Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 8:12

"And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, and shall not find it." — Amos 8:12 (ASV)

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 do not know 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 you 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 your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, and you shall be dumb; and shall 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 restrains the grace of prophecy.

For since they neglected His law, He on His side, withholds 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 did not breathe upon them the Spirit through which they spoke. He did not appear to them, but is silent and hidden. There was silence, enmity between God and man.”