Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 9

I saw the Lord - He saw God in vision; yet God no longer, as before, asked him what he saw. God no longer shows him emblems of the destruction, but the destruction itself. Since Amos had just been speaking of the idolatry of Samaria as the ground of its utter destruction, doubtless this vision of such utter destruction of the place of worship, with and upon the worshipers, relates to those same idolaters and idolatries. True, the condemnation of Israel would become the condemnation of Judah, when Judah’s sins, like Israel’s, should become complete. But directly, it can hardly relate to any other than those spoken of before and after, Israel. The altar, then, over which Amos sees God stand, is doubtless the altar on which Jeroboam sacrificed, “the altar” which he set up opposite the altar at Jerusalem, the center of the calf-worship, whose destruction the man of God foretold on the day of its dedication.

There, where, in counterfeit of the sacrifices which God had appointed, they offered would-be-atoning sacrifices and sinned in them, God appeared, standing, to behold, to judge, to condemn. And He said, Smite the lintel, literally, “the chapter,” or “capital,” probably so called from “crowning” the pillar with a globular form, like a pomegranate. This, the spurious outward imitation of the true sanctuary, God commands to be struck, that the posts, or probably “the thresholds,” may shake. The building was struck from above and reeled to its base.

It does not matter whether any blow on the capital of a pillar would make the whole fabric shake, for the blow was no blow of man. God gives the command probably to the Angel of the Lord, as, in Ezekiel’s vision of the destruction of Jerusalem, the charge to destroy was given to six men (Ezekiel 9:2). So the first-born of Egypt and the army of Sennacherib were destroyed by an Angel (Exodus 12:23; 2 Kings 19:34–35). An Angel stood with his sword over Jerusalem (2 Samuel 24:1; 2 Samuel 24:15–16) when God punished David’s presumption in numbering the people. At one blow of the heavenly Agent, the whole building shook, staggered, fell.

And cut them in the head, all of them - This may be either by the direct agency of the Angel, or the temple itself may be represented as falling on the heads of the worshipers. As God, through Jehu, destroyed all the worshipers of Baal in the house of Baal, so here He foretells, under a like image, the destruction of all the idolaters of Israel. He had said, They that swear by the sin of Samaria—shall fall and never rise up again. Here He represents the place of that worship, where, it seems, the idolaters were crowded, and the command given to destroy them all. All Israel was not to be destroyed. Not the least grain was to fall upon the earth (Amos 9:9). Those then, here represented as destroyed to the last man, must be a distinct class.

Those destroyed in the temple must be the worshipers in the temple. In the Temple of God at Jerusalem, none entered except the priests. Even the space between the porch and the altar was set apart for the priests. But heresy is necessarily irreverent, because, not worshiping the One God, it had no Object of reverence. Hence, the temple of Baal was full from end to end (2 Kings 10:21), and the worshipers of the sun at Jerusalem turned their backs toward the Temple, and worshiped the sun toward the east, at the door of the Temple, between the porch and the altar (Ezekiel 8:16; Ezekiel 11:1). The worshipers of the calves were commanded to kiss them (Hosea 13:2), and so must have filled the temple where they were.

And I will slay the last of them - The Angel is bidden to destroy those gathered in open idolatry in one place. God, by His Omniscience, reserved the rest for His own judgment.

All creatures, animate or inanimate, rational or irrational, stand at His command to fulfill His will. The mass of idolaters having perished in their idolatry, the rest, not crushed in the fall of the temple, would gladly flee away, but he that fleeth shall not flee, God says, to any good to themselves; indeed, although they should do what for humans is impossible, they should not escape God.

Height or depth are alike open to the Omnipresent God. The grave is not so awful as God.

The sinner would gladly “dig through” into hell, bury himself, the living among the dead, if by doing so he could escape the sight of God. But from there, God says, “My hand shall take them”, to place them in His presence, to receive their sentence. Or if, like the rebel angels, they could “place” their “throne amid the stars of God thence will I bring them down” (Isaiah 14:12–14), humbling, judging, condemning.

He had contrasted heaven and hell as places impossible for humans to reach; as David says, If I ascend into heaven, You are there: If I make my bed in hell, behold You (Psalms 139:8). Now, concerning places in a way accessible, he contrasts Mount Carmel, which rises abruptly out of the sea, with the depths of that ocean which it overhangs. Carmel was a hiding place in two ways.

