had betrayed his strength, was "brought down to Gaza" Judges 16:21, probably as being their strongest fortress, although the furthest from "the valley of Sorek ," where he was ensnared.

There too was the vast temple of Dagon, which became the burying-place of so many of his worshipers. In Solomon's reign it was subject to Israel 1 Kings 4:21. After the Philistine inroad in the time of Ahaz 2 Chronicles 28:18, and their capture of towns of Judah in the south and the low country, Shephelah, Hezekiah drove them back as far as Gaza 2 Kings 18:8, without apparently taking it. Its prince was defeated by Sargon , whose victory over Philistia Isaiah foretold Isaiah 14:29. Sennacherib gave to its king, together with those of Ascalon and Ekron , "fortified and other towns which" he "had spoiled," avowedly to weaken Judah; "so as to make his (Hezekiah's) country small;" probably also as a reward for hostility to Judah. Greek authors spcak of it, as "a very large city of Syria" , "a great city" . Like other cities of old, it was, for fear of pirates, built at some distance from the sea (Arrian says "2 12 miles"), but had a port called, like that of Asealea , Maiuma , which itself too in Christian times became a place of importance .

Because they carried away the whole captivity - Literally, "a complete captivity;" complete, but for evil; a captivity in which none were spared, none left behind; old or young, woman or child; but a whole population (whatever its extent) was swept away. Such an inroad of the Philistines is related in the time of Jehoram 2 Chronicles 21:16.

To deliver them up to Edom - Literally, "to shut them up to Edom," in the power of Edom, their bitter enemy, so that they should not be able to escape, nor be restored. The hands, even if not the land, of Edom were already dyed in the blood of Jacob "their brother" Joel 3:19. "Any whither but there," probably would cry the crowd of helpless captives. It was like driving the shrinking flock of sheep to the butcher's shambles, reeking with the gore of their companions. Yet therefore were they driven there to the slaughter. Open markets there were for Jewish slaves in abundance. "Sell us, only not to slaughter." "Spare the greyheaded;" "spare my child," would go up in the ears of those, who, though enemies, understood their speech. But no! Such was the compact of Tyre and Philistia and Edom against the people of God. Not one was to be spared; it was to be "a complete captivity;" and that, to Edom. The bond was fulfilled. "Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he too shall cry and shall not be heard" Proverbs 21:13. Joel mentions the like sin of the Philistines and Phoenicians, and foretold its punishment Joel 3:4-6. That in the reign of Jehoram is the last which Scripture mentions, but was not therefore, of necessity or probably, the last. Holy Scripture probably relates only the more notable of those border-raids. Unrepented sin is commonly renewed. Those strong Philistine fortresses must have given frequent, abundant opportunity for such inroads; as now too it is said in Arabia, "the harvest is to the stronger;" and while small protected patches of soil in Lebanon, Hauran, etc. are cultivated, the open fertile country often lies uncultivated , since it would be cultivated only for the marauder. Amos renews the sentence of Joel, forewarning them that, though it seemed to tarry, it would come.

But - Literally, "and." Thus had Gaza done, and thus would God do; "I will send a fire upon Gaza." The sentence on Gaza stands out, probably in that it was first in power and in sin. It was the merchant-city of the five; the caravans parted from it or passed through it; and so this sale of the Jewish captives was ultimately effected through them. First in sin, first in punishment. Gaza was strong by nature and by art. "The access to it also," Arrian notices , "lay through deep sand." We do not hear of its being taken, except in the first times of Israel under the special protection of God Judges 1:1-2, Judges 1:18, or by great conquerors. All Philistia, probably, submitted to David; we hear of no special conquest of its towns 2 Samuel 8:1. Its siege cost Alexander 2 months , with all the aid of the engines with which he had taken Tyre, and the experience which he had there gained. The Egyptian accounts state, that when besieged by Tothmosis III it capitulated . Thenceforth, it had submitted neither to Egypt nor Assyria. Yet Amos declared absolutely, that Gaza should be destroyed by fire, and it was so. Sennacherib first, then, after Jeremiah had foretold anew the destruction of Gaza, Ashkelon, and the Philistines, Pharaoh Necho "smote Gaza" Jeremiah 47:1. Yet who, with human foresight only, would undertake to pronounce the destruction of a city so strong?

And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod - Ashdod, as well as Ekron, have their names from their strength; Ashdod, "the mighty," like Valentia; Ekron, "the firm-rooted." The title of Ashdod implied that it was powerful to inflict as to resist. It may have meant, "the waster." It too was eminent in its idolatry. The ark, when taken, was first placed in its Dagon-temple 1 Samuel 5:1-7; and, perhaps, in consequence, its lord is placed first of the five, in recounting the trespass-offerings which they sent to the Lord 1 Samuel 6:17. Ashdod (Azotus in the New Testament now a village, Esdud or Shdood ), lay 34 or 36 miles from Gaza , on the great route from Egypt northward, on that which now too is most used even to Jerusalem. Ashkelon lay to the left of the road, near the sea, rather more than halfway.

Ekron (Akir, now a village of 50 mud-houses ), lay a little to the right of the road northward from Gaza to Lydda (in the same latitude as Jamnia, Jabneel) on the road from Ramleh to Belt Jibrin (Eleutheropolis). Ekron, the furthest from the sea, lay only 15 miles from it. They were then a succession of fortresses, strong from their situation, which could molest any army, which should come along their coast. Transversely, in regard to Judah, they enclosed a space parallel to most of Judah and Benjamin. Ekron, which by God's gift was the northern line of Judah Joshua 15:11, is about the same latitude as Ramah in Benjamin; Gaza, the same as Carmel (Kurmul). From Gaza lay a straight road to Jerusalem; but Ashkelon too, Ashdod, and Ekron lay near the heads of valleys, which ran up to the hill-country near Jerusalem .

