Amos 7:4 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. God contending with Israel, by the judgments, but are reprieved, and the judgments turned away at the prayer of Amos (Amo 7:1-6). 2. God's patience is at length worn out by their obstinacy, and they are rejected, and sentenced to utter ruin (Amo 7:7-9). II. Israel contending with God, by the opposition given to his prophet. 1. Amaziah informs against Amos (Amo 7:10, Amo 7:11) and does what he can to rid the country of him as a public nuisance (Amo 7:12, Amo 7:13). 2. Amos justifies himself in what he did as a prophet (Amo 7:14, Amo 7:15) and denounces the judgments of God against Amaziah his prosecutor (Amo 7:16, Amo 7:17); for, when the contest is between God and man, it is easy to foresee, it is very easy to foretel, who will come off with the worst of it.

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 7 In this and the two following chapters are the visions of Amos, in number five; three of which are contained in this chapter, and with which it begins. The first is of the grasshoppers or locusts eating up the later grass of the land, which are stopped at the intercession of the prophet, Amo 7:1; the second is of fire the Lord called for to contend by, whose devouring flames are made to cease by the same interposition, Amo 7:4; and the other is of the plumbline, signifying the utter destruction of the people of Israel, according to the righteous judgment of God, Amo 7:7; upon the delivery of which prophecies and visions, the priest of Bethel forms a charge against the prophet to the king; and advises Amos to flee into Judea, and prophesy there, and not at Bethel, being willing to be rid of him at any rate, Amo 7:10; next follows the prophet's vindication of himself showing his divine call to the prophetic office, and his mission and express order he had from the Lord to prophesy unto Israel, Amo 7:14; and concludes with a denunciation of divine judgments on the priest's family, and upon the whole land of Israel, Amo 7:16.

Thus hath the Lord showed unto me,.... Another vision after this manner: and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire; gave out that he would have a controversy with his people Israel, and proclaimed the time when he would try the cause with them, and that by fire: or he called his family, as Jarchi; that is, his angels, as Kimchi, to cause fire to descend upon Israel, as upon Sodom and Gomorrah; so other Rabbins Kimchi mentions: or, as he interprets it, the scorching heat of the sun, like fire that restrained the rain, dried up the plants, and lessened the waters of the river, and so brought on a general drought, and in consequence famine: or rather a foreign army, involving them in war, burning their cities and towns; see Amo 1:4; and it devoured the great deep; it seemed, as if it did; as the fire from heaven, in Elijah's time, licked up the water in the trench, Kg1 18:38; so this, coming at God's command, seemed to dry up the whole ocean; by which may be meant the multitude of people, nations, and kingdoms, subdued by the Assyrians; see Rev 17:15; and did eat up a part; a part of a field, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra; of the king's field, Amo 7:1; as Kimchi; showing, as he observes, that the reigning king was a bad king, and that this was for his sin: or rather a part of the land of Israel; and so refers, as is generally thought, to Tiglathpileser's invasion of the land, who carried captive a part of it, Kg2 15:29.

