John Calvin Commentary Amos 6:11

"For, behold, Jehovah commandeth, and the great house shall be smitten with breaches, and the little house with clefts." — Amos 6:11 (ASV)

This verse is added only to confirm the previous sentence. The Prophet indeed intimates that the common people, as well as the leaders, trusted in vain in their secure state, for the Lord would destroy them all together, from the highest to the lowest. Behold, Jehovah, he says, commands etc.; by using the word “commands,” he means that God had many reasons why He should remove and destroy them all. But he goes further than this and intimates that their destruction depended on the sole will of God, as if he said, “Though the Lord may not send for agents of vengeance, though He may not prepare great forces, yet His word alone, whenever it goes forth, will consume you all.” We now perceive what the Prophet means by the word “commands.”

He afterward adds, He will smite the great house with confusions, or, according to some, with breaking; the Hebrew word רסס, resas, properly means “to mingle.” The Prophet therefore, I do not doubt, is referring here to those dreadful collapses that commonly happen to great and splendid palaces. When a cottage is overturned, so great a ruin is not caused by its weight; indeed, when its ruin begins to appear, fragments fall one after another, so that the whole structure falls without any violence.

This, I say, is the case with small and common houses; but in the case of a great building, its downfall is tremendous. I am therefore inclined to translate the word as “confusion,” and the difference between small and great houses will then be more evident. Great houses then shall be smitten with confusions, (mixtionibus, with minglings) but small houses shall be smitten with fissures or clefts. Yet, as I have already reminded you, the Prophet means that there would be ruin for both the leading men and the common people, so that they would all perish, from the least to the greatest. From this we learn how great the corruption of that people was, for God punishes none but the wicked. It then follows that justice was everywhere overthrown and that all classes of people had become vicious and corrupt.