BIBLES NET. COM
Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible
Back to Biblesnet.com Home Page
|
[Previous] [Next] |
Matthew Henry |
A M O S.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter,
I. God, by the prophet, proceeds in a like controversy with Moab as
before with other nations,
II. He shows what quarrel he had with Judah,
III. He at length begins his charge against Israel, to which all that
goes before is but an introduction. Observe,
1. The sins they are charged with–injustice, oppression, whoredom,
2. The aggravations of those sins–the temporal and spiritual mercies
God had bestowed upon them, for which they had made him such ungrateful
returns,
3. God’s complaint of them for their sins
(ver. 13)
and his threatenings of their ruin, and their utter inability to
prevent it,
| The Judgment of Moab and of Judah; The Judgment of Israel. | B. C. 790. |
|
|
|
1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and
for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because
he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
2 But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the
palaces of Kerioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with
shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:
3 And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will
slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.
4 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and
for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because
they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his
commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which
their fathers have walked:
5 But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the
palaces of Jerusalem.
6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and
for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because
they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of
shoes;
7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the
poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his
father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
8 And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by
every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the
house of their god.
Here is,
I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon
Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three
transgressions and for four, as those before. Now,
1. Moab’s fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the
bar, was cruelty. The instance given refers not to the people of God,
but to a heathen like themselves: The king of Moab burnt the bones
of the king of Edom into lime. We find there was war between the
Edomites and the Moabites, in which the king of Moab, in distress and
rage, offered his own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity,
And it should seem that afterwards he, or some of his successors, in
revenge upon the Edomites for bringing him to that extremity, having an
advantage against the king of Edom, seized him alive and burnt
him to ashes, or slew him and burnt his body, or dug up the bones of
their dead king, of that particularly who had so straitened him, and,
in token of his rage and fury, burnt them to lime. and perhaps
made use of the powder of his bones for the white-washing of the walls
and ceilings of his palace, that he might please himself with the sight
of that monument of his revenge. Est vindicta bonum vita jucundius
ipsa–Revenge is sweeter than life itself. It is barbarous to abuse
human bodies, for we ourselves also are in the body; it is
senseless to abuse dead bodies, nay, it is impious, for we believe and
look for their resurrection; and to abuse the dead bodies of kings
(whose persons and names ought to be in a particular manner respected
and had in veneration) is an affront to majesty; it is an argument of a
base spirit for those to trample upon a dead lion who, were he alive,
would tremble before him.
2. Moab’s doom for this transgression is,
(1.) A judgment of death. Those that deal cruelly shall be cruelly
dealt with
(v. 2):
Moab shall die; the Moabites shall be cut off with the sword of
war, which kills with tumult, with shouting, and with sound of
trumpet, circumstances that make it so much the more terrible, as
the lion’s roaring aggravates his tearing. Every battle of the
warrior is with confused noise,
Isa. ix. 5.
(2.) It is a judgment upon their judge, who had passed the sentence
upon the bones of the king of Edom that they should be burnt to lime:
I will cut him off, says God
(v. 3);
he shall know there is a judge that is higher than he. The king, the
chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off
together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes,
yet the princes themselves shall not escape,
Thus far is the judgment of Moab.
II. Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and therefore, now that
justice is riding the circuit, that shall not be passed by; that nation
has made itself like the heathen and mingled with them, and therefore
the indictment here runs against them in the same form in which it had
run against all the rest: For these transgressions of Judah, and for
four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; their sins are
as many as the sins of other nations, and we find them huddled up with
them in the same character,
“As for Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, jumble them together; they
are all alike;” the sentence here also is the same
(v. 5):
“I will send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where God
is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, though
it is the holy city, and God has formerly been known in its palaces
for a refuge,”
But the sin here charged upon Judah is different from all the rest. The
other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men, but Judah is
reckoned with for indignities done to God,
v. 4.