This system of rich valleys, in which, either by artificial irrigation or natural absorption, the streams which ran from the mountains of Judah westward fertilized the grainfields of Philistia, aforded equally a ready approach to Philistine marauders into the very heart of Judah. The Crusaders had to crown with castles the heights in a distant circle around Ashkelon , in order to restrain the incursions of the Muslims. (In such occasions doubtless, the same man-stealing was often practiced on lesser scales, which here, on a larger scale, draws down the sentence of God. Gath, much further inland, probably formed a center to which these maritime towns converged, and united their system of inroads on Judah.

These five cities of Philistia had each its own petty king (Seren, our "axle"). But all formed one whole; all debated and acted together on any great occasion; as in the plot against Samson Judges 16:5, Judges 16:8, Judges 16:18, the sacrifice to Dagon in triumph over him, where they perished Judges 16:23, Judges 16:27, Judges 16:30; the inflictions on account of the ark 1 Samuel 5:8, 1 Samuel 5:11; 1 Samuel 6:4, 1 Samuel 6:12, 1 Samuel 6:16, 1 Samuel 6:18; the great attack on Israel 1 Samuel 7:7, which God defeated the Mizpeh; the battle when Saul fell, and the dismissal of David 1 Samuel 31:2, 1 Samuel 31:6-7; 1 Chronicles 12:19. The cities divided their idolatry also, in a manner, between them, Ashdod being the chief seat of the worship of Dagon , Ashkelon, of the corresponding worship of Derceto , the fish-goddess, the symbol of the passive principle in re-production. Ekron was the seat of the worship of Baalzebub and his oracle, from where he is called "the god of Ekron" 2 Kings 1:2-3, 2 Kings 1:16.

Gaza, even after it had become an abode of Greek idolatry and had seven temples of Greek gods, still retained its worship of its god Marna ("our Lord") as the chief . It too was probably "nature" and to its worship they were devoted. All these cities were as one; all formed one state; all were one in their sin; all were to be one in their punishment. So then for greater vividness, one part of the common infliction is related of each, while in fact, according to the custom of prophetic diction, what is said of each is said of all. King and people were to be cut off from all; all were to be consumed with fire in war; on all God would, as it were, "turn" (literally, "bring back") His Hand, visiting them anew, and bringing again the same punishment upon them. In truth these destructions came upon them, again and again, through Sargon, Hezekiah, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, the Maccabees.

Ashdod - Uzziah about this time "brake down its walls and built cities about" 2 Chronicles 26:6 it, to protect his people from its inroads. It recovered, and was subsequently besieged and taken by Tartan, the Assyrian General under Sargon Isaiah 20:1 (about 716 b.c.). Somewhat later, it sustained the longest siege in man's knowlege, for 29 years, from Psammetichus king of Egypt (about 635 b.c.). Whence, probably Jeremiah, while he speaks of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, mentions "the remnant of Ashdod" Jeremiah 25:20 only. Yet, after the captivity, it seems to have been the first Philistine city, so that the Philistines were called Ashdodites Nehemiah 4:7, and their dialect Ashdodite Nehemiah 13:24. They were still hostile to the Jews Nehemiah 4:7. The war, in which Judas Maccabaeus spoiled Ashdod and other Philistine cities (1 Macc. 5:68), was a defensive war against a war of extermination. "The nations round about" (1 Macc. 5:1, 2), it is said at the beginning of the account of that year's campaign, "thought to destroy the generation of Jacob that was among them, and thereupon they began to slay and destroy the people." Jonathan, the brother of Judas, "set fire to Azotus and the cities round about it (1 Macc. 10:82, 84), after a battle under its walls, to which his enemies had challenged him. The temple of Dagon in it was a sort of citadel (1 Macc. 10:83).

Ashkelon is mentioned as a place of strength, taken by the great conqueror, Raamses II. Its resolute defense and capture are represented, with its name as a city of Canaanites, on a monument of Karnac . Its name most naturally signifies "hanging." This suits very well with the site of its present ruins, which "hang" on the side of the theater or arc of hills, whose base is the sea. This, however, probably was not its ancient site (see the note at Zephaniah 2:4). Its name occurs in the wars of the Maccabees, but rather as submitting readily (1 Macc. 10:86; 11:60). Perhaps the inhabitants had been changed in the intervening period. Antipater, the Edomite father of Herod, courted, we are told , "the Arabs and the Ascalonites and the Gazites." "Toward the Jews their neighbors, the inhabitants of the Holy land," Philo says to the Roman emperor, "the Ascalonites have an irreconcilable aversion, which will come to no terms." This abiding hatred burst out at the beginning of the war with the Romans, in which Jerusalem perished. The Ascalonites massacred 2500 Jews dwelling among them . The Jews "fired Ascalon and utterly destroyed Gaza" .

Ekron was apparently not important enough in itself to have any separate history. We hear of it only as given by Alexander Bales "with the borders thereof in possession" (1 Macc. 10:89) to Jonathan the Maccabee. The valley of Surar gave the Ekronites a readier entrance into the center of Judaea, than Ascalon or Ashdod had. In Jerome's time, it had sunk to "a very large village."

The residue of the Philistines shall perish - This has been thought to mean "the rest" (as in Jeremiah 39:3; Nehemiah 7:72) that is, Gath, (not mentioned by name anymore as having ceased to be of any account (see the note at Amos 6:3)) and the towns, dependent on those chief cities . The common (and, with a proper name, universal ) meaning of the idiom is, "the remnant," those who remain over after a first destruction. The words then, like those just before, "I will bring again my hand against Ekron," foretell a renewal of those first judgments. The political strength which should survive one desolation should be destroyed in those which should succeed it. In tacit contrast with the promises of mercy to the remnant of Judah (see above the note at Joel 2:32), Amos foretells that judgment after judgment should fall upon Philistia, until the Philistines ceased to be anymore a people; as they did.