(Vers. 4 seqq.) This the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord God called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and will consume it together with a portion. And I said: O Lord God, please cease; who will raise up Jacob since he is small? The Lord had mercy on this also, but even this shall not be, said the Lord God. LXX: Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, He called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and consumed a portion. And I said: O Lord God, stop, who will raise up Jacob, since he is small? Let it repent thee, O Lord, upon this: and let it not be, saith the Lord, God of hosts. First the Lord shewed the prophet the workman of the locust in the beginning of the germination of the late crop, and after the late crop, the cutting off of the king or kingdom, and to express the word from word, the cutting off of the king Sennacherib, by which he sheared and laid waste all the ten tribes. Now the same Lord sheweth Nebuchadnezzar, yea, he calleth and commandeth him to come against Judah and Jerusalem. However, he calls upon the fire to set ablaze the temple and Jerusalem, and to carry out judgment in the fire against those who were once his people. And when the fire came for judgment, to fulfill the command of the Lord, it consumed a great abyss, and it also consumed a part, all the cities of Judah, and a part of the Lord's which was called his temple. And when the prophet saw this, he said to the Lord, not as before, be propitious, I beseech you, but be still, or cease; so that he may obtain by his prayers the person whom he had already seen begin to cease: especially since there is no other who can raise up the lying down and little and humiliated Jacob, except the Lord who is able to bring back the captive and those transported into Chaldea into the land of Judah. Because once, according to the prophet Hosea and the Psalmist saying: The sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting with the bow, turned back in the day of battle (Psalm 77, 9), we have attributed the ten tribes to the person of the heretics, who were called Israel, and the two, over which Judas presided, to the Church and the sinners of the Church, who indeed confess the right faith, but are in need of purging themselves from the filth of vices with flames: for this reason now the Lord shows that he calls himself to the fire of judgment, so that the fire may prove the quality of each one's work (1 Corinthians 3), and that which is written may be fulfilled: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame you have kindled (Isaiah 50, 11). And it is said to Babylon: You have coals of fire, you shall sit upon them; they shall be to you for help (Isai. XLVII, 14, sec. LXX) . And in the psalm, The deceitful tongue, full of lies, is said to be purified by the fire of coals: What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, for a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of desolation (Ps. CXIX, 3, 4) . About these coals of the altar, the coal of the desolating coals of the two Testaments is taken with a pair of tongs, and the unclean lips of Isaiah are purified, so that he may be able to prophesy the word of the Lord (Isai. VI). But the fire, summoned for judgment, first devours the abyss, that is, all kinds of sins, wood, hay, straw, and then it consumes at the same time the part, that is, it reaches the saints, who are considered as the possession of the Lord and as part of him; for it is the time for judgment to begin from the house of the Lord. And in Ezekiel it is commanded to those who will suffer punishment: Begin from my own sanctified ones (Ezek. IX). And in the Apostle Paul we read: If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (I Cor. III). And when we all have been in sin, and we have lied in the truth of judgment, our Lord will have mercy on us, and because we are children, He will raise us up at the time of resurrection, or He will raise us up through the virtues in which we lay in vices, with the Lord promising this and saying: But even this will not be. He said well, but He also said: because He had already said above: this will not be. For He will not be angry forever, nor will He threaten eternally (Ps. 102). He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

In this chapter God represents to Amos, by three several visions, the judgments he is about to bring on Israel. The first is a plague of locusts, threatening to cut of the hopes of the harvest by attacking it in the time of the second growth; the first luxuriances of the crop being probably mowed for the king's horses, Amo 7:1-3. The next vision threatens a judgment by fire, which would consume a great part, Amo 7:4-6; and the third a total overthrow of Israel, levelling it as it were by a line, Amo 7:7-9. The rest of the chapter is a denunciation of heavy judgments against Amaziah, priest of Beth-el, who had brought an accusation to the king against the prophet, Amo 7:10-17.

The Lord God called to contend by fire - Permitted war, both civil and foreign, to harass the land, after the death of Jeroboam the second. These wars would have totally destroyed it, had not the prophet interceded. It devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part - We are here to understand the partially destructive wars which afterwards took place; for the Lord causes all these things to pass before the eyes of Amos in the vision of prophecy; and intimates that, at the intercession of his prophets, total ruin should be prevented.

showed . . . me; and, behold--The same formula prefaces the three visions in this chapter, and the fourth in Amo 8:1. grasshoppers--rather, "locusts" in the caterpillar state, from a Hebrew root, "to creep forth." In the autumn the eggs are deposited in the earth; in the spring the young come forth [MAURER]. the latter growth--namely, of grass, which comes up after the mowing. They do not in the East mow their grass and make hay of it, but cut it off the ground as they require it. the king's mowings--the first-fruits of the mown grass, tyrannically exacted by the king from the people. The literal locusts, as in Joel, are probably symbols of human foes: thus the "growth" of grass "after the king's mowings" will mean the political revival of Israel under Jeroboam II (Kg2 14:25), after it had been mown down, as it were, by Hazael and Ben-hadad of Syria (Kg2 13:3), [GROTIUS].

