Charles Ellicott 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 from sea to sea ... — Stagger and reel from east to west to find one seer who knows the mind of the Lord: they shall not find one. The reference to the east here has an instructive parallel in Isaiah 2:6, where the house of Jacob is declared to be full of the east. Probably Delitzsch is right in interpreting the east there to mean Arabia as inclusive of the whole region from the Sinaitic peninsula to the banks of the Euphrates. The north would mean Phoenicia and Aram. From these districts the distracted, superstitious Hebrew sought help in vain in idolatrous forms of divination.