The last crowning sin, for which judgment is pronounced on Tyre, is the same as that of Philistia, and probably was enacted in concert with it. In Tyre, there was this aggravation, that it was a violation of a previous treaty and friendship. It was not a covenant only, nor previous friendliness only; but a specific covenant, founded on friendship which they forgat and brake. If they retained the memory of Hiram's contact with David and Solomon, it was a sin against light too. After David had expelled the Jebusites from Jerusalem, "Hiram King of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees and carpenters and masons; and they built David a house" 2 Samuel 5:11. The Philistines contrariwise invaded him 2 Samuel 5:17. This recognition of him by Hiram was to David a proof, "that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for His people, Israel's sake" 2 Samuel 5:12.

Hiram seems, then, to have recognized something super-human in the exaltation of David. "Hiram was ever a lover of David" 1 Kings 5:1. This friendship he continued to Solomon, and recognized his God as "the" God. Scripture embodies the letter of Hiram; "Because the Lord hath loved his people, He hath made thee king over them. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who hath given to David a wise son - that he might build are house for the Lord" . He must have known then the value which the pious Israelites attached to the going up to that temple. A later treaty, offered by Demetrius Nicator to Jonathan, makes detailed provision that the Jews should have "the feasts and sabbaths and new moons and the solemn days and the three days before the feast and the three days after the feast, as days of immunity and freedom."

The three days before the feast were given, that they might go up to the feast. Other treaties guarantee to the Jews religious privileges . A treaty between Solomon and Hiram, which should not secure any religious privileges needed by Jews in Hiram's dominion, is inconceivable. But Jews were living among the Zidonians (see the note at Joel 3:6). The treaty also, made between Hiram and Solomon, was subsequent to the arrangement by which Hiram was to supply cedars to Solomon, and Solomon to furnish the grain of which Hiram stood in need 1 Kings 5:7-11. "The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as He promised him" 1 Kings 5:12; and, as a fruit of that wisdom, "there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a covenant." The terms of that covenant are not there mentioned; but a covenant involves conditions. it was not a mere peace; but a distinct covenant, sanctioned by religious rites and by sacrifice.

"This brotherly covenant Tyre remembered not," when they delivered up to Edom "a complete captivity," all the Jews who came into their hands. It seems then, that that covenant had an special provision against selling them away from their own land. This same provision other people made for love of their country or their homes; the Jews, for love of their religion. This covenant Tyre remembered not, but brake. They knew doubtless why Edom sought to possess the Israelites; but the covetousness of Tyre fed the cruelty of Edom, and God punished the broken appeal to Himself.

I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre - Tyre had long ere this become tributary to Assyria. Asshur-ban-ipal (about 930 b.c.,) records his "taking tribute from the kings of all the chief Phoenician cities as Tyre, Sidon, Biblus and Aradus" . His son Shalmanubar records his taking tribute from them in his 21st year about 880, b.c.), as did Ivalush III , and after this time Tiglath-pileser II , the same who took Damascus and carried off its people, as also the east and north of Israel. The Phoenicians had aided Benhadad, in his unsuccessful war or rebellion against Shalmanubar , but their city had received no hurt. There was nothing, in the time of Amos, to indicate any change of policy in the Assyrian conquerors.

They had been content hitherto with tribute from their distant dependencies; they had spared them, even when in arms against them. Yet Amos says absolutely in the name of God, "I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre," and the fire did fall, first from Shalamaneser or Sargon his successor, and then from Nebuchadnezzar. The Tyrians (as is men's custom) inserted in their annals their successes, or the successful resistance which they made for a time. They relate that , "Elulaeus, king of Tyre, reduced the Kittiaeans (Cypriotes) who had revolted. The king of Assyria invaded all Phoenicia, and returned, having made peace with all. Sidon and Ace and old Tyre, and many other cities revolted from the Tyrians, and surrendered to the king of Assyria. Tyre then not obeying, the king returned against them, the Phoenicians manning 60 ships for him." These, he says, were dispersed, 500 prisoners taken; the honor of Tyre intensified. "The king of Assyria, removing, set guards at the river and aqueducts, to hinder the Tyrians from drawing water. This they endured for 5 years, drinking from the wells sunk."

The Tyrian annalist does not relate the sequel. He does not venture to say that the Assyrian King gave up the siege, but, having made the most of their resistance, breaks off the account. The Assyrian inscriptions say, that Sargon took Tyre , and received tribute from Cyprus, where a monument has been found, bearing the name of Sargon . It is not probable that a monarch who took Samaria and Ashdod, received tribute from Egypt, the "Chief of Saba," and "Queen of the Arabs," overran Hamath, Tubal, Cilicia, Armenia, reduced Media, should have returned baffled, because Tyre stood out a blockade for 5 years. Since Sargon wrested from Tyre its newly-recovered Cyprus, its insular situation would not have protected itself. Nebuchadnezzar took it after a 13 years' siege (Ezekiel 26:7-12, see the notes at Isaiah 23).

