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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
A M O S.
CHAP. VIII.
Sinful times are here attended with sorrowful times, so necessary is
the connexion between them; it is threatened here again and again that
the laughter shall be turned into mourning.
I. By the vision of “basket of summer-fruit” is signified the hastening
on of the ruin threatened
(ver. 1-3)
and that shall change their note.
II. Oppressors are here called to an account for their abusing the
poor; and their destruction is foretold, which will set them a mourning,
III. A famine of the word of God is here made the punishment of a
people that go a whoring after other gods
(ver. 11-14);
yet for this, which is the most mournful judgment of all, they are not
here brought in mourning.
| The Vision of Summer Fruit. | B. C. 785. |
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1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of
summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of
summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my
people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day,
saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every
place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
The great reason why sinners defer their repentance de die in
diem–from day to day, is because they think God thus defers his
judgments, and there is no song wherewith they so effectually sing
themselves asleep as that, My Lord delays his coming; and
therefore God, by his prophets, frequently represents to Israel the day
of his wrath not only as just and certain, but as very near and
hastening on apace; so he does in these verses.
I. The approach of the threatened ruin is represented by a basket of
summer-fruit which Amos saw in vision; for the Lord showed
it to him
(v. 1)
and obliged him to take notice of it
(v. 2):
Amos, what seest thou? Note, It concerns us to enquire whether
we do indeed see that which God has been pleased to show us, and hear
what he has been pleased to say to us; for many a thing God speaks, God
shows once, yea twice, and men perceive it not. Are we in
the midst of the visions of the Almighty? Let us consider what we see.
He saw a basket of summer-fruit gathered and ready to be eaten,
which signified,
1. That they were ripe for destruction, rotten ripe, and it was time
for God to put in the sickle of his judgments and to cut them off; nay,
the thing was in effect done already, and they lay ready to be eaten
up.
2. That the year of God’s patience was drawing towards a conclusion; it
was autumn with them, and their year would quickly have its period in a
dismal winter.
3. Those we call summer-fruits that will not keep till winter,
but must be used immediately, an emblem of this people, that had
nothing solid or consistent in them.
II. The intent and meaning of this vision is no more than this: It
signifies that the end has come upon my people Israel. The word
that signifies the end is ketz, which is of near affinity
with kitz, the word used for summer-fruit. God has long
spared them, and borne with them, but now his patience is tired out;
they are indeed his people Israel, but their end, that latter
end they have been so often reminded of, but have so long
forgotten, has now come. Note, If sinners do not make an end of sin,
God will make an end of them, yea though they be his people
Israel. What was said
is here repeated as God’s determined resolution, I will not again
pass by them any more; they shall not be connived at as they have
been, nor the judgment coming turned away.
III. The consequence of this shall be a universal desolation
(v. 3):
When the end shall come sorrow and death shall ride in triumph;
they are accustomed to go together, and shall at length go away
together, when in heaven there shall be no more death, nor
sorrow,
Rev. xxi. 4.
But here in a sinful world, in a sinful nation,
1. Sorrow reigns, reigns to such a degree that the songs of the
temple shall be howlings–the songs of God’s temple at Jerusalem, or
rather of their idol-temples, where they used, when, in honour of the
golden calves, they had eaten and drunk, to rise up to
play. They were perhaps wanton profane songs; and it is certain
that sooner or later those will be turned into howlings. Or, if they
had a sound and show of piety and religion, yet, not coming from the
heart, nor being sung to the glory of God, he valued them not, but
would justly turn them into howlings. Note, Mourning will follow sinful
mirth, yea, and sacred mirth too, it if be not sincere. And, when God’s
judgments are abroad, they will soon turn the greatest joy into the
greatest heaviness, the temple-songs, which used to sound so
pleasantly, not only into sighs and groans, but into loud howlings,
which sound dismally. They shall come to the temple, and, finding that
in ruins, there they shall howl most bitterly.