called to contend--that is with Israel judicially (Job 9:3; Isa 66:16; Eze 38:22). He ordered to come at His call the infliction of punishment by "fire" on Israel, that is, drought (compare Amo 4:6-11), [MAURER]. Rather, war (Num 21:28), namely, Tiglath-pileser [GROTIUS]. devoured the . . . deep--that is a great part of Israel, whom he carried away. Waters are the symbol for many people (Rev 17:15). did eat up a part--namely, all the land (compare Amo 4:7) of Israel east of Jordan (Ch1 5:26; Isa 9:1). This was a worse judgment than the previous one: the locusts ate up the grass: the fire not only affects the surface of the ground, but burns up the very roots and reaches even to the deep.

III. Sights or Visions The last part of the writings of Amos contains five visions, which confirm the contents of the prophetic addresses in the preceding part. The first four visions, however (ch. 7 and Amo 8:1-14), are distinguished from the fifth and last (Amo 9:1-15) by the fact, that whereas the former all commence with the same formula, "Thus hath the Lord showed me," the latter commences with the words, "I saw the Lord," etc. They also differ in their contents, inasmuch as the former symbolize the judgments which have already fallen in part upon Israel, and in part have still to fall; whilst the latter, on the contrary, proclaims the overthrow of the old theocracy, and after this the restoration of the fallen kingdom of God, and its ultimate glory. And again, of these four, the first and second (Amo 7:1-6) are distinguished from the third and fourth (Amo 7:7-9, and Amo 8:1-3) by the fact, that whereas the former contain a promise in reply to the prophet's intercession, that Jacob shall be spared, in the latter any further sparing is expressly refused; so that they are thus formed into two pairs, which differ from one another both in their contents and purpose. This difference is of importance, in relation both to the meaning and also to the historical bearing of the visions. It points to the conclusion, that the first two visions indicate universal judgments, whilst the third and fourth simply threaten the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel in the immediate future, the commencement of which is represented in the fifth and last vision, and which is then still further depicted in its results in connection with the realization of the divine plan of salvation. Visions of the Locusts, the Fire, and the Plumb-Line. The Prophet's Experience at Bethel - Amos 7

