Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 2:9

"Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath." — Amos 2:9 (ASV)

Yet – (and I) I (emphatically) destroyed. Such were “their” doings; such their worship of “their God.” And what had “God” done? What was it that they thus requited?

The Amorite – These, as one of the mightiest of the Canaanite tribes, stand in Moses for all. Moses, in recounting to them the goodness of God and their backsliding, reminds them that he had said, You have come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord your God gives you (Deuteronomy 1:20); and that they, using this same word, said, Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite to destroy us (Deuteronomy 1:27).

The aged Joshua, in recounting God’s great deeds for Israel, places first by itself the destruction of the Amorite before them, with the use of this same idiom: I brought you into the land of the Amorites who dwelt on the other side of Jordan—and I destroyed them before you. The Amorites were descended from the 4th son of Canaan (Genesis 10:16).

At the invasion of Chedorlaomer, a portion of them dwelt at Hazezon-Tamar or Engedi, halfway on the west side of the Dead Sea, and at Hebron near it (Genesis 14:7, 14:13; 2 Chronicles 20:2).

Their corruption had not yet reached its height, and the return of Israel was delayed to the four hundredth year, because the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet full (Genesis 15:16).

When Israel returned, the Amorites (together with the Hittites and the Jebusites) held the hill country (Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 1:7, 1:44), Jerusalem, Hebron, Gibeon (2 Samuel 21:2), and, on the skirts of the mountains westward, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon (Joshua 10:3, 10:5). They dwelt on the west side of the Jordan (Joshua 5:1), in addition to the two kingdoms that they had formed east of Jordan, reaching to Mount Hermon (Deuteronomy 3:8) and Bashan up to the territory of Damascus.

Afterward, a small remnant remained only in the portion of Dan and in the outskirts of Judah, from the south of the Dead Sea, Maaleh Akrabbim (Scorpion-pass) and Petra (Judges 1:35–36). Those near Idumea were probably absorbed into Edom. The remnant in Dan, after becoming tributary to Ephraim (Judges 1:35–36), perhaps lost their national existence among the Philistines, since from then on we only have the single notice in the days of Samuel, after the defeat of the Philistines: there was peace between Israel and the Amorites (1 Samuel 7:14).

Whose height was like the height of the cedars – The giant sons of Anak were among the Amorites at “Hebron” (Numbers 13:22), which was called for a time Kiriath Arba from their giant father (Joshua 14:15; Joshua 15:13–14), and at “Debir, Ahab, and the mountains of Judah and Israel” (Joshua 11:21).

“The valley of Rephaim” (2 Samuel 5:18), southwest of Jerusalem, connects this giant race with the Amorites, as does the fact that Og, king of the Amorites in Bashan, was of the remnant of the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 3:11; Joshua 12:4; Joshua 13:19). Bashan and Argob were, in Moses’ time, still called the land of Rephaim (Deuteronomy 3:13).

The Rephaim, with the Perizzites, still dwelt in woody mountains near Ephraim; from where, on the complaint that the lot of the sons of Joseph was too narrow, Joshua commanded his tribe to expel them (Joshua 17:15, 17:18).

The Rephaim are mentioned between the Perizzites and the Amorites (Genesis 15:20–21) in God’s first promise of the land to Abraham’s seed, and perhaps some intermixture of race gave the giant stature to the Amorites. It is clear from Amos that the report of the spies, all the people that we saw in it were men of stature (Numbers 13:32), was no exaggeration, nor did Joshua and Caleb deny “this.” The name of the Amorite is probably connected with “commanding,” describing some quality of their forefather that descended to his race.

Whose height was like the height of cedars – Giant height is sometimes a cause of weakness. Amos, in a degree like Hosea, combines distinct images to make up the idea of stateliness and strength. The cedar is the ideal of eastern trees for height (Isaiah 2:13; Ezekiel 17:22; Ezekiel 31:3; 1 Kings 4:33; 2 Kings 14:9), stretching forth its arms as for protection. “It grows to an exceeding height, and with increasing time ever rises higher.”

The oak has its Hebrew name from strength. The more majestic the tall strength of the Amorite, the more manifest it was that Israel got not the land in possession by their own sword (Psalms 44:3), who had counted themselves, in sight of the Amorite, as grasshoppers (Numbers 13:33).

God, who gave him that strength, took it away, as we say, “root and branch,” leaving him no show above, no hope of recovered life below (Job 18:16; Ezekiel 17:9). Having compared each Amorite to a majestic tree, he compares the excision of the whole nation to the cutting down of that one tree—so swift, so entire, so irrecoverable. Yet the destruction of the Amorite, a mercy to Israel in the purpose of God, was a warning to Israel when it became like them. God’s terrors are mercies to the repentant; God’s mercies are terrors to the impenitent.

“You shall keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations,” was the tenure on which they held the Lord’s land, “that the land spue not you out also, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you” (Leviticus 18:26, 38).