2. Death reigns, reigns to such a degree that there shall be dead
bodies, many dead bodies in every place
(Ps. cx. 6),
slain by sword or pestilence, so many that the survivors shall not bury
them with the usual pomp and solemnity of funerals; they shall not so
much as have the bell tolled, but they shall cast them forth with
silence, shall bury them in the dead of the night, and charge all
about them to be silent and to take notice of it, either because they
have not wherewithal to bear the charges of a funeral, or because, the
killing disease being infectious, none will come near them, or for fear
the enemy should be provoked, if they should be known to lament their
slain. Or they shall charge themselves and one another silently to
submit to the hand of God in these desolating judgments, and not to
repine and quarrel with him. Or it may be taken not for a patient, but
a sullen silence; their hearts shall be hardened, and all these
judgments shall not extort from them one word of acknowledgment either
of God’s righteousness or their own unrighteousness.
| The Sin and Doom of Oppressors. | B. C. 785. |
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4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the
poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell
corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the
ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by
deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair
of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will
never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that
dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it
shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD,
that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken
the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your
songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all
loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the
mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
God is here contending with proud oppressors, and showing them,
I. The heinousness of the sin they were guilty of; in short, they had
the character of the unjust judge
that neither feared God nor regarded man.
1. Observe them in their devotions, and you will say, “They had no
reverence for God.” Bad as they are, they do indeed keep up a show and
form of godliness; they observe the sabbath and the new
moon; they put some difference between those days and other days,
but they were soon weary of them, and had no affection at all to them,
for their hearts were wholly set upon the world and the things of it.
It is a sad character which this gives of them, that they said, When
will the sabbath be gone, that we may sell corn? Yet is still the
character of many that are called Christians.
(1.) They were weary of sabbath days. “When will they be gone?”
They were weary of the restraints of the sabbaths and the new-moons,
and wished them over because they might do no servile work
therein. They were weary of the work or business of the sabbaths
and new-moons, snuffed at it
(Mal. i. 13),
and were, as Doeg, detained before the Lord
they would rather have been any where else than about God’s altars.
Note, Sabbath days and sabbath work are a burden to carnal hearts, that
are always afraid of doing too much for God and eternity. Can we spend
our time better than in communication with God? And how much time do we
spend pleasantly with the world? Will not the sabbath be gone before we
have done the work of it and reaped the gains of it? Why then should
we be in such haste to part with it?
(2.) They were fond of market-days: they longed to be selling
corn and setting forth wheat. When they were employed in
religious services they were thinking of their marketings; their hearts
went after their covetousness
and thus made my Father’s house a house of merchandise, nay, a den of
thieves. They were weary of holy duties because their worldly business
stood still the while; in this they were as in their element, but in
God’s sanctuary as a fish upon dry ground. Note, Those are strangers to
God, and enemies to themselves, that love market days better than
sabbath days, that would rather be selling corn than worshipping
God.
2. Observe them in their conversations, and you will see they have no
regard to man; and this commonly follows upon the former; those that
have lost the savour of piety will not long retain the sense of common
honesty. They neither do justly nor love mercy.
(1.) They cheat those they deal with. When they sell their corn
they impose upon the buyer, both in giving out the goods and in
receiving the money for them. They measure him the corn by their own
measure, and pretend to give him what he agreed for, but they make
the ephah small. The measure is scanty, and not statute-measure,
and so they wrong him that way. When they receive his money they must
weigh fit in their own scales, by their own weights, and the
shekel they weigh by is above standard: They make the shekel
great, so that the money, being found too light, must have more
added to it; and so they cheat that way too, and this under colour and
pretence of exactness in doing justice. By such wicked practices as
these men show such a greediness of the world, such a love of
themselves, such a contempt of mankind in general, of the particular
persons they deal with, and of the sacred laws of justice, as prove
them to have in their hearts neither the fear nor the love of that God
who has so plainly said that false weights and balances are an
abomination to him. Another instance of their fraudulent dealing is
that they sell the refuse of the wheat, and, taking advantage of
their neighbour’s ignorance or necessity, make them take it at the same
price at which they sell the finest of the wheat.
(2.) The are barbarous and unmerciful to the poor: They swallow up
the needy, and make the poor of the land to fail.
