Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 9:1

"I saw the Lord standing beside the altar: and he said, Smite the capitals, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape." — Amos 9:1 (ASV)

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.