Amos 2:12 Comentariu

In this chapter, I. God, by the prophet, proceeds in a like controversy with Moab as before with other nations (Amo 2:1-3). II. He shows what quarrel he had with Judah (Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5). III. He at length begins his charge against Israel, to which all that goes before is but an introduction. Observe, 1. The sins they are charged with - injustice, oppression, whoredom (Amo 2:6-8). 2. The aggravations of those sins - the temporal and spiritual mercies God had bestowed upon them, for which they had made him such ungrateful returns (Amo 2:9-12). 3. God's complaint of them for their sins (Amo 2:13) and his threatenings of their ruin, and their utter inability to prevent it (Amo 2:14-16).

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 2 In this chapter the prophet foretells the calamities that should come upon the Moabites for their transgressions, Amo 2:1; and the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for their iniquities, Amo 2:4; also the judgments of God that should come upon Israel the ten tribes for their sins, which sins are enumerated; their oppression of the poor, their lewdness and idolatry, Amo 2:6; and which are aggravated by the blessings of goodness bestowed upon them, both temporal and spiritual, Amo 2:9; wherefore they are threatened with ruin, which would be inevitable, notwithstanding their swiftness, strength, and courage, and their skill in shooting arrows, and riding horses, Amo 2:13.

But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink,.... Contrary to their vow and calling, and in contempt of it, and to make them like themselves; they either persuaded them, or forced them to it: and commanded the prophets, saying, prophesy not; hard and heavy things, judgments and denunciations of vengeance, only smooth things; by this authoritative language it appears that this is said of the rulers and governors of the people, as king, princes, and priests; see Amo 7:12.

Samson and Samuel drank neither wine nor strong drink, for they were children of promise and conceived in abstinence and fasting. Aaron and the other priests when about to enter the temple refrained from all intoxicating drink for fear they should die. From this we learn that they die who minister in the church without sobriety. And hence it is a reproach against Israel: “You gave my Nazirites wine to drink.”

(Verse 12.) Is it not so, sons of Israel, says the Lord, that you offered wine to the Nazarenes and sent commands to the prophets, saying: Do not prophesy. Likewise, the Septuagint. I granted you so many benefits, that I would kill your enemies and give their land to you, and I would choose prophets and Nazarenes from your sons and young men, and I would consecrate them to my worship. Can you say that I have not done these things, and that I have denied my mercy towards you, by which you live? Why did you burst forth into such rage, that you would get my Nazarenes drunk with wine, whom the law commands not to drink anything that can intoxicate? (Num. VI): and you would command the prophets not to prophesy in my name. This is what the priest Amaziah of Bethel commanded the prophet Amos, whom we now have in our hands: and it was commanded by the king to Jeremiah, not to speak the words of the Lord to the people, to the extent that his words were even burned with fire. Tatianus, the leader of the Encratites, attempts to construct his heresy on this matter, stating that wine should not be drunk, since it is commanded by the law that Nazarenes should not drink wine, and now they are accused by a prophet who provides wine to the Nazarenes. If they follow the letter in all things and introduce Jewish fables into the churches of Christ, then they should also grow their hair long, abstain from eating dried and green grapes, and not approach their deceased mother and father. And if by chance they have done these things and have been overcome by human frailty or necessity, they should shave their heads, and all their days of dedication and work shall be void. But if they do not do these things, nor are they able to mix water with wine like the Jewish innkeepers, let them understand the shadows of truth, the grace of the Gospel, the necessity of the Law, and that drunkenness with which the vigor of the soul is intoxicated and overwhelmed by worldly cares, and let them command those prophets, saying: 'Do not prophesy, you who, overcome by envy, forbid learned men from speaking the word of doctrine.' And as the Lord says: 'Go and say to this people' (Is. VI, 9), they on the contrary command them not to speak in the name of the Lord, especially if the one teaching provides for the utility of the readers and listeners, not for shameful gain, fame, and boasting.

The prophet goes on to declare the judgments of God against Moab, Amo 2:1-3; against Judah, Amo 2:4, Amo 2:5; and then against Israel, the particular object of his mission. He enumerates some of their sins, Amo 2:6-8, aggravated by God's distinguishing regard to Israel, Amo 2:9-12; and they are in consequence threatened with dreadful punishments, Amo 2:13-16. See Kg2 15:19; Kg2 17:6.