1. They put contempt upon his statutes and persisted in disobedience to
them: They have despised the law of the Lord, as if it were not
worth taking notice of, nor had any thing in it valuable; and herein
they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as the
authority and sovereignty, of the Lawmaker; this they did, in effect,
when they kept not his commandments, made no conscience of them,
took no care about them.
2. They put honour upon his rivals, their idols, here called their
lies which caused them to err; for an image is a teacher
of lies,
Hab. ii. 18.
And those that are led away into the error of idolatry are by that led
into a multitude of other errors, Uno dato absurdo mille
sequuntur–One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an
infinite eternal Spirit; but, when the truth of God is by
idolatry changed into a lie, all his other truths are in danger
of being so changed likewise; thus their idols caused them to err, and
God justly gave them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse for
their sin that they were lies after which their father walked,
for they should rather have taken warning than taken pattern by those
that perished with these lies in their right hand.
III. We now at length come to the words which Amos saw
concerning Israel. The reproofs and threatenings having walked the
round, here they centre, here they settle. He begins with them as with
the rest: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will
not turn away the punishment thereof; it all these nations must be
punished for their iniquities, shall Israel go unpunished? Observe here
what their sins were, for which God would reckon with them.
1. Perverting justice. This was the sin of those who were entrusted
with the administration of justice, the judges and magistrates, and all
parties concerned. They made nothing of selling a righteous man, and
his righteous cause when it came to be tried before them, for a piece
of silver; sentence was passed, not according to the merits of the
cause, but the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment was set to
sale by auction to the highest bidder. They would sell the life and
livelihood of a poor man for a pair of shoes, for the
least advantage to themselves that could be proposed to them; give them
but a pair of shoes, and the cause of a poor man, who could not
give them as much as that, should be betrayed, and left at the mercy of
those that will have no mercy. They will rather play at small game that
sit out. For a piece of bread such a man will transgress. Note,
Those who will wrong their consciences for any thing will come at
length to do it for next to nothing; those who begin to sell justice
for silver will in time be so sordid as to see it for a pair of
shoes, for a pair of old shoes.
2. Oppressing the poor, and seeking to benefit themselves by doing them
a mischief: They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the
poor; they swallow up the poor with the utmost greediness, and make
a prey of those that are in sorrow with dust on their heads, poor
orphans that are in mourning for their parents; they catch at them to
get their estates into their hands; they never rest till they have got
the heads of the poor in the dust, to be trodden on. Or, They pant
after the dust of the earth, that is, silver and gold, white and
yellow dust; they covet it earnestly, and levy it upon the head of
the poor by their unjust exactions. Note, Men’s seeking to enrich
themselves by the impoverishing of others is a transgression which God
will not long turn away the punishment of. This is turning
aside the way of the meek, contriving to do injury to those who,
they know, are mild and patient and will bear injury. They invade their
rights, break their measures, and obstruct the course of justice in
favour of them, not suffering them to go on with their righteous cause;
this is turning aside their way. Note, The more patiently men
bear injuries that are done them the greater is the sin of those that
injure them, and the more occasion they have to expect that God will
give them redress, and take vengeance for them. I, as a deaf man,
heard not, and then thou wilt hear.
3. Abominable uncleanness, even incest itself, such as it not named
among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father’s wife
(1 Cor. v. 1),
his father’s concubine: A man and his father will go in unto the
same young woman, as black an instance as any other of an unbounded
promiscuous lust; and yet where the former iniquities of oppression and
extortion are this also is found; for laws of modesty seldom hold those
that have broken the bands of justice and cast away its cords
from them. This wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the
profession of it, that those who are guilty of it are looked upon as
designing thereby to profane God’s holy name, and to render it
odious among the heathen, as if he countenanced the villainies which
those who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and were
altogether such a one as they.
4. Regaling themselves and yet pretending to honour their God with that
which they had got by oppression and extortion,
v. 8.
They add idolatry to their injustice, and then think to atone for their
injustice with their idolatry.