Edom - God had impressed on Israel its relation of brotherhood to Edom. Moses expressed it to Edom himself , and, after the suspicious refusal of Edom to allow Israel to march on the highway through his territory, he speaks as kindly of him, as before; "And when we passed by from our brethren, the children of Esau" Deuteronomy 2:8. It was the unkindness of worldly politics, and was forgiven. The religious love of the Egyptian and the Edomite was, on distinct grounds, made part of the law. "Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land" Deuteronomy 23:7. The grandchild of an Egyptian or of an Edomite was religiously to become as an Israelite Deuteronomy 23:8. Not a foot of Edomite territory was Israel to appropriate, however provoked. It was God's gift to Edom, as much as Canaan to Israel. "They shall be afraid of you, and ye shall take exceeding heed to yourselves. Quarrel not with them, for I will give you, of their land, no, not so much as the treading of the sole of the foot, for I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession" Deuteronomy 2:4-5.

From this time until that of Saul, there is no mention of Edom; only that the Maonites and the Amalekites, who oppressed Israel Judges 6:3; Judges 10:12, were kindred tribes with Edom. The increasing strength of Israel in the early days of Saul seems to have occasioned a conspiracy against him, such as Asaph afterward complains of; "They have said, come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent, they are confederate against Thee; the tabernacles of Edom and the Ishmaelites; of Moab and the Hagarenes; Gebal and Ammon and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them; they have been an arm to the children of Lot" Psalm 83:4-8. Such a combination began probably in the time of Saul. "He fought against all his enemies on every side; against Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and against the king of Edom, and against the Philistines" 1 Samuel 14:47.

They were "his enemies," and that, round about, encircling Israel, as hunters did their prey. "Edom," on the south and southeast; "Moab" and "Ammon" on the east; the Syrians of "Zobah" on the north; the Philistines on the west enclosed him as in a net, and he repulsed them one by one. "Whichever why he turned, he worsted" them. It follows "he delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them" 1 Samuel 14:48. The aggression was from Edom, and that in combination with old oppressors of Israel, not from Saul . The wars of Saul and of David were defensive wars. Israel was recovering from a state of depression, not oppressing. "The valley of salt" 2 Samuel 8:13, where David defeated the Edomites, was also doubtless within the borders of Judah, since "the city of salt" was Joshua 15:62; and the valley of salt was probably near the remarkable "mountain of salt," 5 56 miles long, near the end of the Dead Sea , which, as being Canaanite, belonged to Israel. It was also far north of Kadesh, which was "the utmost boundary" of Edom Numbers 20:16.

From that Psalm too of mingled thanksgiving and prayer which David composed after the victory, "in the valley of salt" (Psalm 60:1-12 title), it appears that, even after that victory, David's army had not yet entered Edom. "Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?" Psalm 60:9. That same Psalm speaks of grievous suffering before, "in" which God had "cast" them "off" and "scattered" them; "made the earth tremble and cleft it;" so that "it reeled" Psalm 60:1-3, Psalm 60:10. Joab too had "returned" from the war in the north against the Syrians of Mesopotamia, to meet the Edomites. Whether in alliance with the Syrians, or taking advantage of the absence of the main army there, the Edomites had inflicted some heavy blow on Israel; a battle in which Abishai killed 18,000 men 1 Chronicles 18:12 had been indecisive. The Edomites were relpalsed by the rapid counter-march of Joab. The victory, according to the Psalm, was still incomplete 1 Chronicles 18:1, 1 Chronicles 18:5, 1 Chronicles 18:9-12. David put "garrisons in Edom" 2 Samuel 8:14, to restrain them from further outbreaks. Joab avenged the wrong of the Edomites, conformably to his character 1 Kings 11:16; but the fact that "the captain of the host" had "to go up to bury the slain" (1 Kings 11:15. It should be rendered, not, after he had slain, but, and he killed, etc.), shows the extent of the deadly blow, which he so fearfully avenged.

The store set by the king of Egypt on Hadad, the Edomite prince who fled to him 1 Kings 11:14-20, shows how gladly Egypt employed Edom as an enemy to Israel. It has been said that he rebelled and failed . Else it remained under a dependent king appointed by Judah, for 1 12 century (1 Kings 22:47; 2 Kings 3:9 ff). One attempt against Judah is recorded 2 Chronicles 20:10, when those of Mount Seir combined with Moab and Ammon against Jehoshaphat after his defeat at Ramoth-gilead. They had penetrated beyond Engedi 2 Chronicles 20:2, 2 Chronicles 20:16, 2 Chronicles 20:20, on the road which Arab marauders take now , toward the wilderness of Tekoa, when God set them against one another, and they fell by each other's hands 2 Chronicles 20:22-24. But Jehoshaphat's prayer at this time evinces that Israel's had been a defensive warfare. Otherwise, he could not have appealed to God, "the children of Ammon and Moab and mount Seir, whom Thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not, behold, they reward us, to come to cast us out of Thy possession, which Thou hast given us to inherit" 2 Chronicles 20:10-11.

Judah held Edom by aid of garrisons, as a wild beast is held in a cage, that they might not injure them, but had taken no land from them, nor expelled them. Edom sought to cast Israel out of God's land. Revolts cannot be without bloodshed; and so it is perhaps the more probable, that the words of Joel, "for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land" Joel 3:19, relate to a massacre of the Jews, when Esau revolted from Jehoram 2 Kings 8:20-22. We have seen, in the Indian Massacres, how every living being of the ruling power may, on such occasions, be sought out for destruction. Edom gained its independence, and Jehoram, who sought to recover his authority, escaped with his life by cutting through the Edomite army by night 2 Kings 8:21. Yet in Amaziha's time they were still on the offensive, since the battle wherein he defeated them, was again "in the valley of salt" 2 Kings 14:7; 2 Chronicles 25:11, 2 Chronicles 25:14.

