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Matthew Henry |
A M O S.
CHAP. III.
A stupid, senseless, heedless people, are, in this chapter, called upon
to take notice,
I. Of the judgments of God denounced against them and the warnings he
gave them of those judgments, and to be hereby awakened out of their
security,
II. Of the sins that were found among them, by which God was provoked
thus to threaten, thus to punish, that they might justify God in his
controversy with them, and, unless they repented and reformed, might
expect no other than that God should proceed in his controversy,
| God’s Remonstrance with Israel. | B. C. 790. |
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1 Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O
children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up
from the land of Egypt, saying,
2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth:
therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
4 Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a
young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
5 Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is
for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have
taken nothing at all?
6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be
afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done
it?
7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his
secret unto his servants the prophets.
8 The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath
spoken, who can but prophesy?
The scope of these verses is to convince the people of Israel that God
had a controversy with them. That which the prophet has to say to them
is to let them know that the Lord has something to say against them,
v. 1.
They were his peculiar people above others, knew his name, and were
called by it; nevertheless he had something against them, and
they were called to hear what it was, that they might consider what
answer they should make, as the prisoner at the bar is told to hearken
to his indictment. The children of Israel would not regard the
words of counsel and comfort that God had many a time spoken to them,
and now they shall be made to hear the word of reproof and threatening
that the Lord has spoken against them; for he will act as he has
spoken.
I. Let them know that the gracious cognizance God has taken of them,
and the favours he has bestowed upon them, should not exempt them from
the punishment due to them for their sins. Israel is a family
that God brought up out of the land of Egypt,
(v. 1),
and it was no more than a family when it went down thither; thence God
delivered it; thence he fetched it to be a family to himself. It is not
only the ten tribes, the kingdom of Israel, that must take notice of
this, but that of Judah also, for it is spoken against the whole
family that God brought up out of Egypt. It is a family
that God has bestowed distinguishing favours upon, has owned in a
peculiar manner. You only have I known of all the families of the
earth. Note, God’s church in the world is a family dignified above
all the families of the earth. Those that know God are known of him.
In Judah is God known, and therefore Judah is more than any
people known of God. God has known them, that is, he has chosen
them, covenanted with them, and conversed with them as his
acquaintance. Now, one would think, it should follow, “Therefore I will
spare you, will connive at your faults, and excuse you.” No:
Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Note, The
distinguishing favours of God to us, if they do not serve to restrain
us from sin, shall not serve to exempt us from punishment; nay, the
nearer any are to God in profession, and the kinder notice he has taken
of them, the more surely, the more quickly, and the more severely will
he reckon with them, if they by a course of wilful sin profane their
character, disgrace their relation to him, violate their engagements,
and put a slight upon the favours and honours with which they have been
distinguished. Therefore they shall be punished, because their
sins dishonour him, affront him, and grieve him, more than the sins of
others, and because it is necessary that God should vindicate his own
honour by making it appear that he hates sin and hates it most in those
that are nearest to him; if they be but as bad as others, they shall be
punished worse than others, because it is justly expected that they
should be so much better than others. Judgment begins at the house
of God, begins at the sanctuary; for God will be sanctified either
by or upon those that come nigh unto him,
Lev. x. 3.
II. Let them know that they could not expect any comfortable communion
with God unless they first made their peace with him
(v. 3):
Can two walk together except they be agreed? No; how should
they? Where there is not friendship there can be no fellowship; if two
persons be at variance, they must first accommodate the matters in
difference between them before there can be any interchanging of good
offices. Israel has affronted God, had broken their covenant with him,
and ill-requited his favours to them; and yet they expected that he
should continue to walk with them, should take their part, act for
them, and give them assurances of his presence with them, though they
took no care by repentance and reformation to agree with their
adversary and to turn away his wrath. “But how can that be?” says
God. “While you continue to walk contrary to God you can look
for no other than that he should walk contrary to you,”
Note, We cannot expect that God should be present with us, or act for
us, unless we be reconciled to him. God and man cannot walk together
except they be agreed. Unless we agree with God in our end, which
is his glory, we cannot walk with him by the way.
III. Let them know that the warnings God gave them of judgments
approaching were not causeless and groundless, merely to amuse them,
but certain declarations of the wrath of God against them, which (if
they did not speedily repent) they would infallibly feel the effects of
(v. 4):
“Will a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey in view? No:
he roars upon his prey. Nor will a young lion cry out of his den
if the old lion have taken nothing to bring home to him; nor
would God thus give you warning both by the threatenings of his word,
and by less judgments, if you had not by your sins made yourselves a
prey to his wrath, nor if he were not really about to fall upon you
with desolating destroying judgments.” Note, The threatenings of the
word and providence of God are not bugbears, to frighten children and
fools, but are certain inferences from the sin of man and certain
presages of the judgments of God.
