Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 6

Woe to them that are at ease - The word always means those who are recklessly at their ease, “the careless ones,” such as those whom Isaiah bids (Isaiah 32:9–11), rise up, tremble, be troubled, for many days and years shall you be troubled. It is that luxury and ease, which sensualizes the soul, and makes it dull, stupid, hard-hearted.

By one earnest, passing word, the prophet warns his own land, that present sinful ease ends in future woe. Woe unto them that laugh now: for they shall mourn and weep (Luke 6:25). Rup.: “He foretells the destruction and captivity of both Judah and Israel at once; and not only that captivity at Babylon, but that by which they are dispersed to this day.” Luxury and deepest sins of the flesh were rife in that generation (Romans 2:21–24; Luke 11:39, 11:42; Matthew 23:14, 23:23, 23:26), which killed Him who for our sakes became poor.

And trust in the mountain of Samaria - Not in God. Samaria was strong (see the note above at Amos 3:9), resisted for three years, and was the last city of Israel which was taken. The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land and went up to Samaria, and besieged it (2 Kings 17:5). Benhadad, in that former siege, when God delivered them (2 Kings 7:6), attempted no assault, but famine only.

Which are named the chief of the nations - Literally, “the named of the chief of the nations,” that is, those who, in Israel, which by the distinguishing favor of God were “chief of the nations,” were themselves, marked, distinguished, “named.” The prophet, by one word, refers them back to those first princes of the congregation, of whom Moses used that same word (Numbers 1:17). They were heads of the houses of their fathers (Numbers 1:4), renowned of the congregation, heads of thousands in Israel (Numbers 1:16).

As, if anyone were to call the Peers, “Barons of England,” he would carry us back to the days of Magna Charta, although six centuries and a half ago, so this word, occurring at that time, here only in any Scripture since Moses, carried back the thoughts of the degenerate aristocracy of Israel to the faith and zeal of their forefathers, “what” they ought to have been, and “what” they were.

As Amalek of old was first of the nations (Numbers 24:20) in its enmity against the people of God, having, first of all, shown that implacable hatred, which Ammon, Moab, Edom, evinced afterward, so was Israel “first of nations,” as by God. It became, in an evil way, “first of nations,” that is, distinguished above the other nations by rejecting Him.

To whom the house of Israel came, or have come - They were, like those princes of old, raised above others. Israel “came” to them for judgment; and they, regardless of duty, lived only for self-indulgence, effeminacy, and pride. Jerome renders in the same sense, “who enter pompously the house of Israel,” literally, “enter for themselves,” as if they were lords of it, and it was made for them.

Pass over to Calneh - He instructs them to observe, east, north, and west, to survey three neighboring kingdoms, and see whether God had not, even in the gifts of this world, dealt better with Israel. Why then repay Him so? Calneh (which Isaiah calls “Calno” (Isaiah 10:9), and Ezekiel calls “Canneh” (Ezekiel 27:23)) was one of the four cities built by Nimrod in the land of Shinar, the beginning of his kingdom (Genesis 10:10). From that time until the time of Amos, no mention of it occurs. It probably was conquered more than once by the Assyrians, lying as it was on the Tigris, perhaps some 40 miles from Babylon. Thus, it was said that under its new name Ctesiphon, it was built (that is, rebuilt) by the Macedonians, and again by the Parthians, whose kings made it their winter residence on account of its good air.

It was again destroyed by Severus, and rebuilt by Sapor II in the 4th century. Julian’s generals held it impregnable, being built on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Tigris. It became the scene of repeated persecutions of Christianity; Nestorianism was favored. A center of Persian luxury, it fell at once and forever before Omar, and the Persian empire perished with it. It was replaced by the neighboring Bagdad. The history illustrates the tenacity of life in those well-chosen sites, and the character of the place, of whose conquest Sennacherib boasted, with which Amos compared the land of Israel.

Go from there to Hamath the great - Originally, a Canaanite kingdom (Genesis 10:18). The entrance to it was assigned as the northern border of Israel (Numbers 34:7–8; Joshua 13:5). In David’s time its king was at war with the king of Zobah (2 Samuel 8:9–10) and made presents to David when he subdued Zobah. In Solomon’s time it had fallen under the power of the king of Zobah, from which it was called Hamath-zobah. Solomon won it from him, incorporated it with Israel, and built towns in its territory (2 Chronicles 8:3–4). The Hamathites were, under their own king, united with Benhadad, the Hittites, and the Phoenicians in their war with Shalmanubar, and were defeated by him. Ezekiel speaks of the border of Damascus and the coast of Hamath (Ezekiel 47:16; Ezekiel 48:1), as places of similar importance, and Zechariah (Zechariah 9:1–2) speaks of their joint defeat by Alexander. To judge from the present site, it in some respects resembled Samaria.

