Bible Commentaries

Moab - The relation of Moab to Israel is only accidentally different from that of Ammon. One spirit actuated both, venting itself in one and the same way, as occasion served, and mostly together (see the note at Amos 1:13). Beside those more formal invasions, the history of Elisha mentions one probably of many in-roads of "bands of the Moabites." It seems as though, when "the year entered in," and with it the harvest, "the bands of the Moabites entered in" too, like "the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east" Judges 6:3-4, Judges 6:11 in the time of Gideon, or their successors the Bedouins, now. This their continual hostility is related in the few words of a parenthesis. There was no occasion to relate at length an uniform hostility, which was as regular as the seasons of the year, and the year's produce, and the temptation to the cupidity of Moab, when Israel was weakened by Hazael.

Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom - The deed here condemned, is unknown. Doubtless it was connected with that same hatred of Edom, which the king of Moab showed, when besieged by Israel. People are often more enraged against a friend or ally who has made terms with one whom they hate or fear, than with the enemy himself. Certainly, "when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him" 2 Kings 3:26-27, his fury was directed personally against the king of Edom. He "took with him" 700 chosen men "to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not." Escape was not their object. They sought not "to cut through" the Edomite contingent into the desert, but "to the king of Edom." Then "he took his oldest son," that is, probably the oldest son of the king of Edom whom he captured, "and offered him up as a burnt offering on the wall."

Such is the simplest structure of the words; He "strove to cut through to the king of Edom, and they could not, and he took his oldest son, etc., and there was great indignation against Israel." That "indignation" too on the part of Edom (for there was no other to be indignant "against Israel") is best accounted for, if this expedition, undertaken because Moab had rebelled against Israel, had occasioned the sacrifice of the son of the king of Edom, who took part in it only as a tributary of Judah. Edom would have had no special occasion to be indignant with Israel, if on occasion of an ordinary siege, the king of Moab had, in a shocking way, performed the national idolatry of child-sacrifice. That hatred the king of Moab carried beyond the grave, hatred which the pagan too held to be unnatural in its implacableness and unsatiableness. The soul being, after death, beyond man's reach, the hatred, vented upon his remains, is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengeance.

It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it. Its impotence evinces its fierceness, since, having no power to wreak any real revenge, it has no object but to show its hatred. Hatred, which death cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. With this hatred Moab hated the king of Edom, seemingly because he had been, though probably against this will, on the side of the people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, and directed against God Himself. The single instance, which we know, of any feud between Moab and Edom was, when Edom was engaged in a constrained service of God. At least there are no indications of any conquest of each other. The Bozrah of Moab, being in the Mishor, "the plain" Jeremiah 48:21, Jeremiah 48:24, is certainly distinct from the Bozrah of Edom, which Jeremiah speaks of at the same time, as belonging to Edom Jeremiah 49:13. Each kingdom, Edom and Moab, had its own strong city, Bozrah, at one and the same time. And if "the rock," which Isaiah speaks of as the strong hold of Moab Isaiah 16:1, was indeed the Petra of Edom, (and the mere name, in that country of rock-fortresses is not strong, yet is the only, proof,) they won it from Judah who had taken it from Edom, and in whose hands it remained in the time of Amos (2 Kings 14:7; see above the note at Amos 1:12), not from Edom itself. Or, again, the tribute "may" have been only sent through Petra, as the great center of commerce. Edom's half-service gained it no good, but evil; Moab's malice was its destruction.

The proverb, "speak good only of the dead," shows what reverence human nature dictates, not to condemn those who have been before their Judge, unless He have already openly condemned them. "Death," says Athanasius in relating the death of Arius on his perjury, "is the common end of all people, and we ought not to insult the dead, though he be an enemy, for it is uncertain whether the same event may not happen to ourselves before evening."

It shall devour the palaces of Kerioth - Literally, "the cities," that is, a collection of cities. It may have received a plural form upon some enlargement, as Jerusalem received a dual form, as a double city. The name is, in different forms, very common . In the plain or high downs of Moab itself, there were both Kiriathaim, "double city" and Kerloth Jeremiah 48:23-24; in Naphthali, a Kiriathaim, (1 Chronicles 6:76, (1 Chronicles 6:61 in Hebrew)) or Kartan Joshua 21:32; in Judah, the Kerioth Joshua 15:25 from where the wretched Judas has his name Iscariot; in Zebulon, Kartah Joshua 21:34 also, which reappears as the Numidian Cirta. Moab had also a Kiriath-huzoth, "city of streets" Numbers 22:39, within the Arnon . This alone was within the proper border of Moab, such as the Armorites had left it.

