John Gill Commentary Amos 9

And I saw the Lord standing upon the altar
Either upon the altar of burnt offerings in the temple of Jerusalem, where he had removed from the cherubim; signifying his being about to depart, and that he was displeased, and would not be appeased by sacrifice: so the Targum, ``said Amos the prophet, I saw the glory of the Lord removing from the cherub, and it dwelt upon the altar;'' and the vision may refer to the destruction of the Jews, their city and temple, either by the Chaldeans, or by the Romans: or rather, since the prophecy in general, and this vision in particular, seems to respect the ten tribes only, it was upon the altar at Bethel the Lord was seen standing, as offended at the sacrifices there offered, and to hinder them from sacrificing them, as well as to take vengeance on those that offered them, (1 Kings 13:1 1 Kings 13:2) ;

and he said ;the Lord said, either to the prophet in vision, or to one of the angels, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; or to the executioners of his vengeance, the enemies of the people of Israel:

smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake ;the upper lintel, on which pomegranates and flowers were carved, and therefore called "caphtor", as Kimchi thinks; this was the lintel of the door, either of the temple at Jerusalem, as the Jewish writers generally suppose; or rather of the temple at Bethel, see (1 Kings 12:31) (Amos 7:10Amos 7:13) ; which was to be smitten with such three, that the posts thereof should shake; signifying the destruction of the whole building in a short time, and that none should be able to go in and out thereat:

and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them
with the sword ;which shows that the lintel and doorposts are not to be taken literally, but figuratively; and that the smiting and cutting of them intend the destruction of men; by the "head", the king, and the princes, and nobles, or the priests; and, by "the last of them", the common people, the meanest sort, or those that were left of them, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi:

he that fleeth of them shall not flee away ;he that attempts to make his escape, and shall flee for his life, shall not get clear, but either be stopped, or pursued and taken:

and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered ;he that does get out of the hands of those that destroy with the sword shall not be delivered from death, but shall die by famine or pestilence.

The Targum is, ``and he said, unless the people of the house of Israel return to the law, the candlestick shall be extinguished, King Josiah shall be killed, and the house destroyed, and the courts dissipated, and the vessels of the house of the sanctuary shall go into captivity; and the rest of them I will slay with the sword'' referring the whole to the Jews, and to the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem.

Though they dig into hell, from there shall my hand take them, &c.] That is, they that endeavour to make their escape from their enemies, though they seek for places of the greatest secrecy and privacy; not hell, the place of the damned; nor the grave, the repository of the dead; neither of which they chose to be in, but rather sought to escape them; but the deepest and darkest caverns, the utmost recesses of the earth, the very centre of it; which, could they get into, would not secure them from the power and providence of God, and from their enemies in pursuit of them, by his permission.

Though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down; the summit of the highest mountains, and get as near to heaven, and at as great a distance from men, as can be, and yet all in vain.

The Targum is, "if they think to be hid as it were in hell, from there their enemies shall take them by my word; and if they ascend the high mountains, to the top of heaven, from there I will bring them;" see (Psalms 139:8) .

And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel
One of the highest mountains in the land of Israel; in the woods upon it, and caves in it: I will search and take them out from there :
by directing their enemies where to find them: so the Targum, ``if they think to be hid in the tops of the towers of castles, thither will I command the searchers, and they shall search them:''

and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea ;
get into ships, going by sea to distant parts; or make their escape to isles upon the sea afar off, where they may think themselves safe: thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them ;
the dragon that is in the sea, (Isaiah 27:1) ; the great whale in the sea, or the leviathan, so Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; and is that kind of whale which is called the "Zygaena", as Bochart ^F23 thinks; and which he, from various writers, describes as very monstrous, horrible, and terrible, having five rows of teeth, and very numerous; and which not only devours other large fishes, but men swimming it meets with; and, having such teeth, with great propriety may be said to bite. It appears from hence that there are sea serpents, as well as land ones, to which the allusion is.

Erich Pantoppidan, the present bishop of Bergen ^F24 , speaks of a "see ormen", or sea snake, in the northern seas, which he describes as very monstrous and very terrible to seafaring men, being of seven or eight folds, each fold a fathom distant; nay, of the length of a cable, a hundred fathom, or six hundred English feet; yea, of one as thick as a pipe of wine, with twenty five folds. Some such terrible creature is here respected, though figuratively understood, and designs some crafty, powerful, and cruel enemy. The Targum paraphrases it, though hid ``in the isles of the sea, thither will I command the people strong like serpents, and they shall kill them;'' see (Psalms 139:9) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F23: Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 13. p. 747.
• F24: Natural History of Norway, par. 2. p. 198, 199, 207.

And though they go into captivity before their enemies
Alluding to the manner in which captives are led, being put before their enemies, and so carried in triumph; see (Lamentations 1:5) ; though some think this refers to their going voluntarily into a foreign country, in order to escape danger, as Johanan the son of Kareah with the Jews went into Egypt, (Jeremiah 43:5–7) ; in whom Kimchi instances.

thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them ;
or them that kill with the sword, as the Targum; so that though they thought by going into another country, or into an enemy's country of their own accord, to escape the sword of the enemy, or to curry favour with them, yet should not escape.

and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good :
this is the true reason, why, let them be where they will, they cannot be safe, because the eyes of the omniscient God, which are everywhere, in heaven, earth, hell, and the sea, are set upon them, for their ruin and destruction; and there is no fleeing from his presence, or getting out of his sight, or escaping his hand. The Targum is, "my Word shall be against them."

And the Lord God of hosts [is] he that touches the land, and
it shall melt
Which is another reason why it is impossible to escape the hands of a sin revenging God, because he is omnipotent as well as omniscient; he is the Lord of all the armies above and below; and if he but touch the land, any particular country, as the land of Israel, it shakes and trembles, and falls into a flow of water, or melts like wax; as when he touches the hills and mountains they smoke, being like fuel to fire; see (Psalms 104:32) (144:5) ; and all that dwell there shall mourn ;
their houses destroyed, their substance consumed, and all that is near and dear to them swallowed up: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood, and shall be drowned as [by]
the flood of Egypt; (See Gill on Amos 8:8).