Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Here begins a series of threatenings of vengeance against six other states, followed by one against Judah, and ending with one against Israel, with whom the rest of the prophecy is occupied. The eight predictions are in symmetrical stanzas, each prefaced by "Thus saith the Lord." Beginning with the sin of others, which Israel would be ready enough to recognize, he proceeds to bring home to Israel her own guilt. Israel must not think hereafter, because she sees others visited similarly to herself, that such judgments are matters of chance; nay, they are divinely foreseen and foreordered, and are confirmations of the truth that God will not clear the guilty. If God spares not the nations that know not the truth, how much less Israel that sins wilfully (Luke 12:47-48; James 4:17)!
for three transgressions . . . and for four—If Damascus had only sinned once or twice, I would have spared them, but since, after having been so often pardoned, they still persevere so continually, I will no longer "turn away" their punishment. The Hebrew is simply, "I will not reverse it," namely, the sentence of punishment which follows; the negative expression implies more than it expresses; that is, "I will most surely execute it"; God's fulfilment of His threats being more awful than human language can express. "Three and four" imply sin multiplied on sin (compare Exodus 20:5; Proverbs 30:15, Proverbs 30:18, Proverbs 30:21; "six and seven," Job 5:19; "once and twice," Job 33:14; "twice and thrice," Margin; "oftentimes," English Version, Job 33:29; "seven and also eight," Ecclesiastes 11:2). There may be also a reference to seven, the product of three and four added; seven expressing the full completion of the measure of their guilt (Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:24; compare Matthew 23:32).
threshed—the very term used of the Syrian king Hazael's oppression of Israel under Jehu and Jehoahaz (II Kings 10:32-33; II Kings 13:7). The victims were thrown before the threshing sledges, the teeth of which tore their bodies. So David to Ammon (II Samuel 12:31; compare Isaiah 28:27).
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Amos 1:3:
2 Kings 13:7
Job 5:19
Proverbs 20:26
Amos 1:1
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