It lay in a narrow oval valley of the Orontes; its citadel on a round hill in the center.

The city rises up the steep sides of the hills which enclose it. Vast water-wheels, some with a diameter of 67, 80, or 90 feet, raise the water of the Orontes to supply, with the aid of aqueducts, the upper city or to water the neighboring gardens: “The western part of its territory is the granary of northern Syria.” Even when Antiochus Epiphanes called it after himself Epiphania, its inhabitants called it by its old name. Mention of it occurs in the crusades. In the 13th century it had its own well-known prince; and it still has a population of some 30,000.

Gath - (Winepress) must, from its name, have been situated in a rich country. It lay on the confines of Judea and Philistia, for Rehoboam fortified it as a border-fortress (2 Chronicles 11:8). It had been conversely fortified by the Philistines against Judah, since, when David took it out of the hand of the Philistines, it had the title (2 Samuel 8:1; compare to 1 Chronicles 18:1) “methegammah,” “bridle of the mother city,” or metropolis. It had at that time “daughter towns” (1 Chronicles 18:1) dependent upon it.

It must also have been near Micah’s birthplace, “Moresheth Gath,” that is, Moresheth of Gath, which in Jerome’s time was “a small village near Eleutheropolis” (Bethgabrin). Of Gath itself Jerome says, “It is one of the five cities of Philistia, near the confines of Judea, and now also a very large village on the way from Eleutheropolis to Gaza.” Eusebius says, “about the 5th milestone from Eleutheropolis to Diospolis” (Lydda).

Since the Philistines carried the ark of God from Ashdod to Gath, and from there to Ekron (1 Samuel 5:8, 10), it seems likely that Gath lay nearer to Ashdod than Ekron, although necessarily more inland than either, since it was a border-city to Judah. The Tel-es-Safiyeh corresponds with these conditions, lying at the entrance of the Shephelah, about 5 miles from Beit-Jibrin on the road to Lydda (Ludd). It “rises about 100 feet above the eastern ridge which it terminates, and perhaps 200 over the plain which terminates its western base. The ruins and subterranean reservoirs show that it is a site of high antiquity, great strength, and importance.” Gath had at this time probably been taken by Uzziah who “broke down” its “wall” (2 Chronicles 26:6); and since it is not mentioned with the other four Philistine cities, whose sentence is pronounced by Amos himself (Amos 1:7–8), Zephaniah (Zephaniah 2:4), and Zechariah (Zechariah 9:5), it is probable that it never recovered.

Are they better than these kingdoms? - The prophet seems purposely to say less than he could have, so that his hearers might have to infer more. Calneh, Hamath, Gath had not been more guilty against God than Ephraim, yet they had all probably been conquered: Gath by Judah; Hamath by Israel itself (see the note below at Amos 6:14); Calneh by Assyria. Both Shalmanubar and Shamasiva conquered in Babylonia; and Shamasiva “declares that he took above 200 towns” in Babylonia. Amos, then, upbraids Israel for their ingratitude, both for the original gift of their good land and for its continuance. The pagans had suffered; they, the guiltier, had been spared; yet still they acted no differently from these pagans.

Rib.: “What spacious, what wide border have we, boundless as the life of God and eternity!” Lap.: “Our hopes and the bounds of our bliss are measured, not like those of the worldly and ungodly, by the limits of a petty time or by this dot of earth, but by the boundless space of eternity and of heaven; so that we may say confidently to the ungodly, ‘Is not our border wider than your border?’”

You that put far away - Probably “with aversion.” They bid that day, as it were, be gone. The Hebrew idiom expresses how they would put it off if they could; as far as it was in their power, they “assigned a distance to it,” although they could not remove the day itself. The “evil day” is that same “day of the Lord,” which the scoffers or misbelievers professed to long for (Amos 5:18).

The thought that the Lord has a day in which to judge humanity frets or frightens the irreligious, and they use different ways to get rid of it. The strong harden themselves against it, distort the belief in it, or disbelieve it. The weak and voluptuous shut their eyes to it, like the bird in the fable, as if what they dread would cease to be there because they cease to see it.

And cause the seat - (literally, the session, sitting) of violence to come near. They dismissed the thought of the Day of account so that they could sin with less fear. They put away from themselves the judgment of God so that they could exercise violence over His creatures. People do not put away the thought of God except to invite His enemy into their souls.