But ye gave the Nazarites wine - This was expressly forbidden in the laws of their institution. See Num 6:1-3. Prophesy not - They would not worship God, and they would not hear the voice of his prophets.

CHARGES AGAINST MOAB, JUDAH, AND LASTLY ISRAEL, THE CHIEF SUBJECT OF AMOS' PROPHECIES. (Amos 2:1-16) burned . . . bones of . . . king of Edom into lime--When Jehoram of Israel, Jehoshaphat of Judah, and the king of Edom, combined against Mesha king of Moab, the latter failing in battle to break through to the king of Edom, took the oldest son of the latter and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall (Kg2 3:27) [MICHAELIS]. Thus, "king of Edom" is taken as the heir to the throne of Edom. But "his son" is rather the king of Moab's own son, whom the father offered to Molech [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 9.3]. Thus the reference here in Amos is not to that fact, but to the revenge which probably the king of Moab took on the king of Edom, when the forces of Israel and Judah had retired after their successful campaign against Moab, leaving Edom without allies. The Hebrew tradition is that Moab in revenge tore from their grave and burned the bones of the king of Edom, the ally of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, who was already buried. Probably the "burning of the bones" means, "he burned the king of Edom alive, reducing his very bones to lime" [MAURER].

Ye so despised these My favors, as to tempt the Nazarite to break his vow; and forbade the prophets prophesying (Isa 30:10). So Amaziah forbade Amos (Amo 7:12-14).

Moab. - Amo 2:1. "Thus saith Jehovah: for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it has burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime, Amo 2:2. I send fire into Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab will perish in the tumult, in the war-cry, in the trumpet-blast. Amo 2:3. And I cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and all its princes do I strangle with it, saith Jehovah." The burning of the bones of the king of Edom is not burning while he was still alive, but the burning of the corpse into lime, i.e., so completely that the bones turned into powder like lime (D. Kimchi), to cool his wrath still further upon the dead man (cf. Kg2 23:16). This is the only thing blamed, not his having put him to death. No record has been preserved of this event in the historical books of the Old Testament; but it was no doubt connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom; so that the Jewish tradition found in Jerome, viz., that after this war the Moabites dug up the bones of the king of Edom from the grace, and heaped insults upon them by burning them to ashes, is apparently not without foundation. As Amos in the case of all the other nations has mentioned only crimes that were committed against the covenant nation, the one with which the Moabites are charged must have been in some way associated with either Israel or Judah, that is to say, it must have been committed upon a king of Edom, who was a vassal of Judah, and therefore not very long after this war, since the Edomites shook off their dependence upon Judah in less than ten years from that time (Kg2 8:20). As a punishment for this, Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and Keriyoth with its palaces to be burned down. הקּריּות is not an appellative noun (τῶν πόλεων αὐτῆς, lxx), but a proper name of one of the chief cities of Moab (cf. Jer 48:24, Jer 48:41), the ruins of which have been discovered by Burckhardt (Syr. p. 630) and Seetzen (ii. p. 342, cf. iv. p. 384) in the decayed town of Kereyat or Krrit. The application of the term מת to Moab is to be explained on the supposition that the nation is personified. שׁאון signifies war tumult, and בּתרוּעה is explained as in Amo 1:14 by בּקול שׁופר, blast of the trumpets, the signal for the assault or for the commencement of the battle. The judge with all the princes shall be cut off miqqirbâh, i.e., out of the land of Moab. The feminine suffix refers to Moab as a land or kingdom, and not to Keriyoth. From the fact that the shōphēt is mentioned instead of the king, it has been concluded by some that Moab had no king at that time, but had only a shōphēt as its ruler; and they have sought to account for this on the ground that Moab was at that time subject to the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hitzig and Ewald). But there is no notice in the history of anything of the kind, and it cannot possibly be inferred from the fact that Jeroboam restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom as far as the Dead Sea (Kg2 14:25). Shōphēt is analogous to tōmēkh shēbhet in Amo 1:5, and is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the מלך, who is so called in the threat against Ammon, and simply used for the sake of variety. The threatening prophecies concerning all the nations and kingdoms mentioned from Amo 1:6 onwards were fulfilled by the Chaldeans, who conquered all these kingdoms, and carried the people themselves into captivity. For fuller remarks upon this point, see at Jeremiah 48 and Eze 25:8.