Kerioth and Kiriathaim were in the plain country which Israel had won from the Amorites, and its possession would imply an aggression of Moab. Jeroboam II had probably at this time brought Moab to a temporary submission (see the note at Amos 6:14); but Israel only required fealty and tribute of Moab; Moab appears even before the captivity of the 2 12 tribes, to have invaded the possessions of Israel. Kerioth was probably a new capital, beyond the Arnon, now adorned with "palaces" and enlarged, as "Paris, Prague, Cracow , "London, are composed of different towns. In Jerome's time, it had probably ceased to be .

Shall die with tumult - Jeremiah, when prophesying the destruction of Moab, designates it by this same name "sons of tumult Jeremiah 48:45. A flame shall devour the corner of Moab and the crown of the sons of tumult." And probably herein he explains the original prophecy of Balaam, "shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of tumult" Numbers 24:17. As they had done, so should it be done to them; tumults they caused, "in tumult" they should perish.

After the subdual of Moab by Nebuchadnezzar, it disappears as a nation, unless indeed Daniel in his Prophecy, "Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon shall escape out of his hand" Amos 11:41 (Antiochus Epiphanes,) means the nations themselves, and not such as should be like them. Else the intermarriage with Moabite women Ezra 9:1 is mentioned only as that with women of other pagan nations which had ceased to be. The old name, Moabitis, is still mentioned; but the Arabs had possessed themselves of it, and bore the old name. Alexander Jannaeus "subdued" we are told, "of the Arabians, the Moabites and Gileadires," and then, again, when in difficulty, made it over with its fortified places, to the king of the Arabians . Among the cities which Alexander took from the king of the Arabians , are cities throughout Moab, both in that part in which they had succeeded to Israel, and their proper territory south of the Arnon .

And I will cut off the judge - The title "judge" (shophet) is nowhere used absolutely of a king. Holy Scripture speaks in several places of "all the judges of the earth" Job 9:24; Psalm 2:10; Psalm 148:11; Proverbs 8:16; Isaiah 40:23. Hosea Hos 13:10, under "judges," includes "kings and princes," as judging the people. The word "judge" is always used as one invested with the highest, but not regal authority, as of all the judges from the death of Joshua to Samuel. In like way it (Sufetes) was the title of the chief magistrates of Carthage , with much the same authority as the Roman Consuls . The Phoenician histories, although they would not own that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre, still own that, after his 13 years' siege , Baal reigned 10 years, and after him judges were set up, one for two months, a second for ten, a third, a high priest, for three, two more for six, and between these one reigned for a year. After his death, they sent for Merbaal from Babylon, who reigned for four years, and on his death, they sent for Hiram his brother who reigned for twenty. The judges then exercised the supreme authority, the king's sons having been carried away captive. Probably, then, when Jeroboam II recovered the old territory of Israel, Moab lost its kings. It agrees with this, that Amos says, "the princes thereof," literally, "her princes," the princes of Moab, not as of Ammon, "his princes," that is, the princes of the king.

For three transgressions of Judah etc. - Rup.: "Here too there is no difference of Jew and Gentile. The word of God, a just judge, spareth no man's person. whom sin joins in one, the sentence of the Judge disjoins not in punishment" Romans 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law, and as many as have signed in the law, shall be judged by the law." Jerome: "Those other nations, Damascus and the rest, he upbraids not for having cast away the law of God, and despised His commandments, for they had not the written law, but that of nature only. So then of them he says, that "they corrupted all their compassions" - and the like. But Judah, who, at that time, had the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had received the law and commandments and judgments and precepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, for that it had "cast aside His law and not kept His commandments;" wherefore it should be punished as it deserved.

And since they rejected and despised these, then, in course, "their lies deceived them," that is, their idols; "lies" on their part who made them and worshiped them for the true God, and "lies" and lying to them, as deceiving their hopes. "For an idol is nothing in the world" 1 Corinthians 8:4, as neither are all the vanities in the world whereof people make idols, but they deceive by a vain show, as though they were something. Jerome: "They would not have been deceived by their idols, unless they had first rejected the law of the Lord and not done His commandments." They had sinned with a high hand: "despising" and so rejecting the law of God; and so He despised and rejected them, leaving them to be deceived by the lies which they themselves had chosen. So it ever is with man. Man must either "love God's law and hate and abhor lies" Psalm 119:163, or he will despise God's law and cleave to lies.