But in doing so, they “brought near” another “seat of violence”—not one of their own exercising, but one to be inflicted upon them. They brought near what they wished to put away: the day in which, through the violence of the Assyrians, God would avenge their own.

Rib.: “Let them consider this, who set no bounds to their sins. For the more they obey their own will, the more they hasten to destruction; and while they think they draw near to pleasures, they draw near to everlasting woes.”

That lie upon beds (that is, sofas) of ivory - that is, probably inlaid with ivory. The word might, in itself, express either the bed, in which they slept by night, or the divan, on which people of the East lay at their meals; and stretch themselves, literally, “are poured” out, stretching their listless length, dissolved, unnerved, in luxury and sloth, upon their couches, perhaps under an awning: and eat the lambs, probably “fatted lambs” (Psalms 37:20; 1 Samuel 15:9; Jeremiah 51:40), out of the flock, chosen, selected out of it as the best, and calves out of the midst of the stall; that is, the place where they were tied up (as the word means) to be fatted. They were stall-fed, as we say, and these people had the best chosen for them.

“He shows how they draw near the seat of violence. They lay on beds or couches of ivory and expended on them the money with which their poor brethren were to be fed.

“Go now, I do not say into the houses of nobles, but into any house of any rich man, and see the gilded and worked couches, curtains woven of silk and gold, and walls covered with gold, while the poor of Christ are naked, shivering, shriveled with hunger. Yet it is stranger that while this is everywhere, scarcely anywhere is there anyone who now blames it. I say this now, for there were those who did so in former times.

“‘You array,’ Ambrose says, ‘walls with gold; you leave men bare. The naked cries out before your door and you neglect him; and you are careful with what marbles you clothe your pavement. The poor seeks money, and has it not; man asks for bread, and your horse champs gold. You delight in costly ornaments, while others do not have meal. What judgment you heap on yourself, you man of wealth! Miserable one, who have power to keep so many souls from death, and do not have the will! The jewel of your ring could maintain in life a whole population.’

“If such things are not to be blamed now, then neither were they formerly.”

That chant to the voice of the lyre - Accompanying “the voice of the lyre” with the human voice; giving vocal expression and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without words. The word, which Amos alone uses in this one place, describes probably a hurried flow of meaningless, unconsidered words, in which the rhythm of words and music was everything, the sense, nothing; much like most glees.

The English margin “quaver” has also some foundation in the root, but does not suit the idiom so well, which expresses that the act was something done “to the voice of the lyre,” accompanying the music, not altering the music itself. In fact, they would go together.

An artificial, effeminate music that would relax the soul—frittering the melody and displacing the power and majesty of divine harmony with tricks of art—and giddy, thoughtless, heartless, soulless versifying would be fitting company. Debased music is a mark of a nation’s decay, and promotes it.

The Hebrew music seems to have been very simple; and singing appears to have been reserved almost exclusively for solemn occasions, the temple service, or the greeting of victory (1 Samuel 18:7).

Singing men and singing women were part of the royal establishment of David and Solomon (2 Samuel 19:35; Ecclesiastes 2:8). Otherwise, the music at the feasts of the rich appears rather to be mentioned with blame (Isaiah 5:12; Isaiah 24:9).

Songs they had (Proverbs 25:20); but the songs, for which the Hebrew exiles were celebrated, and which their Babylonian masters required them to sing, the songs of Zion (Psalms 137:3–4), were the hymns of the temple, the Lord’s song.

And invent to themselves instruments of music - The same efforts that David employed on music to the honor of God, they employed on their light, enervating, meaningless music, and, if they were in earnest enough, justified their inventions by the example of David. Much as people have justified our degraded, sensualizing, immodest dancing, by the religious dancing of Holy Scripture! The word can mean no other than devised. David then did “devise” and “invent” instruments of music for the service of God.

He introduced into the temple service the use of the stringed instruments—the “kinnor” (the “lyre”) and the “nebel” (the “harp”)—in addition to the cymbals. This is why these, in contrast with the trumpets, are called the instruments of David (2 Chronicles 29:26; compare to 2 Chronicles 29:25, and 1 Chronicles 15:16, 1 Chronicles 15:19–21, 1 Chronicles 15:24).

Probably, in adapting them to the temple service, he, in some way, improved the existing instrument, having been, in early youth, remarkable for his skill upon the harp (1 Samuel 16:16, 1 Samuel 16:18, 1 Samuel 16:23).

As he elevated the character and powers of the perhaps rude instrument which he found, and suited it to the service of God, so these people refined it doubtless, as they thought, and suited it for the service of luxury and sensuality. But what harm, they thought, in amending the music of their day, since David did so too?