Azariah, in whose reign Amos prophesied, regained Elath from them, the port for the Indian trade 2 Chronicles 26:2. Of the origin of that war, we know nothing; only the brief words as to the Edomite invasion against Ahaz, "and yet again had the Edomites come, and smitten in Judah, and carried captive a captivity" 2 Chronicles 28:17, attest previous and, it may be, habitual invasions. For no one such invasion had been named. It may probably mean, "they did yet again, what they had been in the habit of doing." But in matter of history, the prophets, in declaring the grounds of God's judgments, supply much which it was not the object of the historical books to relate. "They" are histories of God's dealings with His people, His chastisements of them or of His sinful instruments in chastising them. Rarely, except when His supremacy was directly challenged, do they record the ground of the chastisements of pagan nations. Hence, to those who look on the surface only, the wars of the neighboring nations against Israel look but like the alternations of peace and war, victory and defeat, in modern times. The prophets draw up the veil, and show us the secret grounds of man's misdeeds and God's judgments.

Because he did pursue his brother - The characteristic sin of Edom, and its punishment are one main subject of the prophecy of Obadiah, inveterate malice contrary to the law of kindred. Eleven hundred years had passed since the birth of their forefathers, Jacob and Esan. But, with God, eleven hundred years had not worn out kindred. He who willed to knit together all creation, human beings and angels, in one in Christ Ephesians 1:10, and, as a means of union, "made of one blood all nations of people for to dwell on all the face of the earth" Acts 17:26, used all sorts of ways to impress this idea of brotherhood. "We" forget relationship mostly in the third generation, often sooner; and we think it strange when a nation long retains the memories of those relationships . God, in His law, stamped on His people's minds those wider meanings. To slay a man was to slay a "brother" Genesis 9:5.

Even the outcast Canaan was a brother Genesis 9:25 to Shem and Ham. Lot speaks to the men of Sodom amidst their iniquities, "my brethren" Genesis 19:7; Jacob so salutes those unknown to him Genesis 29:4. The descendants of Ishmael and Isaac were to be brethren; so were those of Esau and Jacob Genesis 16:12; Genesis 25:18. The brotherhood of blood was not to wear out, and there was to be a brotherhood of love also Genesis 27:29, Genesis 27:37. Every Israelite was a brother ; each tribe was a brother to every other Deuteronomy 10:9; Deuteronomy 18:2; Judges 20:23, Judges 20:28; the force of the appeal was remembered, even when passion ran high 2 Samuel 2:26. It enters habitually into the divine legislation. "Thou shall open thy hand wide unto thy brother Deuteronomy 15:11; if thy brother, a" Hebrew, sell himself to thee Deuteronomy 15:12; thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray and hide thyself from them Deuteronomy 22:1-4; if thy brother be waxen poor, then shalt thou relieve him, though a stranger and a sojourner, that he may live with thee" (Leviticus 25:35-39; add Leviticus 19:17; Deuteronomy 24:7, Deuteronomy 24:10, Deuteronomy 24:14).

In that same law, Edom's relationship as a brother was acknowledged. It was an abiding law that Israel was not to take land, nor to refuse to admit him into the congregation of the Lord. Edom too remembered the relation, but to hate him. The nations around Israel seem to have been little at war with one another, bound together by common hatred against God's people. Of their wars indeed we should not hear, for they had no religious interest. They would be but the natural results of the passions of unregenerate nature. Feuds there doubtless were and forays, but no attempts at permanent conquest or subdual. Their towns remain in their own possession . Tyre does not invade Philistia; nor Philistia, Tyre or Edom. But all combine against Israel. The words, "did pursue his brother with the sword," express more than is mentioned in the historical books.

To "pursue" is more than to fight. They followed after, in order to destroy a remnant, "and cast off all pity:" literally, and more strongly, "corrupted his compassions, tendernesses." Edom did violence to his natural feelings, as Ezekiel, using the same word, says of Tyre, "corrupting Ezekiel 28:17 his wisdom," that is, perverting it from the end for which God gave it, and so destroying it. Edom "steeled himself," as we say, against his better feelings," his better nature," "deadened" them. But so they do not live again. Man is not master of the life and death of his feelings, anymore than of his natural existence. He can destroy; he cannot re-create. And he does, so far, "corrupt," decay, do to death, his own feelings, whenever, in any signal instance, he acts against them. Edom was not simply unfeeling. He destroyed all "his tender yearnings" over suffering, such as God has put into every human heart, until it destroys them. Ordinary anger is satisfied and slaked by its indulgence; malice is fomented and fed and invigorated by it. Edom ever, as occasion gratified his anger; "his anger did tear continually;" yet, though raging as some wild ravening animal, without control, "he kept his wrath for ever," not within bounds, but to let it loose anew. He retained it when he ought to have parted with it, and let it loose when he ought to have restrained it.

"What is best, when spoiled, becomes the worst," is proverbial truth. : "As no love wellnigh is more faithful than that of brothers, so no hatred, when it hath once begun, is more unjust, no odium fiercer. Equality stirs up and inflames the mind; the shame of giving way and the love of preeminence is the more inflamed, in that the memory of infancy and whatever else would seem to gender good will, when once they are turned aside from the right path, produce hatred and contempt." They were proverbial sayings of paganism, "fierce are the wars of brethren" , and "they who have loved exceedingly, they too hate exceedingly." : "The Antiochi, the Seleuci, the Gryphi, the Cyziceni, when they learned not to be all but brothers, but craved the purple and diadems, overwhelmed themselves and Asia too with many calamities."

