Amos 3:11

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) An adversary.—This rendering is to be preferred to “affliction” (Chald., Syr.). It is the subject of the following verb “bring down,” Assyria being referred to, though not in express terms. The reading of LXX., “O Tyre, thy land round about thee is desolate,” is incoherent, and confounds Tzăr with tzôr.

Thy strength points mainly to the stronghold of Samaria, which the enemy was to bring down or reduce to ruins, but it may likewise include the chief warriors who were to be led away captive.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:9-15 That power which is an instrument of unrighteousness, will justly be brought down and broken. What is got and kept wrongfully, will not be kept long. Some are at ease, but there will come a day of visitation, and in that day, all they are proud of, and put confidence in, shall fail them. God will inquire into the sins of which they have been guilty in their houses, the robbery they have stored up, and the luxury in which they lived. The pomp and pleasantness of men's houses, do not fortify against God's judgments, but make sufferings the more grievous and vexatious. Yet a remnant, according to the election of grace, will be secured by our great and good Shepherd, as from the jaws of destruction, in the worst times.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord God - There was no human redress. The oppressor was mighty, but mightier the Avenger of the poor. Man would not help; therefore God would. "An adversary" there shall be, "even round about the land;" literally, "An enemy, and around the land!" The prophets speaks, as seeing him. The abruptness tells how suddenly that enemy should come, and hem in the whole land on all sides. What an unity in their destruction! He sees one "enemy, and" him everywhere, all "around," encircling, encompassing, as with a net, their whole land, narrowing in, as he advanced, until it closed around and upon them. The corruption was universal, so should be the requital.

And he shall bring down thy strength from - (that is, away from) thee The word "bring down" implies a loftiness of pride which was to be brought low, as in Obadiah, "thence will I bring thee down" Obadiah 1:4; and in Isaiah, "I will bring down their strength to the earth" Isaiah 63:6. But further, their strength was not only, as in former oppressions, to be "brought down," but "forth from thee. Thy palaces shall be spoiled;" those palaces, in which they had heaped up the spoils of the oppressed. Man's sins are, in God's Providence, the means of their punishment. "Woe to thee that spoilest and" Isaiah 33:1 (that is, whereas) thou wert "not spoiled, and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherowsly with thee! when thou perfectest, spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled; when thou accomplihest dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee." Their spoiling should invite the spoiler, their oppressions should attract the oppressor and they, with all which they held to be their strength, should go "forth" into captivity.

Rib.: "The Lord will be justified in His sayings, and in His works, when He executeth judgment on 'us and shall be cleared,' even by the most unjust judges, 'when He is judged.' Psalm 51:4. He cites the Ashdodites and Egyptians as judges, who were witnesses of His benefits to this people, that they might see how justly He punished them. And now the hardened Jews themselves, Turks and all Hagarenes, might be called to behold at once our iniquities, and 'the mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed' Lamentations 3:22. If these were gathered on the mountains of Samaria, and surveyed from aloft our sins, who worship Mammon and Vain-glory and Venus for God, doubtless the Name of God would through us be blasphemed among the pagan. 'Imagine yourselves withdrawn for a while to the summit of some lofty mountain,' says the blessed martyr Cyprian , 'view thence the face of things, as they lie beneath you, yourself free from contact of earth, cast your eyes hither and thither, and mark the turmoils of this billowy world.

You too, recalled to self-remembrance, will pity the world; and, made more thankful to God, will congratulate yourself with deeper joy that you have escaped it. See thou the ways obstructed by bandits, the seas infested by pirates, war diffused everywhere by the camp's bloodstained fierceness: a world reeking with mutual slaughter; and homicide, a crime in individuals, called virtue when worked by nations. Not innocence but the scale of its ferocity gains impunity for guilt. Turn thy eyes to the cities, thou wilt see a populated concourse more melancholy than any solitude.' This and much more which he says of the life of the Gentiles, how it fits in with our's, any can judge. What greater madness than that people, called to heavenly thrones, should cling to trifles of earth? immortal man glued to passing, perishable things people, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, for lucre wrong their brethren, redeemed by the same Price, the same Blood! No marvel then, that the Church is afflicted, and encompassed by unseen enemies, and her strength drawn down from her spoiled houses."