(1.) They make merry with that which they have unjustly squeezed from
the poor. They lay themselves down at ease, and in state, and
stretch themselves upon clothes laid to pledge, which they ought
to have restored the same night, according to the law,
And they drink the wine of the condemned, of such as they have
fined and laid heavy mulcts upon, spending that in sensuality which
they have got by injustice.
(2.) They think to make atonement for this by feasting on the gains of
oppression before their altars, and drinking this wine in the
house of their God, in the temples where they worshipped their
calves, as if they would make God a partner in their crimes by
making him a partner of the profits of them–service good enough
for false gods; but the true God will not thus be mocked; he has
declared that he hates robbery for burnt-offerings, and cannot
be served acceptably but with that which is got honestly.
| God’s Remonstrance with Israel. | B. C. 790. |
|
|
|
9 Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was
like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks;
yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
10 Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you
forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the
Amorite.
11 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young
men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of
Israel? saith the LORD.
12 But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the
prophets, saying, Prophesy not.
13 Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that
is full of sheaves.
14 Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the
strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty
deliver himself:
15 Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that
is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he
that rideth the horse deliver himself.
16 And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away
naked in that day, saith the LORD.
Here,
I. God puts his people Israel in mind of the great things he has done
for them, in putting them into possession of the land of Canaan, the
greatest part of which these ten tribes now enjoyed,
Note, We need often to be reminded of the mercies we have received,
which are the heaviest aggravations of the sins we have committed. God
gives liberally, and upbraids us not with our meanness and
unworthiness, and the disproportion between his gifts and our merits;
but he justly upbraids us with our ingratitude, and ill requital of his
favours, and tells us what he has done for us, to shame us for not
rendering again according to the benefit done to us. “Son,
remember; Israel, remember,
1. That God brought thee out of a house of bondage, rescued thee out of
the land of Egypt, where thou wouldst otherwise have perished in
slavery.”
2. That he led thee forty years through a desert land, and fed
thee in a wilderness, where thou wouldst otherwise have perished
with hunger. Mercies to our ancestors were mercies to us, for, if they
had been cut off, we should not have been.
3. That he made room for them in Canaan, by extirpating the natives by
a series of wonders little inferior to those by which they were
redeemed out of Egypt: I destroyed the Amorite before them, here
put for all the devoted nations. Observe the magnificence of the
enemies that stood in their way, which is taken notice of, that God may
be the more magnified in the subduing of them. They were of great
stature (whose height was like the height of the cedars) and the
people of Israel were as shrubs to them; and they were also of great
strength, not only tall, but well-set: He was strong as the
oaks. Their kingdom was eminent among the nations, and over-topped
all its neighbours. The supports and defences of it seemed impregnable;
it was as fine as the stately cedar; it was as firm as the sturdy oak;
yet, when God had a vine to plant there
this Amorite was not only cut down, but plucked up: I destroyed his
fruit from above and his roots from beneath, so that the Amorites
were no more a nation, nor ever read of any more. Thus highly did God
value Israel. He gave men for them and people for their life,
Isa. xliii. 4.
How ungrateful then were those who put such contempt upon him!
4. That he made them possess the land of the Amorite, not only
put it into their hands, so that they became masters of it jure
belli–by right of conquest, but gave them a better title to it, so
that it became theirs by promise.
II. He likewise upbraids them with the spiritual privileges and
advantages they enjoyed as a holy nation,
They had helps for their souls, which taught them how to make good use
of their temporal enjoyments and were therefore more valuable. It is
true the ten tribes had not God’s temple, altar, and priesthood,
and it was their own fault that they deserted them, and for that they
might justly have been left in utter darkness; but God left not
himself without witness, nor them without guides to show them the
way.
1. They had prophets that were powerful instructors in piety, divinely
inspired, and commissioned to make known the mind of God to them, to
show them what is pleasing to God and what displeasing, to reprove them
for their faults and warn them of their dangers, to direct them in
their difficulties and comfort them in their troubles. God raised them
up prophets, animated them for that work and employed them in it. He
raised them up of their sons, from among themselves, as
Moses and Christ were raised up from among their brethren,
Deut. xviii. 15.