But - (And I, in My turn and as a consequence of these sins) will send a fire upon Teman "Teman," say Eusebius and Jerome , "was a country of the princes of Edom, which had its name from Teman son of Eliphaz, son of Esau Genesis 36:11, Genesis 36:15. But even to this day there is a village, called Teman, about 5 (Eusebius says 15) miles from Petra, where there is also a Roman garrison, from which place was Eliphaz, king of the Themanites." It is, however, probably the district which is meant, of which Bozra was then the capital. For Amos when speaking of cities, uses some word to express this, as "the palaces of Benhadad, the wall of Gaza, of Tyrus, of Rabbah;" here he simply uses the name Teman, as he does those of Moab and Judah. Amos does not mention Petra, or Selah, for Amaziah had taken it, and called it Joktheel, "which God subdued," which name it for some time retained 2 Kings 14:7.

Bozrah - (Literally, which cuts off approach) is mentioned, as early as Genesis Gen 36:33, as the seat of one of the elective kings who, in times before Moses, reigned over Edom. It lay then doubtless in Idumea itself, and is quite distinct from the Bozrah of Hauran or Auranitis, from which Jerome also distinguishes it. : "There is another Bosor also, a city of Esau, in the mountains of Idumea, of which Isaiah speaks." There is yet a small village of the like name (Busaira "the little Bozrah") which "appears," it is said , "to have been in ancient times a considerable city, if we may judge from the ruins which surround the village." It has now "some 50 houses, and stands on an elevation, on the summit of which a small castle has been built." The name however, "little Bozrah," indicates the existence of a "great Bozrah," with which its name is contrasted, and is not likely to have been the place itself . Probably the name was a common one, "the strong place" of its neighborhood . The Bozrah of Edom is either that little vilage, or is wholly blotted out.

Ammon - These who receive their existence under circumstances, in any way like those of the first forefathers of Moab and Ammon, are known to be under physical as well as intellectual and moral disadvantages. Apart from the worst horrors, on the one side reason was stupefied, on the other it was active in sin. He who imprinted His laws on nature, has annexed the penalty to the infraction of those laws. It is known also how, even under the Gospel, the main character of a nation remains unchanged. The basis of natural character, upon which grace has to act, remains, under certain limits, the same. Still more in the unchanging east. Slave-dealers know of certain hereditary good or evil qualities in non-Christian nations in whom they traffic. What marvel then that Ammon and Moab retained the stamp of their origin, in a sensual or passionate nature? Their choice of their idols grew out of this original character and aggravated it.

They chose them gods like themselves, and worsened themselves by copying these idols of their sinful nature. The chief god of the fierce Ammon was Milehem or Molech, the principle of destruction, who was appeased with sacrifices of living children, given to the fire to devour. Moab, beside its idol Chemosh, had the degrading worship of Baal Peor Numbers 25:1-3, reproductiveness the counterpart of destruction. And, so. in fierce or degrading rites, they worshiped the power which belongs to God, to create, or to destroy. Moab was the seducer of Israel at Shittim Numbers 25:1-3. Ammon, it has been noticed, showed at different times a special wanton ferocity . Such was the proposal of Nahash to the men of Jabesh-Gilead, when offering to surrender, "that I may thrust out all your right eyes and lay it for a reproach unto all Israel" 1 Samuel 11:1-3.

Such was the insult to David's messengers of peace, and the hiring of the Syrians in an aggressive war against David 2 Samuel 10:1-6. Such, again, was this war of extermination against the Gileadites. On Israel's side, the relation to Moab and Ammon had been altogether friendly. God recalled to Israel the memory of their common descent, and forbade them to war against either. He speaks of them by the name of kindness, "the children of Lot," the companion and friend of Abraham. "I will not give thee of their land for a possession, because I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession" Deuteronomy 2:9, Deuteronomy 2:19. Akin by descent, their history had been alike. Each had driven out a giant tribe; Moab, the Emim; Ammon, the Zamzummim Deuteronomy 2:10-11, Deuteronomy 2:20-21. They had thus possessed themselves of the tract from the Arnon, not quite half way down the Dead Sea on its east side, to the Jabbok, about half-way between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee . Both had been expelled by the Amorites, and had been driven, Moab, behind the Arnon, Ammon, behind the "strong border" Numbers 21:24 of the upper part of the Jabbok, what is now the Nahr Amman, "the river of Ammon," eastward.

The whole of what became the inheritance of the 2 12 tribes, was in the hands of the Amorites, and threatened very nearly their remaining possessions; since, at "Aroer that is before Rabbah" Joshua 13:25, the Amorites were already over against the capital of Ammon; at the Arnon they were but 2 12 hours from Ar-Moab, the remaining capital of Moab. Israel then, in destroying the Amorites, had been at once avenging and rescuing Moab and Ammon; and it is so far a token of friendliness at this time, that, after the victory at Edrei, the great "iron bedstead" of Og was placed in "Rabbah of the children of Ammon" Deuteronomy 3:11. Envy, jealousy, and fear, united them to "hire Balaam to curse Israel" Deuteronomy 23:4, although the king of Moab was the chief actor in this Numbers 22-24, as he was in the seduction of Israel to idoltary Numbers 25:1-3. Probably Moab was then, and continued to be, the more influential or the more powerful, since in their first invasion of Israel, the Ammonites came as the allies of Eglon king of Moab. "He gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek Judges 3:13. And" they "served Eglon." Yet Ammon's subsequent oppression must have been yet more grievous, since God reminds Israel of His delivering them from the Ammonites Judges 10:11, not from Moab. There we find Ammon under a king, and in league with the Philistines Judges 10:7, "crashing and crushing for 18 years all the children of Israel in Gilead." The Ammonites carried a wide invasion across the Jordan against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim Judges 10:9, until they were subdued by Jephthah. Moab is not named; but the king of Ammon claims as my land Judges 11:13, the whole which Moab and Ammon had lost to the Amorites and they to Israel, "from Arnon unto Jabbok and unto Jordan" Judges 11:13.

