Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 3:14

"For in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him, I will also visit the altars of Beth-el; and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground." — Amos 3:14 (ASV)

In the day that I shall visit the transgression of Israel upon him, I will also visit (upon) the altars of Bethel - Israel then hoped that its false worship of “nature” would avail them. God says, on the contrary, that when He would punish, all their false worship, so far from helping them, would itself be the manifest object of His displeasure. Again God attests, at once, His long-suffering and His final retribution.

He had still forborne to punish, being slow to anger and of great goodness; but when that day, fixed by divine Wisdom, would come, in which He would vindicate His own holiness by enduring the sin no longer, then He would visit their transgressions, that is, all of them, old and new, forgotten by man or remembered, upon them. Scripture speaks of visiting offences upon because, in God’s Providence, the sin returns upon a man’s own head. It is not only the cause of his being punished, but it becomes part of his punishment.

The memory of a man’s sins will be part of his eternal suffering. Even in this life, remorse, as distinct from repentance, is the gnawing of a man’s own conscience for the folly of his sin. Then also God would visit upon the false worship. It is thought that God visits less speedily even grave sins against Himself (provided that man does not appeal falsely to Him and make Him, in a way, a partner of his offense) than sins against His own creature, man.

It may be that, All-Merciful as He is, He bears more patiently with sins involving corruption of the truth concerning Himself, so long as they are done in ignorance—on account of the ignorant worship of Himself (Acts 17:23, Acts 17:30; Acts 14:16) or the fragments of truth they contain—until the evil in them has its full sway in moral guilt (Romans 1).

Montanus says: “Wonderful is the patience of God in enduring all those crimes and injuries which relate directly to Himself; wonderful His waiting for repentance. But the deeds of guilt which violate human society, faith, and justice, hasten judgment and punishment, and, as it were, with a most effective cry call upon the Divine Mind to punish, as it is written, The voices of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground, And now cursed art thou, ... (Genesis 4:10–11). If then upon that very grave guilt against God Himself are accumulated these other sins, this increases the load so much that God casts it out. However long then Israel, with impunity, gave itself to that vain, alien worship, this showed the patience, not the approval, of God. Now, when they are to be punished for the fourth transgression, they will be punished for the first, second, and third, and so, most grievously; when brought to punishment for their other sins, they would suffer for their other guilt of impiety and superstition.”

And the horns of the altar - This was the one great altar (1 Kings 12:32–33; 1 Kings 13:1–5) for burnt offerings, set up by Jeroboam in imitation of that of God at Jerusalem, whose doom was pronounced in the act of its would-be consecration.

He had faithfully copied the outward form. At each corner, where the two sides met in one, rose the horn, or pillar, a cubit high, there to sacrifice victims (Psalms 118:27), there to place the blood of atonement (Exodus 29:12).

So far from atoning, they themselves were the unatoned sin of Jeroboam, whereby he drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin (2 Kings 17:21). These horns were to be cut off, hewn down with violence.

A century and a half had passed since the man of God had pronounced its sentence. They still stood. The day had not yet come; Josiah was still unborn. Yet Amos, just as peremptorily, renews the sentence. In rejecting these horns, on which the atonement was supposed to be made, God declared them out of covenant with Himself.

Heresy makes itself as similar as it can to the truth, but is thereby more deceiving, not less deadly. Amos mentions the altars of Bethel, as well as the altar. Jeroboam made only one altar, keeping as close as he could to the divine ritual.

But false worship and heresy always hold their course, developing themselves. They never stand still where they began, but spread like a cancer (2 Timothy 2:17). It is a test of heresy, like leprosy, that it spreads abroad (Leviticus 13), preying on what at first seemed sound. The oneness of the altar related to the Unity of God.

In Samaria, they worshiped, they know not what (John 4:22)—not God, but some portion of His manifold operations. The many altars, forbidden as they were, were more in harmony with the religion of Jeroboam, precisely because they were against God’s law. Heresy develops, becoming more consistent by having less of truth.