Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Thy wife shall be a harlot - These were, and still are, among the horrors of war. His own sentence comes last, when he had seen the rest, unable to hinder it. Against his and her own will, she should suffer this. Jerome: "Great is the grief, and incredible the disgrace, when the husband, in the midst of the city and in the presence of all, cannot hinder the wrong done to his wife , for the husband had rather hear that his wife had been slain, than defiled." What he adds "thy daughters" (as well as his "sons" ) "shall fall by the sword," is an unwonted barbarity, and not part of the Assyrian customs, who carried off women in great numbers, as wives for their soldiery .
Perhaps Amos mentions the unwonted cruelty, that the event might bring home the more to the minds of the people the prophecies which relate to themselves. When this had been fulfilled before his eyes , "Amaziah himself, who now gloried in the authority of the priesthood, was to be led into captivity, die in a land polluted by idols, yet not before be saw the people whom he had deceived, enslaved and captive." Amos closes by repeating emphatically the exact words, which Amaziah had alleged in his message to Jeroboam; "and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land." He had not said it before in these precise words. Now he says it, without reserve of their repentance, as though he would say, "Thou hast pronounced thine own sentence; thou hast hardened thyself against the word of God; thou hardenest thy people against the word of God; it remains then that it should fall on thee and thy people." Rup.: "How and when the prophecy against Amaziah was fulfilled, Scripture does not relate. He lies hid amid the mass of miseries" . Scripture hath no leisure to relate all which befalls those of the viler sort "The majesty of Holy Scripture does not lower itself to linger on baser persons, whom God had rejected.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Amos 7:17:
2 Kings 17:23
Psalms 16:6
Ezekiel 4:9
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