3 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke [my sentence], because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes;
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant.
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept his statutes; and their lies have caused them to err, after which their fathers walked.
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Gazah, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver [them] up to Edom.
Concerning Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for they have heard evil tidings, they are melted away: there is distress on the sea; it cannot be quiet. Damascus is grown feeble: she turneth herself to flee, and terror hath seized on her; trouble and sorrows have taken hold of her as of a woman in travail. How is not the town of praise forsaken, the city of my joy! Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all the men of war be cut off in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.
The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from [being] a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks; and they shall lie down and there shall be none to make them afraid. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.
The burden of the word of Jehovah, in the land of Hadrach, and [on] Damascus shall it rest; (for Jehovah hath an eye upon men, and upon all the tribes of Israel;)
Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity; and his anger did tear continually, and he kept his wrath for ever.
In those days Jehovah began to cut Israel short; and Hazael smote them in all the borders of Israel; from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, both Gilead and Bashan.
And Hazael said, Why does my lord weep? And he said, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do to the children of Israel: their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou kill with the sword, and wilt dash in pieces their children, and rip up their women with child.
And it shall come to pass, [that] him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.
for the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixty-five years shall Ephraim be broken, so as to be no [more a] people;
Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Amos 1
Commentary on Amos 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Prophecy of Amos
Chapter 1
In this chapter we have,
Amo 1:1-2
Here is,
Amo 1:3-15
What the Lord says here may be explained by what he says Jer. 12:14, Thus said the Lord, against all my evil neighbours that touch the inheritance of my people Israel, Behold, I will pluck them out. Damascus was a near neighbour to Israel on the north, Tyre and Gaza on the west, Edom on the south, Ammon and (in the next chapter) Moab on the east; and all of them had been, one time, one way, or other, pricking briers and grieving thorns to Israel, evil neighbours to them; and, because God espouses his people's cause, he there calls them his evil neighbours, and here comes forth to reckon with them. The method is taken in dealing with each of them is, in part, the same, and therefore we put them together, and yet in each there is something peculiar.