[1.] They valued themselves so much on their wealth that they looked
upon all that were poor with the highest contempt imaginable; they
hated them, could not endure them, but abandoned them, and therefore
did what they could to make them cease, not by relieving them to make
them cease to be poor, but by banishing and destroying them to make
them cease to be, or at least to be in their land. But he who thus
reproaches the poor despises his Maker, in whose hands rich
and poor meet together.
[2.] They were so eager to increase their wealth, and make it more,
that they robbed the poor to enrich themselves; and they fastened upon
the poor, to make a prey of them, because they were not able to
obtain any redress nor to resist or revenge the violence of their
oppressors. Those riches that are got by the ruin of the poor will
bring ruin on those that get them. They swallowed up the poor by making
them hard bargains, and cheating them in those bargains; for
therefore they falsify the balances by deceit, not only
that they may enrich themselves, may have money at command, and
so may have every thing else (as they think) at command too, but that
they may impoverish those about them, and bring them so low that they
may force them to become slaves to them, and so, having drained them of
every thing else, they may have their labour for nothing, or next to
nothing. Thus they buy the poor for silver; they bring them and
their children into bondage, because they have not wherewithal
to pay for the corn they have bought; see
And there were so many that they were reduced to this extremity that
the price was very low; and the oppressors had beaten it down so that
you might buy a poor man to be your slave for a pair of shoes.
Property was first invaded and then liberty; it is the method of
oppressors first to make men beggars and then to make them their
vassals. Thus is the dignity of the human nature lost in the misery of
those that are trampled on and the tenderness of it in the sin of those
that trample on them.
II. The grievousness of the punishment that shall be inflicted on them
for this sin. When the poor are injured they will cry unto God,
and he will hear their cry, and reckon with those that are injurious to
them, for, they being his receivers, he takes the wrongs done to them
as done to himself,
1. God will remember their sin against them: He has sworn by the
excellency of Jacob
(v. 7),
by himself, for he can swear by no greater; and who but he is the glory
and magnificence of Jacob? He has sworn by those tokens of his presence
with them, and his favour to them, which they had profaned and abused,
and had done what they could to make them detestable to him; for he is
said
to abhor the excellency of Jacob. He swears in his wrath,
swears by his own name, that name which was so well known and was so
great in Israel. He swears, Surely I will never forget any of their
works, but upon all occasions they shall be remembered against
them, for more is implied than is expressed. I will never forget
them is as much as to say, I will never forgive them; and
then it proclaims the case of these unjust unmerciful men to be
miserable indeed, eternally miserable; woe, and a thousand woes, to
that man that is cut off by an oath of God from all benefit by
pardoning mercy; and those have reason to fear judgment without mercy
that have shown no mercy.
2. He will bring utter ruin and confusion upon them. It is here
described largely, and in a great variety of emphatic expressions,
that, if possible, they might be frightened into a sincere repentance
and reformation.
(1.) There shall be a universal terror and consternation: Shall not
the land tremble for this
(v. 8),
this land, out of which you thought to drive the poor? Shall
not every one mourn that dwells therein? Certainly he shall. Note,
Those that will not tremble and mourn as they ought for national sins
shall be made to tremble and mourn for national judgments; those that
look without concern upon the sins of the oppressors, which should make
them tremble, and upon the miseries of the oppressed, which should them
mourn, God will find out a way to make them tremble at the fury of
those that oppress them and mourn for their own losses and sufferings
by it.
(2.) There shall be a universal deluge and desolation. When God comes
forth against them the waters of trouble and calamity shall rise up
wholly as a flood, that swells, when it is dammed up, and soon
overflows its banks. Every thing shall make against them. That with
which they thought to check the progress of God’s judgments shall but
make them rise the higher. Judgments shall force their way as the
breaking forth of waters. The whole land shall be cast out,
and drowned, and laid under water, as the land of Egypt is every
year by the overflowing of its river Nile. Or the expressions may
allude to some former judgments of God. Their ruin shall rise up
wholly as a flood, as Noah’s flood, which overwhelmed the whole
world, so shall this the whole land; and the land shall be cast out,
and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt, as Pharaoh and his Egyptians
were buried in the Red Sea, which was to them the flood of
Egypt, both which judgments, as this which is here threatened, were
the punishment of violence and oppression, which the Lord is the
avenger of.