The range also of Jephthah's victories included probably all that same country from the Arnon to the neighborhood of Rabbah of Ammon . The Ammonites, subdued then, were again on the offensive in the fierce siege of Jabesh-Gilead and against Saul (see above the note at Amos 1:11). Yet it seems that they had already taken from Israel what they had lost to the Amorites, for Jabesh-Gilead was beyond the Jabbok ; and "Mizpeh of Moab," where David went to seek the king of Moab 1 Samuel 22:3, was probably no other than the Ramoth-Mizpeh Joshua 13:26 of Gad, the Mizpeh Judges 11:29 from where Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites. With Hanan, king of Ammon, David sought to remain at peace, on account of some kindness, interested as it probably was, which his father Nahash had shown him, when persecuted by Saul 2 Samuel 10:2.

It was only after repeated attempts to bring an overwhelming force of the Syriains against David, that Rabbah was besieged and taken, and that awful punishment inflicted. The severity of the punishment inflicted on Moab and Ammon, in that two-thirds of the fighting men of Moab were put to death 2 Samuel 8:2, and fighting men of "the cities of Ammon" 2 Samuel 12:31 were destroyed by a ghastly death, so different from David's treatment of the Philistines or the various Syrians, implies some extreme hostility on their part, from which there was no safety except in their destruction. Moab and Ammon were still united against Jehoshaphat 2 Chronicles 20, and with Nebuchadnezzar against Jehoiakim 2 Kings 24:2, whom they had before sought to stir up against the king of Babylon Jeremiah 27:3. Both profited for a time by the distresses of Israel, "magnifying" themselves "against her border" Zephaniah 2:8, and taking possession of her cities after the 2 12 tribes has been carried away by Tiglath-pileser. Both united in insulting Judah, and (as it appears from Ezekiel EZechariah 25:2-8), out of jealousy against its religious distinction.

When some of the scattered Jews were reunited under Gedaliah, after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, it was a king of Ammon, Baalis, who instigated Johanan to murder him Jeremiah 40:11-14; Jeremiah 41:10. When Jerusalem was to be rebuilt after the return from the captivity, Ammonites and Moabites Nehemiah 2:10, Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:1-3, "Sanballat the Horonite" (that is, out of Horonaim, which Moab had taken to itself Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:3, Jeremiah 48:5, Jeremiah 48:34.) "and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite," were chief in the opposition to it. They helped on the persecution by Antiochus (1 Macc. 5:6). Their anti-religious character, which showed itself in the hatred of Israel and the hire of Balaam, was the ground of the exclusion of both from admission "into the congregation of the Lord forever" Deuteronomy 23:3. The seduction of Solomon by his Ammonite and Moabite wives illustrates the infectiousness of their idolatry. While he made private chapels "for all his strange wives, to burn incense and sacrifice to their gods" 1 Kings 11:8, the most stately idolatry was that of Chemosh and Molech, the abomination of Moab and Ammon . For Ashtoreth alone, besides these, did Solomon build high places in sight of the temple of God, on a lower part of the Mount of Olives 2 Kings 23:13.

They have ripped up the women with child in Gilead - Since Elisha prophesied that Hazael would be guilty of this same atrocity, and since Gilead was the scene of his chief atrocities , probably Syria and Ammon were, as of old, united against Israel in a war of extermination. It was a conspiracy to displace God's people from the land which He had given them, and themselves to replace them. The plan was effective; it was, Amos says, executed. They expelled and "inherited Gad" Jeremiah 49:1. Gilead was desolated for the sins for which Hosea rebuked it; "blood had blood." It had been "tracked with blood" (see the note at Hosea 6:8); now life was sought out for destruction, even in the mother's womb. But, in the end, Israel, whose extermination Ammon devised and in part effected, survived. Ammon perished and left no memorial.

That they might enlarge their border - It was a horror, then, exercised, not incidentally here and there, or upon a few, or in sudden stress of passion, but upon system and in cold blood. We have seen lately, in the massacres near Lebanon, where male children were murdered on system, how methodically such savageness goes to work. A massacre, here and there, would not have "enlarged their border." They must haw carried on these horrors then, throughout all the lands which they wished to possess, making place for themselves by annihilating Israel, that there might be none to rise up and thrust them from their conquests, and claim their old inheritance. Such was the fruit of habitually indulged covetousness. Yet who beforehand would have thought it possible?

I will kindle afire in the wall of Rabbah - Rabbah, literally, "the great," called by Moses "Rabbah of the children of Ammon" Deuteronomy 3:11, and by later Greeks, "Rabathammana" , was a strong city with a yet stronger citadel. Ruins still exist, some of which probably date back to these times. The lower city "lay in a valley bordered on both sides by barren hills of flint," at 12 an hour from its entrance. It lay on a stream, still called by its name Moyet or Nahr Amman, "waters" or "river of Ammon," which ultimately falls into the Zurka (the Jabbok) . "On the top of the highest of the northern hills," where at the divergence of two valleys it abuts upon the ruins of the town, "stands the castle of Ammon, a very extensive rectangular building," following the shape of the hill and wholly occupying its crest. "Its walls are thick, and denote a remote antiquity; large blocks of stone are piled up without cement, and still hold together as well as if they had been recently placed; the greater part of the wall is entire. Within the castle are several deep cisterns."

