Amos 8

CHAPTER 8Am 8:1-14. Vision of a Basket of Summer Fruit Symbolical, of Israel's End. Resuming the Series of Symbols Interrupted by Amaziah, Amos Adds a Fourth. The Avarice of the Oppressors of the Poor: The Overthrow of the Nation: The Wish for the Means of Religious Counsel, when There Shall Be a Famine of the Word.1. summer fruit—Hebrew, kitz. In Am 8:2 "end" is in Hebrew, keetz. The similarity of sounds implies that, as the summer is the end of the year and the time of the ripeness of fruits, so Israel is ripe for her last punishment, ending her national existence. As the fruit is plucked when ripe from the tree, so Israel from her land.

8:1-3 Amos saw a basket of summer fruit gathered, and ready to be eaten; which signified, that the people were ripe for destruction, that the year of God's patience was drawing towards a conclusion. Such summer fruits will not keep till winter, but must be used at once. Yet these judgments shall not draw from them any acknowledgement, either of God's righteousness or their own unrighteousness. Sinners put off repentance from day to day, because they think the Lord thus delays his judgments.

"\nThus hath the Lord God showed unto me,.... Another vision, which is the fourth, and after the following manner:\n\nand, behold, a basket of summer fruit; not of the first ripe fruit, but of such as were gathered at the close of the summer, when autumn began. So the Targum,\n\n"the last of the summer fruit;''\n\nsuch as were fully ripe, and would not keep till winter; or, if kept, would rot; but must be eaten directly, as some sort of apples, grapes, c. denoting the people of Israel being ripe for destruction, and would be quickly devoured by their enemies and that, as they had had a summer of prosperity, they would now have a sharp winter of adversity.\n\n\n\n "

"\nAnd he said, Amos, what seest thou?.... To quicken his attention, who might disregard it as a common thing; and in order to lead him into the design of it, and show him what it was an emblem of:\n\nand I said, a basket of summer fruit; some render it "a hook" {w}, such as they pull down branches with to gather the fruit; and the word so signifies in the Arabic language {x}; but the other is the more received sense of the word:\n\nthen said the Lord unto me; by way of explanation of the vision: the end is come upon my people Israel: the end of the kingdom of Israel; of their commonwealth and church state; of all their outward happiness and glory; their "summer [was] ended", and they "not saved", Jer 8:20; all their prosperity was over; and, as the Targum, their\n\n"final punishment was come,''\n\nthe last destruction threatened them {y}:\n\nI will not again pass by them any more; pass by their offences, and forgive their sins; or pass by their persons, without taking notice of them, so as to afflict and punish them for their iniquities: or, "pass through them and more" {z} now making an utter end of them;\n[See comments on Am 7:8].\n\n{w} \u05db\u05dc\u05d5\u05d1 "unicuus", V. L. {x} "ferramentum incurvum, seu uncus ex quo de sella commeatum suspendit viator", Giggeius apud Golium, col. 2055. {y} There is an elegant play on words in the words \u05e7\u05d9\u05e5, "summer", and\n\u05e7\u05e5, "the end". {z} So Mercerus, Grotius.\n\n\n\n "

3. songs of … temple—(Am 5:23). The joyous hymns in the temple of Judah (or rather, in the Beth-el "royal temple," Am 7:13; for the allusion is to Israel, not Judah, throughout this chapter) shall be changed into "howlings." Grotius translates, "palace"; compare Am 6:5, as to the songs there. But Am 5:23, and Am 7:13, favor English Version.they shall cast them forth with silence—not as the Margin, "be silent." It is an adverb, "silently." There shall be such great slaughter as even to prevent the bodies being buried [Calvin]. There shall be none of the usual professional mourners (Am 5:16), but the bodies will be cast out in silence. Perhaps also is meant that terror, both of God (compare Am 6:10) and of the foe, shall close their lips.

"\nAnd the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day,\nsaith the Lord God,.... Not the songs sung by the Levites in the temple of Jerusalem, this prophecy respects the ten tribes only; but those in imitation of them, sung in the temple at Bethel, and other idol temples; or profane songs in the palaces of princes and nobles; that is, instead of these, there should be howlings for the calamities come upon them. So the Targum,\n\n"they shall howl, instead of a song, in their houses then;''\n\nparticularly because of the slain in them, as follows; see Am 5:23;\n\n[there shall be] many dead bodies in every place; in all houses and palaces, in all towns and cities; and especially in Samaria, during the siege, and when taken, partly through the famine, and partly through the sword:\n\nthey shall cast [them] forth with silence; they that have the care of burying the dead bodies shall either cast them out of the houses upon the bier or cart in which they are carried to the grave, or into the pit or grave without any funeral lamentation: or, "they shall cast them forth", and say, "be silent"; that is, as Kimchi explains it,\n\n"one of them that casts them forth shall say to his companion, be silent;''\n\nsay not one word against God and his providence, since this is righteously come upon us; or say nothing of the number of the dead, lest the hearts of those that hear should become tender, and be discouraged, as Aben Ezra; or the enemy should be encouraged to go on with the siege.\n\n\n "

"\nHear this, O ye that swallow up the needy,....