3. It shall surprise them, and come upon them when they little think of
it
(v. 9):
“I will cause the sun to go down at noon, when it is in its full
strength and lustre, at their noon, when they promise themselves a long
afternoon, and think they have at least half a day good before them.
The earth shall be darkened in the clear day, when every
thing looks pleasant and hopeful.” Thus uncertain are all our
creature-comforts and enjoyments, even life itself; the highest degree
of health and prosperity often proves the next degree to sickness and
adversity; Job’s sun went down at noon; many are taken away in
the midst of their days, and their sun goes down at noon. In the midst
of life we are in death. Thus terrible are the judgments of God
to those that sleep in security; they are to them as the sun’s going
down at noon; the less they are expected the more confounding they
are. When they cry Peace and safety then sudden
destruction comes, comes as a snare,
Luke xxi. 35.
4. It shall change their note, and mar all their mirth
(v. 10):
I will turn your feasts into mourning, as
(v. 3)
the songs of the temple into howlings. Note, The end of the
sinner’s mirth and jollity is heaviness. As to the upright there
arises light in the darkness, which gives them the oil of joy
for mourning, so on the wicked their falls darkness in the midst of
light, which turns their laughter into mourning, their joy
into heaviness. So great, so general, shall the desolation be, that
sackcloth shall be brought upon all loins, and baldness upon every
head, instead of the well-set hair and the rich garments
they used to wear. The mourning at that day shall be as mourning for
an only son, which denotes the most bitter and lasting lamentation.
But are there are no hopes that when things are at the worst they will
mend, and that at evening time it will yet be light? No, even the
end thereof shall be as a bitter day, a day of bitter mourning;
that state of impenitent sinners grows worse and worse, and the last of
all will be the worst of all. This shall you have at my hand, you
shall lie down in sorrow.
| Spiritual Famine Threatened; Judgments Threatened. | B. C. 785. |
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11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send
a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for
water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north
even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of
the LORD, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for
thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O
Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall
fall, and never rise up again.
In these verses is threatened,
I. A general judgment of spiritual famine coming upon the whole land, a
famine of the word of God, the failing of oracles and the
scarcity of good preaching. This is spoken of as a thing at some
distance: The days come, they will come hereafter, when another
kind of darkness shall come upon that land of light. When Amos
prophesied, and for a considerable time after, they had great plenty of
prophets, abundant opportunities of hearing the word of God, in
season and out of season; they had precept upon precept and line upon
line; prophecy was their daily bread; and it is probable that they
surfeited upon it, as Israel on the manna, and therefore God threatens
that hereafter he will deprive them of this privilege. Probably in the
land of Israel there were not so many prophets, about the time that
their destruction came upon them, as there were in the land of Judah;
and when the ten tribes went into captivity they saw not their
signs, there were no more any prophets, none to show them
how long,
Ps. lxxiv. 9.