He first in act "despises" God's law, (and whoso does not keep it, despises it,) and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his God. He first chooses willfully his own "lie," that is, whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own "lie" deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves. So, whatever false maxim anyone has adopted against his conscience, whether in belief or practice, to justify what he wills against the will of God, or to explain away what God reveals and he mislikes, stifling and lying to his conscience, in the end deceives his conscience, and at the last, a man believes that to be true, which, before he had lied to his conscience, he knew to be false. The prophet uses a bold word in speaking of man's dealings with his God, "despises." Man carries on the serpent's first fraud, "Hath God indeed said?" Man would not willingly own, that he is directly at variance with the Mind of God. Man, in his powerlessness, at war with Omnipotence, and, in his limited knowledge, with Omniscience! It were too silly, as well as too terrible.

So he smoothes it over to himself, "lying" to himself. "God's word must not be taken so precisely;" "God cannot have meant;" "the Author of nature would not have created us so, if He had meant;" and all the other excuses, by which he would evade owning to himself that he is directly rejecting the Mind of God and trampling it under foot. Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God, and did not keep it; then, he "despised" it. On the one side was God's will, His Eternal Wisdom, His counsel for man for good; on the other, what debasements! On the one side were God's awful threats, on the other, His exceeding promises. Yet man chose whatever he willed, lying to himself, and acting as though God had never threatened or promised or spoken. This ignoring of God's known Will and law and revelation is to despise them, "as effectually as to curse God to His face" Job 2:5. This rejection of God was hereeditary.

Their lies were those "after which their fathers walked," in Egypt and from Egypt onward, in the wilderness (see the note at Amos 5:25-26) , "making the image of the calf of Egypt and worshiping Baalpeor and Ashtoreth and Baalim." Evil acquires a sort of authority by time. People become inured to evils, to which they have been used. False maxims, undisputed, are thought indisputable. They are in possession; and "possession" is held a good title. The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. The descent "of the image of the great goddess Diana from Jupiter" or of the Coran, becomes a "thing" which cannot be spoken against" Acts 19:35-36. The "lies after which the fathers walked" deceive the children. The children canonize the errors of their fathers." Human opinon is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as God's truth.

The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, does not excuse it Nehemiah 5:5. "Judah is the Church. In her the prophet reproves whosoever, worshiping his own vices and sins, cometh to have that as a god by which he is overcome; as Peter saith, "Whereby a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" 2 Peter 2:19. The covetous worshipeth mammon; the glutton, his belly Philippians 3:19; the impure, Baalpeor; she who, "living in pleasure, is dead while she liveth" 1 Timothy 5:6, the pleasure in which she liveth." Of such idols the world is full. Every fair form, every idle imagination, everything which gratifies self-love, passion, pride, vanity, intellect, sense, each the most refined or the most debased, is such a "lie," so soon as man loves and regards it more than his God.

I will send a fire upon Judah - All know now, how Jerusalem, its temple, and its palaces perished by fire, first by Nebuchadnezzar, then by the Romans. Yet some two centuries passed, before that first destruction came. The ungodly Jews flattered themselves that it would never come. So we know that a "fiery stream" Daniel 7:10 will issue and come forth from Him; "a fire" that "consumeth to destruction" Job 31:12, all who, whether or no they are in the body of the Church, are not of the heavenly Jerusalem; dead members in the body which belongs to the Living Head. And it will not the less come, because it is not regarded. Rather, the very condition of all God's judgments is, to be disregarded and to come, and then most to come, when they are most disregarded.

For three transgressions of Israel, and for four - In Israel, on whom the divine sentence henceforth rests, the prophet numbers four classes of sins, running into one another, as all sins do, since all grievous sins contain many in one, yet in some degree distinct:

(1) Perversion of justice;

(2) oppression of the poor;

(3) uncleanness;

(4) luxury with idolatry.

They sold the righteous for silver - It is clear from the opposite statement, "that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes," that the prophet is not speaking of judicial iniquity, but of actual buying and selling. The law allowed a Hebrew who was poor to sell himself , and a Hebrew to buy him until the year of release; yet this too with the express reserve, that the purchaser was forbidden to "serve himself with him with the service of a slave, but as a hired servant and a sojourner stroll he be with thee" Leviticus 25:39-40. The thief who could not repay what he stole, was to "be sold for his theft" Exodus 22:2-3. But the law gave no power to sell an insolvent debtor. It grew up in practice. The sons and daughters of the debtor Nehemiah 5:5, or "his wife and children" Matthew 18:25, nay even the sons of a deceased debtor 2 Kings 4:1, were sold. Nehemiah rebuked this sharply. In that case, the hardness was aggravated by the fact that the distress had been fomented by usury. But the aggravation did not constitute the sin. It seems to be this merciless selling by the creditor, with Amos rebukes. The "righteous" is probably one who, without any blame, became insolvent. The "pair of shoes," that is, sandals, express the trivial price, or the luxury for which he was sold. They had him sold "for the sake of a pair of sandals," that is, in order to procure them. Trivial in themselves, as being a mere sole, the sandals of the Hebrew women were, at times, costly and beautiful (Sol 7:1; Ezra 10; Judith 16:9). Such a sale expressed contempt for man, made in the image of God, that he was sold either for some worthless price, or for some needless adornment.

