bAnd all your songs into lamentation;
cI will bring sackcloth on every waist,
And baldness on every head;
I will make it like mourning for an only son,
And its end like a bitter day.
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But aof hearing the words of the Lord.
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall anot find it.
Who say,
‘As your god lives, O Dan!’
And, ‘As the way of cBeersheba lives!’
They shall fall and never rise again.”
| << Amos 8:11 | Amos 8:13 >> |
Amos 8:12
They shall wander - Literally, "reel." The word is used of the reeling of drunkards, of the swaying to and fro of trees in the wind, of the quivering of the lips of one agitated, and then of the unsteady seeking of persons bewildered, looking for what they know not where to find. "From sea to sea," from the sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean, that is, from east to west, "and from the north even to the sunrising," round again to the east, from where their search had begun, where light should be, and was not. It may be, that Amos refers to the description of the land by Moses, adapting it to the then separate condition of Ephraim, "your south border shall be from the extremity of the Salt Sea (Dead Sea) eastward - and the goings out of it shall be at the sea, and for the western border ye shall have the great sea for a border. And this shall be your north border - and the border shall descend and shall reach to the side of the sea of Chinnereth eastward" Numbers 34:3-12. Amos does not mention "the south," because "there" alone, where they might have found, where the true worship of God was, they did not seek. Had they sought God in Judah, instead of seeking to aggrandize themselves by its subdual, Tiglath-pileser would probably never have come against them. One expedition only in the seventeen years of his reign was directed westward , and that was at the petition of Ahaz.
The principle of God' s dealings, that, in certain conditions of a sinful people, He will withdraw His word, is instanced in Israel, not limited to it. God says to Ezekiel, "I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, and thou shalt be dumb; and shalt not be to them a reprover, for it is a rebellious house" Ezekiel 3:26; and Ezekiel says, "Destruction shall come upon destruction, and rumor shall be upon rumor, and they shall seek a vision from the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest and counsel from the ancients" Ezekiel 7:26. : "God turns away from them, and checks the grace of prophecy. For since they neglected His law, He on His side, stays the prophetic gift. "And the word was precious in those days, there was no open vision," that is, God did not speak to them through the prophets; He breathed not upon them the Spirit through which they spake. He did not appear to them, but is silent and hidden. There was silence, enmity between God and man."
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Amos 8:12:
| << Amos 8:11 | Amos 8:13 >> |
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