Charles Ellicott Commentary Amos 6:2

"Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are they better than these kingdoms? or is their border greater than your border?" — Amos 6:2 (ASV)

The meaning is obscure. Kalneh, the Kalno of Isaiah 10:9, the Assyrian Kulunu , is probably mentioned first here because it is the most easterly. It is identified by Kiepert with Holwân, but its position is uncertain, though it is generally regarded as lying in the neighborhood of the Greek Ctesiphon, on the Tigris. Hamath is the ancient Hittite city in the valley of the Orontes, and it had felt the strong hand of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:28). We have no reason to believe that at this period the Assyrian power had destroyed the importance of these places, though the prophet may have regarded that outcome as imminent.

Hamath the Great (or Rabba), according to the inscriptions, sustained defeats from Shalmaneser II about 850 B.C. It was finally overthrown by Sargon in 720 B.C., who, in his own boastful language, “swept over its land like a flood.” Gath, the home of Goliath, had probably lost its original importance. Uzziah destroyed it. Were Calno, Hamath, and Gath more important than Zion or Samaria? Then, says the prophet, do not expect in your opulence and self-satisfaction immunity from a worse doom.