That pant after the dust of the earth - Literally, "the panters!" with indignation. Not content with having rent from him the little hereditary property which belonged to each Israelite, these creditors grudged him even the "dust," which, as a mourner, he strewed on his head Job 2:12, since it too was "earth." Covetousness, when it has nothing to feed it, craves for what is absurd or impossible. What was Naboth's vineyard to a king of Israel with his "ivory palace?" What was Mordecai's refusal to bow to one in honor like Haman? What a trivial gain to a millionaire? The sarcasm of the prophet was the more piercing, because it was so true. People covet things in proportion, not to their worth, but to their worthlessness. No one covets what he much needs. Covetousness is the sin, mostly not of those who have not, but of those who have. It grows with its gains, is the less satisfied, the more it has to satisify it, and attests its own unreasonableness, by the uselessness of the things it craves for.

And turn aside the way of the meek - So Solomon said, "A wicked" man "taketh a bribe out of the bosom, to pervert the ways of judgment." (Proverbs 17:23. God had laid down the equality of man, made in His own image, and had forbidden to favor either poor Exodus 23:3 or rich Exodus 23:6. Amos calls these by different names, which entitled them to human sympathy; "poor, depressed, lowly; poor," in their absolute condition; "depressed," as having been brought low; "lowly," as having the special grace of their state, the wonderful meekness and lowliness off the godly poor. But all these qualities are so many incentives to injury to the ungodly. They hate the godly, as a reproach to them; because "he is clean contrary to their doings, his life is not like other people's; his ways are of another fashion" (Wisdom Amos 2:12, Amos 2:15). Wolves destroy not wolves but sheep. Bad people circumvent not the bad but the good. Besides the easiness of the gain, there is a devilish fascinating pleasure to the bad, to overreach the simple and meek, because they are such.

They love also to "turn aside the way of the meek," by , "turning them from what is truly right and good; "or from the truth; or again to thwart them in all their ways and endeavors, by open injustice or by perverting justice. Every act of wrong prepares the way for the crowning act; and so "the turning aside the way of the meek" foreshadowed and prepared for the unjust judgment of Him who was "the Meek and Lowly" One Matthew 11:29, the selling the righteous for a trilling sum prepared for the selling "the Holy One and the Just" Acts 3:14 for "the thirty pieces of silver." : "Contrariwise, whoso is truly wise, cordially venerates the humble and abject, the poor and simple, and prefers them in his own heart to himself, knowing that God has 'chosen the poor, and the weak things of the world, and things despised, and things which are not' 1 Corinthians 1:27-28; and that Christ hath likened Himself to such, saying in the Psalm, 'I am poor and sorrowful' Psalm 69:29."

The same damsel - This is not expressly forbidden by the law, except in the case of marriage, the father being forbidden to marry his son's widow, and the son to take his father's widow to wife Leviticus 18:8, Leviticus 18:15. Abominations, unless they had become known to Israel in Egypt, were not expressly forbidden, but were included in the one large prohibition, which, as our Lord explains, forbade every offence, bearing upon it. Israel must have so understood the law, since Amos could upbraid them with this, which is not forbidden by the letter of the law, as a willful insult to the Majesty of God. Reverence was due from the son to the father, example from the father to the son. But now the father was an example of evil to the son; and the son sinned in a way which had no temptation except its irreverence. People, sated with ordinary sin seek incitement to sin, in its very horrors. Probably this sin was committed in connection with their idol worship (see the note at Hosea 4:14). The sin of marrying the father's widow was "fornication not so much as named among the Gentiles" 1 Corinthians 5:1; it was unknown, as seemingly legalizing what was so unnatural. Oppression of the poor, wronging the righteous, perverting the way of the meek, laid the soul open for any abomination.

To profane My Holy Name - that is, as called upon them, as the people of God. God had said, "ye shall keep My commandments and do them (Leviticus 22:31-32; add Leviticus 20:3; Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 21:6). "I" am "the Lord, and ye shall not defile My Holy Name. For I will be sanctified among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you." The sins of God's people are a reproach upon Himself. They bring Him, so to say, in contact with sin. They defeat the object of His creation and revelation. He created man in His Image, to bear His likeness, to have one will with Himself. In effect, through sin, He has created rebels, deformed, unlike. So long as He bears with them, it seems as if He were indifferent to them. Those to whom He has not revealed Himself, must needs think that He takes no account of what He permits unnoticed. Israel, whom God had separated from the pagan, did, by "mingling with the pagan and learning their works" Psalm 106:35, all which in them lay, to "profane" His "Holy Name." They acted as if they had no other purpose than to defile it (see the note at Hosea 8:4).