IV. Let them know that, as their own wickedness was the procuring cause
of these judgments, so they shall not be removed till they have done
their work,
v. 5.
When God has come forth to contend with a sinful people it is necessary
that they should understand,
1. That it is their own sin that has entangled them; for can a bird
fall in a snare upon the earth where no gin is for him? No, nature
does not lay snares for the creatures, but the art of men; a bird is
not taken in a snare by chance, but with the fowler’s design; so the
providence of God prepares trouble for sinners, and it is in the
work of their own hands that they are snared. Affliction
does not spring out of the dust, but it is God’s justice, and
our own wickedness, that correct us.
2. It is nothing but their own repentance that can disentangle them;
for shall one take up a snare from the earth, which he laid with
design, except he have taken something as he designed? So
neither will God remove the affliction he has sent till it have done
its work and accomplished that for which he sent it. If our hearts be
duly humbled, and we are brought by our afflictions to confess and
forsake our sins, then the snare has taken something, then the point is
gained, the end is answered, and then, and not till then, the snare
is broken, is taken up from the earth, and we are delivered
in love and mercy.
V. Let them know that all their troubles came from the hand of God’s
providence and from the counsel of his will
(v. 6):
Shall there be evil in a city, in a family, in a nation, and
the Lord has not done it, appointed it, and performed what he
appointed? The evil of sin is from ourselves; it is our own doing. But
the evil of trouble, personal or public, is from God, and is his doing;
whoever are the instruments, God is the principal agent. Out of his
mouth both evil and good proceed. This consideration, that,
whatever evil is in the city, the Lord has done it, should engage us
patiently to bear our share in public calamities and to study to answer
God’s intention in them.
VI. Let them know that their prophets, who give them warning of
judgments approaching, deliver nothing to them but what they have
received from the Lord to be delivered to his people.
1. God makes it known beforehand to the prophets
(v. 7):
Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, none of that evil in
the city spoken of
(v. 6),
but he reveals it to his servants the prophets, though to others
it is a secret. Therefore those know not what they do who make light of
the warnings which the prophets give them, in God’s name. Observe,
God’s prophets are his servants, whom he employs to go on his
errands to the children of men. The secret of God is with them;
it is in some sense with all the righteous
with all that fear God
(Ps. xxv. 14),
but in a peculiar manner with the prophets, to whom the Spirit of
prophecy is a Spirit of revelation. It would have put honour enough
upon prophets if it had been only said that sometimes God is pleased to
reveal to his prophets what he designs to do, but it speaks something
very great to say that he does nothing but what he reveals to
them, as if they were the men of his counsel. Shall I hide from
Abraham, who is a prophet, the thing which I do?
Gen. xviii. 17.
God will therefore be sure to reckon with those that put contempt on
the prophets, whom he puts this honour upon.
2. The prophets cannot but make that known to the people which God has
made known to them
(v. 8):
The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy? His prophets, to
whom he has spoken in secret by dreams and visions, cannot but speak in
public to the people what they have heard from God. They are so full of
those things themselves, so well assured concerning them, and so much
affected with them, that they cannot but speak of them; for out of
the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. I believed;
therefore have I spoken,
Acts iv. 20.
Nay, and besides the prophetic impulse which went along with the
inspiration, and made the word like a fire in their bones
(Jer. xx. 9),
they received a command from God to deliver what they had been charged
with; and they would have been false to their trust if they had not
done it. Necessity was laid upon them, as upon the preachers of
the gospel,
VII. Let them know that they ought to tremble before God upon the fair
warning he had given them, as they would,
1. Upon the sounding of a trumpet, to give notice of the approach of
the enemy, that all may stand upon their guard and stand to their arms:
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people be not
afraid, or run together? so some read it,
v. 6.
Will they not immediately come together in a fright, to consider what
is best to be done for the common safety? Yet when God by his prophets
gives them notice of their danger, and summons them to come and enlist
themselves under his banner, it makes no impression; they will sooner
give credit to a watchman on their walls than to a prophet sent of God,
will sooner obey the summons of the governor of their city than the
orders given them by the Governor of the world. God says, Hearken to
the voice of the trumpet; but they will not hearken, nay,
and they tell him plainly that they will not,
2. Upon the roaring of a lion. God is sometimes as a lion, and a
young lion, to the house of Judah,
Hos. v. 14.