It was an honour put upon their nation, and upon their families, that
they had children of their own to be God’s messengers to them, of their
own language, not strangers sent from another country, whom they might
suspect to be prejudiced against them and their land, but those who,
they knew, wished well to them. Note, Faithful ministers are great
blessings to any people, and it is God that raises them up to be so,
that they may justly be reckoned an honour to the families they are of.
2. They had Nazarites that were bright examples of piety: I raised
up of your young men for Nazarites, men that bound themselves by a
vow to God and his service, and, in pursuance of that, denied
themselves many of the lawful delights of sense, as drinking wine and
eating grapes. There were some of their young men that were in their
prime for the enjoyment of the pleasures of this life and yet
voluntarily abridged themselves of them; these God raised up by the
power of his grace, to be monuments of his grace, to his glory,
and to be his witnesses against the impieties of that degenerate age.
Note, It is as great a blessing to any place to have eminent good
Christians in it as to have eminent good ministers in it; for so they
have examples to their rules. We must acknowledge that it bodes well
to any people when God raises up numbers of hopeful young people among
them, when he makes their young men Nazarites, devout, and
conscientious, and mortified to the pleasures of sense; and those that
are such Nazarites are purer than snow, whiter than milk; they
are indeed the polite young men, for their polishing is of
sapphires,
Lam. iv. 7.
Those that have such men, such young men, among them, have therein such
an advantage, both for direction and encouragement, to be religious, as
they will be called to an account for another day if they do not
improve. Israel is here reckoned with, not only for the prophets, but
for the Nazarites, raised up among them. Concerning the truth of this,
he appeals to themselves: “Is it not even thus, O you children of
Israel? Can you deny it? Have not you yourselves been sensible of
the advantage you had by the prophets and Nazarites raised up among
you?” Note, Sinners’ own consciences will be witnesses for God that he
has not been wanting to them in the means of grace, so that, if they
perish, it is because they have been wanting to themselves in not
improving those means. The men of Judah shall themselves judge
between God and his vineyard, whether he could have done more for
it,
III. He charges them with the abuse of the means of grace they enjoyed,
and the opposition they gave to God’s designs in affording them those
means,
They were so far from walking in the light that they rebelled against
it, and did what they could to extinguish it, that it might not shine
in their faces, to their conviction.
1. They did what they could to debauch good people, to draw them off
from their seriousness in devotion and their strictness in
conversation: You gave the Nazarites wine to drink, contrary to
their vow, that, having broken it in that instance, they might not
pretend to keep it in any other. Some they surprised, or allured into
it, and with their much fair speech caused them to yield; others
they forced and frightened into it, reproached and threatened them if
they were more precise than their neighbours; and, by drawing them in
to drink wine, they spoiled them for Nazarites. Note, Satan and his
agents are very busy to corrupt the minds of young people that look
heavenward; and many that we thought would have been Nazarites they
have overcome by giving them wine to drink, by drawing them in to the
love of mirth and pleasure, and drinking company. Multitudes of young
men that bade fair for eminent professors of religion have erred
through wine, and been undone for ever. And how do the factors for
hell triumph in the debauching of a Nazarite!
2. They did what they could to silence good ministers, and to stop
their mouths: “You commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not,
and threatened them if they did prophesy
(ch. vii. 12),
as if God’s messengers were bound to observe your orders, and might not
deliver their errand unless you gave them leave, and so you not only
received the grace of God, in raising up those prophets, in
vain, but put the highest affront imaginable upon that God in whose
name the prophets spoke.” Note, Those have a great deal to answer for
that cannot bear faithful preaching, and those much more that suppress
it.
IV. He complains of the wrong they did him by their sins
(v. 13):
“I am pressed under you, I am straitened by you, and can
no longer bear it, and therefore I will ease myself of my
adversaries,
Isa. i. 24.