1. Through its caves (some say 1,000, some 2,000) with which it is perforated, whose entrance sometimes scarcely admits a single person; so close to each other that a pursuer would not discern into which the fugitive had vanished; so serpentine within that, as a traveler says, “10 steps apart, we could hear each other’s voices, but could not see each other”: “Carmel is perforated by a hundredfold greater or lesser clefts. Even in its appearance of loveliness and richness, the majestic Mount, by its clefts, caves, and rocky battlements, evokes in the wanderer who sees them for the first time, a feeling of mingled wonder and fear. A whole army of enemies, like nature’s terrors, could hide themselves in these rock clefts.”
2. Its summit, about 1800 feet above the sea, “is covered with pines and oaks, and lower down with olive and laurel trees.” These forests furnished hiding places for hordes of robbers at the time of our Lord. In those caves, Elijah was probably hidden at times from the persecution of Ahab and Jezebel. It seems to be spoken of as his abode (1 Kings 18:19), and also as one of Elisha’s resorts (2 Kings 2:25; 2 Kings 4:25). Carmel, as the western extremity of the land projecting into the sea, was the last place a fugitive would reach. If one found no safety there, there was none in the whole land. Nor was there safety by sea;

And though they be hid—(rather, “hide themselves”)—from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent. The sea too has its deadly serpents. Their types are few, but the individuals in those types are much more numerous than those of land serpents. Their shoals have provided sailors with signs of approaching land. Their chief habitat, as traced in modern times, is between the Tropics.

The ancients knew of them perhaps in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. All are described as “highly venomous” and “very ferocious”: “The virulence of their venom is equal to that of the most pernicious land serpents.” All things, whether by their will or without it through animal instinct (like the serpent) or their savage passions (like the Assyrian), fulfill the will of God. Just as, at His command, the fish that He had prepared swallowed Jonah for his preservation, so, at His command, the serpent would come forth from the recesses of the sea to cause the sinner greater suffering.

Captivity—at least, seemed safe. The horrors of war are over. Men enslave, but do not commonly destroy those whom they have once taken the trouble to carry captive. Amos describes them in their misery, as “going” willingly, gladly, “into captivity before their enemies,” like a flock of sheep. Yet from there too, out of “the captivity,” God would command the sword, and it would slay them. So God had forewarned them by Moses, that captivity would be an occasion, not an end, of slaughter. I will scatter you among the pagan, and will draw out a sword after you (Leviticus 26:33). And among these nations you shall find no ease - and your life shall hang in doubt before you, and you shall fear day and night, and shall have no assurance of your life (Deuteronomy 28:65–66). The book of Esther shows how cheaply the life of a whole nation was held by Eastern conquerors; and the book of Tobit records how habitually Jews were slain and cast out unburied .

The account also that Sennacherib avenged the loss of his army, and “in his wrath killed many,” is altogether in keeping with the character of Assyrian conquerors. Unwittingly he fulfilled the command of God, I will command the sword and it shall slay them.

I will set my eyes upon them for evil—So David says, The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to root out the remembrance of them from off the earth (Psalms 34:15–16).

The Eye of God rests on each creature which He has made, as entirely as if He had created it alone. Every moment is passed in His unvarying sight. But, as man “sets his eye” on another man, watching him and with evil purpose, so God’s Eye is felt to be on man in displeasure, when sorrow and calamity track him and overtake him, coming he knows not how in unlooked-for ways and strange events.

The Eye of God upon us is our whole hope and stay and life. It is on the Confessor in prison, the Martyr on the rack, the poor in their sufferings, the mourner in the chamber of death, for good. What happens when everywhere that Eye, the Source of all good, rests on His creature only for evil? And not for good, he adds; not, as is the custom and the Nature of God; not, as He had promised, if they were faithful; not, as perhaps they thought, for good. He utterly shuts out all hope of good.

It shall be all evil, and no good, such as hell is.

And who is He who should do this? God, at whose command are all creatures. This is the hope of His servants; from where Hezekiah begins his prayer, Lord of hosts, God of Israel (Isaiah 37:16). This is the hopelessness of His enemies. That touches the land or earth, and it will melt, rather, has melted. His Will and its fulfillment are one. He spoke, and it was; He commanded and it stood fast (Psalms 33:9).

His Will is first, as the cause of what is done; in time they co-exist. He has no need to put forth His strength; a touch, the slightest indication of His Will, suffices. If the solid earth, how much more its inhabitants! So the Psalmist says, The pagan raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted (Psalms 46:6). The hearts of men melt when they are afraid of His presence; human armies melt away, dispersed; the great globe itself shall dissolve into its ancient chaos at His Will.