The lion roars before he tears; thus God warns before he wounds. If
therefore the lion roars upon a poor traveller (as he did against
Samson,
he cannot but be put into great consternation; yet the Lord roars
out of Zion
(ch. i. 2),
and none are afraid, but they go on securely as if they were in no
danger. Note, The fair warning given to a careless world, if it be not
taken, will aggravate its condemnation another day. The lion roared,
and they were not moved with fear to prepare an ark. O the amazing
stupidity of an unbelieving world, that will not be wrought upon, no,
not by the terrors of the Lord!
| Israel Convicted and Condemned. | B. C. 790. |
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9 Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the
land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of
Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and
the oppressed in the midst thereof.
10 For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up
violence and robbery in their palaces.
11 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall
be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy
strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.
12 Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth
of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children
of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a
bed, and in Damascus in a couch.
13 Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord
GOD, the God of hosts,
14 That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of
Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel: and the
horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground.
15 And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and
the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have
an end, saith the LORD.
The Israelites are here again convicted and condemned, and particular
notice given of the crimes they are convicted of and the punishment
they are condemned to.
1. Notice is given of it to their neighbours. The prophet is ordered to
publish it in the palaces of Ashdod, one of the chief cities of
the Philistines; nay, the summons must go further, even to the
palaces in the land of Egypt. “The great men of both those nations,
that dwell in the palaces, that are inquisitive concerning the affairs
of the neighboring nations, and are conversant with the public
intelligence, let them assemble themselves upon the mountains of
Samaria,”
v. 9.
There, upon a throne high and lifted up, the judgment is set.
Samaria is the criminal that is to be tried; let them be present at the
trial, for it shall be (as other trials are) public, in the face of the
country; let them make an appointment to meet there from all parts, to
judge between God and his vineyard. God appeals to all impartial
righteous men,
They will all subscribe to the equity of his proceedings when they see
how the case stands. Note, God’s controversies with sinners do not fear
a scrutiny; even Philistines and Egyptians will be made to see, and
say, that the ways of the Lord are equal, but our ways are
unequal. They are likewise summoned to attend, not only that they
may justify God and be witness for him that he deals fairly, but that
they may themselves take warning; for, if judgment begin at the
house of God, as they see it does, what shall be the end of those
that are strangers to him?
If this be done in a green tree, what shall be done in a dry? Or
this intimates that the sin of Israel had been so notorious that the
neighboring nations could come in witnesses against them, and therefore
it was fit that their punishment should be so. “If it could have been
concealed, we would have said, Tell it not in Gath; publish it not
in the streets of Ashkelon;” but why should their friends consult
their reputation, when they themselves do not consult it? If they have
grown impudent in sin, let them bear the shame: “Publish it in
Ashdod, in Egypt.“
1. Let them see how black the charge is, and how well proved. Let them
observe the behaviour of the inhabitants of Samaria; let them look off
from the adjacent hills, and they may see how rude and boisterous they
are, and hear how loud they cry of their sin is, as was that of Sodom.
(1.) Look into their streets and you will see nothing but riot and
disorder, great tumults in the midst thereof; reason and justice
are upon all occasions run down by the noise and fury of an outrageous
mob, the dominion of which is the sin and shame of any people, and is
likely to be their ruin.
(2.) Look into their prisons, and you will see them filled with injured
innocents: The oppressed are in the midst thereof, thrown down
and crushed by their oppressors, overpowered and overwhelmed, and
they had no comforter,
Eccl. iv. 1.
(3.) Look into their courts of justice, and you will see that those who
preside in those courts know not to do right, because they have
always been accustomed to do wrong; they act as if they had no notion
at all of the thing called justice, are in no care to do justice
themselves nor to see that others do justice.
(4.) Look into their treasures and stores, and you will see them
replenished with violence and robbery, with that which was
unjustly got and is still unjustly kept. Thus they have heaped
treasures together for the last days, but it will prove a
treasure of wrath against the day of wrath. It may well be said,
Those know not to do right who think to enrich themselves by
doing wrong.
2. Let them see how heavy the doom is, and how well executed,
(1.) Their country shall be invaded and ruined; and observe how the
punishment answers to the sin.
[1.] Great tumults are in the midst of the land, and
therefore an adversary shall be even round about the land; the
Assyrian forces shall surround it and break in upon it on every side.