There are remains of foundations of a wall of the lower city at its eastern extremity . This lower city, as lying on a river in a waterless district, was called the "city of waters" 2 Samuel 12:27, which Joab had taken when he sent to David to come and besiege the Upper City. In later times, that Upper City was resolutely defended against Antiochus the Great, and taken, not by force but by thirst . On a conspicuous place on this castle-hill, stood a large temple, some of its broken columns 3 12 feet in diameter , probably the Grecian successor of the temple of its idol Milchom. Rabbah, the capital of Ammon, cannot have escaped, when Nebuchadnezzar , "in the 5th year of his reign, led an army against Coele-Syria, and, having possessed himself of it, warred against the Ammonites and Moabites, and having made all these nations subject to him, invaded Egypt, to subdue it."

Afterward, it was tossed to and fro in the desolating wars between Syria and Egypt. Ptolemy II called it from his own surname Philadelphia , and so probably had had to restore it. It brought upon itself the attack of Antiochus III and its own capture, by its old habit of marauding against the Arabs in alliance with him. At the time of our Lord, it, with "Samaria, Galilee and Jericho," is said by a pagan to be "inhabited by a mingled race of Egyptians, Arabians and Phoenicians." It had probably already been given over to "the children of the East," the Arabs, as Ezekiel had foretold Ezekiel 25:4. In early Christian times Milchom was still worshiped there under its Greek name of Hercules . Trajan recovered it to the Roman empire , and in the 4th century it, with Bostra , was still accounted a "vast town most secured by strong walls," as a frontier fortress "to repel the incursions of neighboring nations." It was counted to belong to Arabia . An Arabic writer says that it perished before the times of Muhammed, and covered a large tract with its ruins . It became a station of pilgrims to Mecca, and then, until now, as Ezekiel foretold , a stable for camels and a couching place.

I will kindle a fire in the wall - It may be that the prophet means to speak of some conflagration from within, in that he says not, as elsewhere, "I will send afire upon," but, "I will kindle a fire in" Amos 1:4, Amos 1:7, Amos 1:10, Amos 1:12; Amos 2:2, Amos 2:5. But "the shouting" is the battle-cry (Job 39:25; Jeremiah 20:16; Zephaniah 1:16, etc.) of the victorious enemy, the cheer of exultation, anticipating its capture. That onslaught was to be resistless, sweeping, like a whirlwind, all before it. The fortress and walls of Rabbah were to yield before the onset of the enemy, as the tents of their caravans were whirled flat on the ground before the eddying of the whirlwinds from the desert, burying all beneath them.

And their king - The king was commonly, in those nations, the center of their energy. When "he and his princes" were "gone into captivity," there was no one to make head against the conqueror, and renew revolts. Hence, as a first step in the subdual, the reigning head and those who shared his counsels were removed. Ammon then, savage as it was in act, was no ill-organized horde. On the contrary, barren and waste as all that country now is, it must once have been highly cultivated by a settled and laborious people. The abundance of its ruins attests the industry and habits of the population. "The whole of the country," says Burckhardt , "must have been extremely well cultivated, to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns." "The low hills are, for the most part, crowned with ruins." Of the "thirty ruined or deserted places, which including Amman," have been even lately "counted east of Assalt" (the village which probably represents Ramoth-Gilead, "about 16 miles west of Philadelphia that is, Amman) several are in Ammonitis. Little as the country has been explored, ruins of large and important towns have been found south-southeast. and south of Amman .

Two hours southeast of Amman, Buckingham relates , "an elevation opened a new view before us, in the same direction. On a little lower level, was a still more extensive track of cultivated plain than that even which we had already passed - Throughout its whole extent were seen ruined towns in every direction, both before, behind, and on each side of us; generally seated on small eminences; all at a short distance from each other; and all, as far as we had yet seen, bearing evident marks of former opulency and consideration. There was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach; but my guide, who had been over every part of it, assured me that the whole of the plain was covered with the finest soil, and capable of being made the most productive grain-land in the world - For a space of more than thirty miles there did not appear to me a single interruption of hill, rock or wood, to impede immediate tillage.

The great plain of Esdraelon, so justly celebrated for its extent and fertility, is inferior in both to this plain of Belkah. Like Esdraelon, it appears to have been once the seat of an active and numerous population; but in the former the monuments of the dead only remain, while here the habitations of the living are equally mingled with the tombs of the departed, all thickly strewn over every part of the soil from which they drew their sustenance." Nor does the crown, of a "talent of gold weight, with precious stones" 2 Samuel 12:30, belong to an uncivilized people. Such hordes too depend on the will and guidance of their single Skeikh or head. This was a hereditary kingdom 2 Samuel 10:1. The kings of Ammon had their constitutional advisers. These were they who gave the evil and destructive counsel to insult the ambassadors of David. Evil kings have evermore evil counselors. It is ever the curse of such kings to have their own evil, reflected, anticipated, fomented, enacted by bad advisers around them. "Hand in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished" Proverbs 11:21. They link together, but to drag one another into a common destruction. Together they had counseled against God; "king and princes together," they should go into captivity.

There is also doubtless, in the word Malcham, a subordinate allusion to the god whom they worshiped under the title Molech or Malchom. Certainly Jeremiah "seems" so to have understood it. For, having said of Moab, "Chemosh shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together" Jeremiah 48:7, he says as to Ammon, in the self-same formula and almost in the words of Amos ; "Malcham shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together." Zephaniah ZEphesians 1:5 also speaks of the idol under the same name Malcham, "their king." Yet since Ammon had kings before this time, and just before their subdual by Nebuchadnezzar, and king Baalis Jeremiah 40:14 was a murderer, it is hardly likely that Jeremiah too should not have included him in the sentence of his people, of whose sins he was a mainspring. Probably, then, Amos and Jeremiah foretell, in a comprehensive way, the powerlessness of all their stays, human and idolatrous. All in which they trusted should not only fail them, but should be carried captive from them.