The Devouring Fire. - Amo 7:4. "Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: and, behold, the Lord Jehovah called to punish with fire; and it devoured the great flood, and devoured the portion. Amo 7:5. And I said, Lord Jehovah, leave off, I pray: how can Jacob stand? for it is small. Amo 7:6. Jehovah repented of this; this also shall not take place, said the Lord Jehovah." That the all-devouring fire represents a much severer judgment than that depicted under the figure of the locusts, is generally acknowledged, and needs no proof. But the more precise meaning of this judgment is open to dispute, and depends upon the explanation of the fourth verse. The object to קרא is לריב בּאשׁ, and ריב is to be taken as an infinitive, as in Isa 3:13 : He called to strive (i.e., to judge or punish) with fire. There is no necessity to supply ministros suos here. The expression is a concise one, for "He called to the fire to punish with fire" (for the expression and the fact, compare Isa 66:16). This fire devoured the great flood. Tehōm rabbâh is used in Gen 7:11 and Isa 51:10, etc., to denote the unfathomable ocean; and in Gen 1:2 tehōm is the term applied to the immense flood which surrounded and covered the globe at the beginning of the creation. ואכלה, as distinguished from ותּאכל, signifies an action in progress, or still incomplete (Hitzig). The meaning therefore is, "it also devoured (began to devour) 'eth-hachēleq;" i.e., not the field, for a field does not form at all a fitting antithesis to the ocean; and still less "the land," for chēleq never bears this meaning; but the inheritance or portion, namely, that of Jehovah (Deu 32:9), i.e., Israel. Consequently tehōm rabbâh cannot, of course, signify the ocean as such. For the idea of the fire falling upon the ocean, and consuming it, and then beginning to consume the land of Israel, by which the ocean was bounded (Hitzig), would be too monstrous; nor is it justified by the simple remark, that "it was as if the last great conflagration (Pe2 3:10) had begun" (Schmieder). As the fire is to earthly fire, but the fire of the wrath of God, and therefore a figurative representation of the judgment of destruction; and as hachēleq (the portion) is not the land of Israel, but according to Deuteronomy (l.c.) Israel, or the people of Jehovah; so tehōm rabbâh is not the ocean, but the heathen world, the great sea of nations, in their rebellion against the kingdom of God. The world of nature in a state of agitation is a frequent symbol in the Scriptures for the agitated heathen world (e.g., Psa 46:3; Psa 93:3-4). On the latter passage, Delitzsch has the following apt remark: "The stormy sea is a figurative representation of the whole heathen world, in its estrangement from God, and enmity against Him, or the human race outside the true church of God; and the rivers are figurative representations of the kingdoms of the world, e.g., the Nile of the Egyptian (Jer 46:7-8), the Euphrates of the Assyrian (Isa 8:7-8), or more precisely still, the arrow-swift Tigris of the Assyrian, and the winding Euphrates of the Babylonian (Isa 27:1)." This symbolism lies at the foundation of the vision seen by the prophet. The world of nations, in its rebellion against Jehovah, the Lord and King of the world, appears as a great flood, like the chaos at the beginning of the creation, or the flood which poured out its waves upon the globe in the time of Noah. Upon this flood of nations does fire from the Lord fall down and consume them; and after consuming them, it begins to devour the inheritance of Jehovah, the nation of Israel also. The prophet then prays to the Lord to spare it, because Jacob would inevitably perish in this conflagration; and the Lord gives the promise that "this shall not take place," so that Israel is plucked like a firebrand out of the fire (Amo 4:11). If we inquire now into the historical bearing of these two visions, so much is priori clear, - namely, that both of them not only indicate judgments already past, but also refer to the future, since no fire had hitherto burned upon the surface of the globe, which had consumed the world of nations and threatened to annihilate Israel. If therefore there is an element of truth in the explanation given by Grotius to the first vision, "After the fields had been shorn by Benhadad (Kg2 13:3), and after the damage which was then sustained, the condition of Israel began to flourish once more during the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash, as we see from Kg2 14:15," according to which the locusts would refer to the invasion on the part of the Assyrians in the time of Pul; this application is much too limited, neither exhausting the contents of the first vision, nor suiting in the smallest degree the figure of the fire. The "mowing of the king" (Amo 7:1) denotes rather all the judgments which the Lord had hitherto poured out upon Israel, embracing everything that the prophet mentions in Amo 4:6-10. The locusts are a figurative representation of the judgments that still await the covenant nation, and will destroy it even to a small remnant, which will be saved through the prayers of the righteous. The vision of the fire has a similar scope, embracing all the past and all the future; but this also indicates the judgments that fall upon the heathen world, and will only receive its ultimate fulfilment in the destruction of everything that is ungodly upon the face of the earth, when the Lord comes in fire to strive with all flesh (Isa 66:15-16), and to burn up the earth and all that is therein, on the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (Pe2 3:7, Pe2 3:10-13). The removal of the two judgments, however, by Jehovah in consequence of the intercession of the prophet, shows that these judgments are not intended to effect the utter annihilation of the nation of God, but simply its refinement and the rooting out of the sinners from the midst of it, and that, in consequence of the sparing mercy of God, a holy remnant of the nation of God will be left. The next two visions refer simply to the judgment which awaits the kingdom of the ten tribes in the immediate future.