Note, When sin is harboured and indulged in the midst of a people they
can expect no other than that adversaries should be round about them,
so that, go which way they will, they go into the mouth of danger,
[2.] They strengthened themselves in their wickedness, but the enemy
shall bring down their strength from them, that strength which
they abused in oppressing the poor, and doing violence to all about
them. Note, That power which is made an instrument of unrighteousness
will justly be brought down and broken.
[3.] They stored up robbery in their palaces, and therefore
their palaces shall be spoiled; for what is got and kept
wrongfully will not be kept long. Even palaces will be no protection to
fraud and oppression; but the greatest of men, if they have spoiled
others, shall themselves be spoiled, for the Lord is the avenger of
all such.
(2.) Their countrymen shall not escape,
They shall be in the hands of the enemy, as a lamb in the mouth of a
lion, all devoured and eaten up, and they shall be utterly unable to
make an resistance; and if any do make their escape, so as neither to
fall by the sword or go into captivity, yet they shall be very few, and
those of the meanest and least considerable, like two legs, or
shanks, of a lamb, or, it may be, a piece of an
ear, which the lion drops, or the shepherd takes from him,
when he has eaten the whole body; so, perhaps, here and there one may
escape from Samaria and from Damascus, when the king of Assyria shall
fall upon them both, but none to make any account of; and those that do
escape shall do so with the utmost difficult and hazard, by hiding
themselves in the corner of a bed or under the bed’s
feet, which intimates that their spirits shall sneak shamefully in
the time of danger. They shall not hide themselves in dens and caves,
but in the corner of a bed, or the piece of a bed, such
as poor people must be content with. They shall very narrowly escape,
as it is foretold concerning the last destruction of Jerusalem that
there shall be two in a bed together, one taken and the other
left. Note, When God’s judgments come forth against a people with
commission it will be in vain to think of escaping them. Some make
their dwelling in the corner of a bed, and in a couch, to
denote their present security and sensuality; they are at ease, as
in a bed, or on a couch, but, when God comes to contend
with them, he shall make them uneasy, shall take them away out of the
bed of their sloth and slumber. Those that stretch themselves lazily
upon their couches when God’s judgments are abroad shall go captive
with the first that go captive.
II. Notice is given of it to themselves,
Let this be testified, and heard, in the house of Jacob,
among all the seed of Israel, for it is spoken by the Lord God, the
God of hosts, who has authority to pass this sentence and ability
to execute it; let them know from him that the day is at hand when God
will visit the transgressions of Israel upon him, when he will
enquire into them and reckon for them: there will come a day of
visitation, a day of punishment, and in that day all those things
they are proud of, and put confidence in, shall fail them, and so they
shall smart for the sins they have been guilty of about them.
1. Woe to their altars, for God will visit them. He will
enquire into the sins they have been guilty of at their altars, and
bring into the account all their superstition and idolatry, all their
expenses on their false gods, and all their expectations from them; and
he will lay the altars themselves under the marks of his displeasure,
for the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the
ground, and with them the altar itself demolished and broken to
pieces. We find the altar at Bethel prophesied against
and immediately rent
(v. 3),
and that prophecy fulfilled with Josiah burnt men’s bones upon
This seconds that prophecy, and seems to point at the same event. Note,
If men will not destroy idolatrous altars, God will, and those with
them that had them in veneration. Some make the horns of the
altar to signify all those things which they flee to for refuge,
and trust in, and which they make their sanctuary: they shall all be
cut off, so that they shall have nothing to take hold of.
2. Woe to their houses, for God will visit them too. He will enquire
into the sins they have been guilty of in their houses, the robbery
that have stored up in their houses, and the luxury in which they
lived: and I will smite the winter-house with the summer-house,
v. 15.
Their nobility, and gentry, and rich merchants, had their winter-houses
in the city and their summer-houses in the country, so nice were they
in guarding against the inconveniences of the winter when the country
was thought too cold, and of the summer when the city was thought too
hot, though the climate of that good land was so temperate, like that
of ours, that neither the cold nor heat was ever in extremity. They
indulged a foolish affectation of change and variety; but God will,
either by war or by the earthquake, smite both the winter-house and the
summer-house; neither shall serve to shelter them from his judgments.
The houses of ivory (so called because the ceiling, or wainscot,
or some of the ornaments of them, were edged or inlaid with ivory)
shall perish, shall be burnt or pulled down; and the great
houses shall have an end; the most splendid and spacious houses,
the houses of their great men, shall no longer be, or at least be no
longer theirs. Note, The pomp or pleasantness of men’s houses will be
so far from fortifying them against God’s judgments that it will make
them the more grievous and vexatious, as their extravagance about them
will be put to the score of their sins and follies.
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