Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 7:11

"For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land." — Amos 7:11 (ASV)

For thus Amos says - Amos had said, “Thus says the Lord;” he never fails to impress on them whose words he is speaking. Amaziah, himself bound up in a system of falsehood and imposture—which, being a creature-worship, presented itself as the worship of the true God—believed everything else to be fraud. Fraud always suspects fraud; the irreligious think devotion, holiness, saintliness to be hypocrisy: vice imagines virtue to be well-masked vice. The false priest, by a sort of law of corrupt nature, supposed that Amos also was false, and treats his words as the produce of his own mind.

Jeroboam shall die by the sword - Amos had not said this. The false prophet distorts the last words of Amos, which were still in his ears, and reports to Jeroboam, as said of himself, what Amos had just said of his “house.” Amos was opposed to the popular religion or irreligion of which Jeroboam was the head, and to the headship over it to which he had succeeded. Jeroboam, like the Roman Emperors, was high priest, Pontifex Maximus, in order to get the popular worship under his control.

The first Jeroboam had himself consecrated the calf-priests (1 Samuel 22:8; 1 Samuel 22:13; 1 Kings 15:27; 1 Kings 16:9; 1 Kings 16:16; 2 Kings 10:9; 2 Kings 14:19; 2 Kings 15:10; 2 Kings 15:15; 2 Kings 15:25; 2 Kings 21:23). Amos also bore the message from God that the reprieve given to the house of Jehu would not be extended but would end. Amaziah would act on the personal fears of the king, as though there had been some present, active conspiracy against him.

A lie mixed with truth is the most deadly form of falsehood. The truth serves to gain admittance for the lie, color it, seem to require explanation, and be something to fall back upon. Since this much is certainly true, why should not the rest be so? In slander, and heresy (which is slander against God), truth is used to commend the falsehood, and falsehood to destroy the truth. The poison is received more fearlessly because it is wrapped up in truth, but it loses none of its deadliness.

And Israel shall surely be led away captive - This was a suppression of truth, as the other was a falsification of it. Amaziah omits both the ground of the threat and the hope of escape urged and impressed upon them.

On the one hand, he omits all mention of what even such a king as Jeroboam would respect: the denunciation of oppression of the poor, injustice, violence, robbery, and all their other sins against man. On the other hand, he omits the call to repentance and promises associated with it, such as, “Seek ye the Lord and live.” He also omits the prophet’s intercession for his people and selects the one prophecy that could give a merely political character to the whole.

Suppression of truth is a yet subtler characteristic of falsehood. Hence, witnesses on oath are required to tell not the truth only, but the whole truth.

Yet in daily life, or in accusing others, in detraction, or evil-speaking, people daily act as though suppression were no lie.