I am pressed under you and the load of your sins as a cart is
pressed that is full of sheaves, is loaded with corn, in the midst
of the joy of harvest, as long as any will lie on.” Note, The
great God complains of sin, especially the sins of his professing
people, as a burden to him. He is grieved with this generation
(Ps. xcv. 10),
is broken with their whorish heart
(Ezek. vi. 9),
a consideration which, if it make not the sinner’s repentance very
deep, will make his ruin very great. The great God that upholds the
world, and never complains that his is pressed under the weight of it
(he fainteth not, neither is weary), yet complains of the sins
of Israel, yea, and of their hypocritical services too, that he is
weary of bearing them,
Isa. i. 14.
No wonder the creature groans being burdened
when the Creator says, I am pressed under them.
V. He threatens them with unavoidable ruin. And so some read,
“Behold I will press, or straiten, your place, as a cart full
of sheaves presses; they shall be loaded with judgments till they
shall sink under them, and shall make a noise, as a cart overloaded
does.” Those that will not submit to the convictions of the word, that
will neither be won by that nor by the conversation of those about
them, shall be made to sink under the weight of God’s judgments. If God
load us daily with his benefits, and we, notwithstanding that, load him
with our sins, how can we expect any other than that he should load us
with his judgments? And it is here threatened in the
that, when God comes forth to contend with this provoking people, they
shall not be able to stand before him, to flee from him, nor to make
their part good with him; for when God judges he will overcome. Though
his patience be tired out, his power is not, and so the sinner shall
find, to his cost. When the Assyrian army comes to lay the country
waste by sword and captivity none shall escape, but every one shall
have his share in the common desolation.
1. It will be in vain to think of fleeing from the enemy that comes
armed with a commission to make all desolate: The flight shall
perish from the swift; those that have been famed for happy escapes
and happy retreats shall now find their arts fail them; they shall have
no time to flee, or shall find no way to take, or they shall have no
strength or spirit to attempt it; they shall be at their wits’ end, and
then they are soon at their flight’s end. Are they, as Asahel, as
swift of foot as a wild roe?
yet, like him, they shall run the faster upon their own destruction:
He that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself,
v. 15.
Or do they say (as those,
We will flee upon horses, and we will ride upon the
swift? Yet they shall be overtaken: Neither shall he that rides
the horse deliver himself from his pursuers. A horse is a vain
thing for safety.
2. It will be in vain to think of fighting it out. God is at war with
them; and are they stronger than he? Is there any military force
that can pretend to be a match for Omnipotence? No: The strong shall
not strengthen his force. He that has a habit of strength shall not
be able to exert it when he has occasion for it. And the
mighty, whose should protect and deliver others, shall not be able
to deliver himself, to deliver his soul (so the word is),
shall not save his life. Let not the strong man then glory in
his strength, nor trust in it, but strengthen himself in the
Lord his God, for in him is everlasting strength. And, as
the bodily strength shall fail, so shall the weapons of war. The armour
as well as the arm shall become insufficient: Neither shall he stand
that handles the bow, though he stand at a distance, but shall
betake himself to flight, and not trust to his own bow to save him.
Though the arm be ever so strong, and the armour ever so well fixed,
neither will avail when the spirit fails
(v. 16):
He that is courageous among the mighty, that used to look danger
in the face, and not be dismayed at it, shall flee away naked in
that day, not only disarmed, having thrown away his weapons both
offensive and defensive, but plundered of his treasure, which he
thought to carry away with him, and he shall think it as much as he
could expect that he has his life for a prey. Thus when God
pleases he takes away the heart of the chief of the people of the
earth, and causes those who used to boast of their courage, and
their daring enterprises in the field, to wander and sneak in
a wilderness where there is no way,
Job xii. 24.
|
[Previous] [Next] |
Matthew Henry |
|
Back to Bibles Net . Com – Online Christian Library Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary – Free Download |
Copyright 2008. Bibles Net. Com. All Rights Reserved.