Had such been their object, they could not have done it more effectually, they could not have done otherwise. In deliberate sin, people act, at last, in defiance of God, in set purpose to dishonor Him. The Name of God has ever since been blasphemed, on account of the sins of the Jews, as though it were impossible that God should have chosen for His own, a people so "laden with iniquities" Isaiah 1:4. Nathan's words to David, "Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme" 2 Samuel 12:14, have been fulfilled until this day. How much more, Christians, who not only are called "the people of God" but bear the name of Christ incorporated in their own. Yet have we not known Muslims flee from our Christian capital, in horror at its sins? "He lives like a Christian," is a proverb of the Polish Jews, drawn from the debased state of morals in Socinian Poland. The religion of Christ has no such enemies as Christians. Dionysius: "As the devout by honoring God, shew that He is Holy, Great, Most High, who is obeyed in holiness, fear and reverence, so the ungodly, by dishonoring God, exhibit God as far as in them lies, as if lie were not holy. For they act so as if evil were well-pleasing to Him, and induce others to dishonor Him. Wherefore the Apostle saith; "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you" Romans 2:24; and by Ezekiel the Lord saith oftentimes, "Ye have profaned My Holy Name. And I will sanctify My great Name which wets profaned among the pagan, which ye hare profaned in the midst of them" Ezekiel 36:23. The devout then are said to "magnify," sanctify, "exalt God;" the unrighteous to "profane Ezekiel 13:19, despise, God."

They lay themselves down - They condensed sin. By a sort of economy in the toil of sinning, they blended many sins in one; idolatry, sensuality, cruelty, and, in all, the express breach of God's commandments. The "clothes" here are doubtless the same as the "raiment" in the law, the large enfolding cloak, which by day was wrapped over the long loose shirt , the poor man's only dress besides, and by night was his only bedding Exodus 22:26-27. God had expressly commanded, "If the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge" Deuteronomy 24:12-13; in any case "thou shalt deliver him the pledge again, when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee; and it shall be righteousness to thee before the Lord thy God." Here the "garments laid to pledge" are treated as the entire property of the creditors.

They "stretch" their listless length along upon them in their idol-feasts "by every altar." Ezekiel speaks of a "stately bed," upon which they "sat, and a table prepared before it" Ezekiel 23:41. Isaiah; "Upon a lofty and high mountain, hast thou set up thy bed; even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice; thou hast enlarged thy bed; thou hast loved their bed; thou providedst room" Isaiah 57:7-8. In luxury and state then, and withal in a shameless publicity, they "lay on the garments" of the despoiled "by every altar." The multiplication of altars Hosea 8:11; Hosea 10:1; Hosea 12:11 was, in itself, sin. By each of these multiplied places of sin they committed fresh sins of luxury and hard-heartedness, (perhaps, from the character of the worship of nature, yet grosser sins,) "and drink the wine of the condemned," or (as the English margin more exactly) "the amerced," those whom, unjustly, persons in any petty judicial authority had "amerced," expending in revelry and debanchery in the idol's temple what they had unjustly extorted from the oppressed.

There is no mask too transparent to serve to hide from himself one who does not wish to see himself. Nothing serves so well as religion for that self-deceit, and the less there is of it, or the more one-sided it is, the better it serves. For the narrower it is, the less risk of impinging on the awful reality of God's truth; and half a truth as to God is mostly, a lie which its half-truth makes plausible. So this dreadful assemblage of cruelty, avarice, malice, mockery of justice, unnatural debauchery, hard-heartedness, was doubtless smoothed over to the conscience of the ten tribes by that most hideous ingredient of all, that "the house of their god" was the place of their ill-purchased revelry. People do not serve their idols for nothing; this costly service at Bethel was not for nought. They did all these things; but they did something for "the Deity" or "Nature" or "Ashtoreth;" and so "the Deity" was to be at peace with them. Amos, with wonderful irony, marks the ghastly mixture of sin and worship, "they drank the wine of the amerced" - where? "in the house of their God," condemning in five words their luxury, oppression, perversion of justice, cruelty, profaneness, unreal service and real apostasy. What hard-heartedness to the willfully-forgotten poor is compensated by a little Church-going!