The Jewish church, after Malachi, had no prophets for many ages; and
some think this threatening looks further yet, to the blindness which
has in part happened to Israel in the days of the Messiah, and the veil
that is on the heart of the unbelieving Jews. They reject the gospel,
and the ministers of it that God sends to them, and covet to have
prophets of their own, as their fathers had, but they shall have none,
the kingdom of God being taken from them and given to
another people. Observe here,
1. What the judgment itself is that is threatened. It is a famine, a
scarcity, not of bread and water (which are the necessary support of
the body, and the want of which is very grievous), but a much sorer
judgment than that, even a famine of hearing the words of the
Lord. There shall be no congregations for ministers to preach to,
nor any ministers to preach, nor any instructions and abilities given
to those that do set up for preachers, to fit them for their work. The
word of the Lord shall be precious and scarce; there
shall be no vision,
1 Sam. iii. 1.
They shall have the written word, Bibles to read, but no ministers to
explain and apply it to them, the water in the well, but nothing to
draw with. It is a gracious promise
that though they have a scarcity of bread they shall have plenty of the
means of grace. God will give them the bread of adversity and the
water of affliction, but their eyes shall see their teachers; and
it was a common saying among the Puritans that brown bread and the
gospel are good fare. But it is here a threatening that on the contrary
they should have plenty enough of bread and water, and yet their
teachers should be removed. Now,
(1.) This was the departure of a great part of their glory from their
land. This made their nation great and high, that to them were
committed the oracles of God; but, when these were taken from them,
their beauty was stained and their honour laid in the dust.
(2.) This was a token of God’s highest displeasure against them. Surely
he was angry indeed with them when he would no more speak to them as he
had done, and had abandoned them to ruin when he would no more afford
them the means of bringing them to repentance.
(3.) This made all the other calamities that were upon them truly
melancholy, that they had no prophets to instruct and comfort them from
the word of God, nor to give them any hopeful prospect. We should say
at any time, and shall say in a time of trouble, that a famine of the
word of God is the sorest famine, the heaviest judgment.
2. What will be the effect of this
(v. 12):
They shall wander from sea to sea, from the sea of Tiberias to
the Great Sea, from one border of the country to another, to see if God
will send them prophets, either by sea or land, from other countries;
since they have none among themselves, they shall go from the north
to the east; when they are disappointed in one place they shall try
another, and shall run to and fro, as men at a loss, and in a
hot pursuit to seek the word of the Lord, to enquire if there be
any prophets, any prophecy, any message from God, but they shall not
find it.
(1.) Though to many this is no affliction at all, yet some will be very
sensible of it as a great grievance, and will gladly travel far to hear
a good sermon; but they shall sensibly feel the loss of those mercies
which others have foolishly sinned away.
(2.) Even those that slighted prophets when they had them shall wish
for them as Saul did for Samuel, when they are deprived of them. Many
never know the worth of mercies till they feel the want of them. Or it
may be meant thus, Though they should thus wander from sea to sea, in
quest of the word of God, yet shall they not find it. Note, The means
of grace are moveable things; and the candlestick, when we think it
stands most firmly, may be removed out of its place
(Rev. ii. 5);
and those that now slight the days of the son of man may wish in
vain to see them. And in the day of this famine the fair
virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst
(v. 13);
those who, one would think, could well enough have borne the toil,
shall sink under it. The Jewish churches, and the masters of
their synagogues, some take to be meant by the virgins and
the young men; these shall lose the word of the Lord, and the
benefit of divine revelation, and shall faint away for want of it,
shall lose all their strength and beauty. Those that trust in their own
merit and righteousness, and think they have no need of Christ, others
take to be meant by the fair virgins and the choice young
men; they shall faint for thirst, when those that hunger
and thirst after the righteousness of Christ shall be abundantly
satisfied and filled.
II. The particular destruction of those that were ringleaders in
idolatry,
Observe,
1. The sin they are charged with: They swear by the sin of
Samaria, that is, by the god of Samaria, the idol that was
worshipped at Bethel, not far off from Samaria. Thus did they glory in
their shame, and swear by them as their god which was their iniquity,
thinking that could help them which would certainly ruin them, and
giving the highest honour to that which they should have looked upon
with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. They say, Thy god, O
Dan! liveth; that was the other golden calf, a dumb deal idol, and
yet caressed and complimented as if it had been the living and true
God. They say, The manner, or way, of Beer-sheba liveth;
they swore by the religion of Beer-sheba, the way and manner of
worship used there, which they looked upon as sacred, and therefore
swore by and appealed to as a judge of controversy. Thus the papists
swear by the mass, as the manner of Beer-sheba.
2. The destruction they are threatened with. Those who thus give that
honour to idols which is due to God alone will find that the God they
affront is thereby made their enemy, so that they shall fall,
and the gods they serve cannot stand their friends, so that they shall
never rise again. They will find that God is jealous and will
resent the indignity done him, and that he will be victorious and it is
to no purpose to contend with him.
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