"Samaria is also every soul, which willeth to please man by whom it thinketh it may be holpen, rather than God, and, boasting itself to be Israel, yet worshipeth the golden calves, that is, gold, silver, honors, and pleasures. Let people alien from the light of the Gospel survey 'its tumults,' with what ardor of mind riches, pleasures are sought, how ambition is served, how restless and disturbed the soul is in catching at nothings, how forgetful of God the Creator and of heavenly things and of itself, how minded, as if it were to perish with the body! What tumults, when ambition bids one thing, lust another, avarice another, wrath another, and, like strong winds on the sea, strong, unbridled passions strive together! They 'know not to do right,' bad ends spoiling acts in themselves good. They 'treasure up violence,' whereas they ought to treasure up grace and charity against that Day when God shall judge the secrets of people. And when they ascribe to themselves any benefits of the divine mercy, and any works pleasing to God, which they may have done or do, what else do they than 'store up robbery?' So then the powers of the soul are "spoiled," when truths as to right action, once known and understood by the soul, fade and are obscure, when the memory retaineth nothing usefill, when the will is spoiled of virtues and yields to vicious affections."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. Translate, "An adversary (the abruptness produces a startling effect)! and that too, from every side of the land." So in the fulfilment, 2Ki 17:5: "The king of Assyria (Shalmaneser) came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years."

bring down thy strength from thee—that is, bring thee down from thy strength (the strength on which thou didst boast thyself): all thy resources (Pr 10:15).

palaces shall be spoiled—a just retribution in kind (Am 3:10). The palaces in which spoils of robbery were stored up, "shall be spoiled."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Therefore; because of all the violence and rapine, with other crying sins, multiplied against God in the midst of them.

An adversary, the Assyrian with united forces, shall be even round about the land, on all sides shall beset thee; the whole land shall be but as one besieged city, out of which none, or so few as next to none, shall escape.

He shall bring down thy strength from thee; lay low all thy fortresses, break all thy power, kill thy valiant men, destroy thy armies, and by force take thy strong holds.

Thy palaces shall be spoiled; where thou laidst up thy spoils gotten by violence and oppression, there thy enemy shall find them, and take them away as lawful plunder; and when thy riches are carried out, they shall burn the palaces themselves too.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of these tumults and riots, oppression and injustice, violence and robbery:

an adversary there shall be even round about the land: not Tyre, as Theodoret renders the word; but the king of Assyria, who invaded the land of Israel in the days of Hoshea, took Samaria, and carried Israel captive, and placed them in foreign countries, 2 Kings 17:6;

and he shall bring down thy strength from thee; take away their riches, demolish their fortresses, and strip them of everything in which they put their confidence:

and thy palaces shall be spoiled; plundered of the treasures laid up in them, and pulled down to the ground; and a just retaliation this for their being the repositories of ill gotten substance and wealth.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11–15. The sentence.

An adversary] or Distress, a rendering which most moderns prefer.

there shall be even round about] The Hebrew is harsh: a very slight change, supported by Pesh. (יְסֹבֵב for וּסְבִב), yields shall surround (or encircle), which is to be preferred.

he shall bring down thy strength] or, thy strength shall be brought down, as the same Hebrew may be rendered (Ges.-Kautzsch, § 144. 3a), though Wellh. would read hûrad for hôrîd. The foe will encircle the land; the strong ‘crown’ of Samaria will be ‘brought down’ to the ground (cf. Deuteronomy 28:52; Ezekiel 30:6; Isaiah 28:2 b); and its palaces (Amos 3:10) will be plundered.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - An adversary. The Hebrew is forcible, the Lord speaking as though he saw the fee present: "an enemy and around the land." Ewald and Hitzig take tsar as an abstract noun, "distress;" the LXX. and Aquila, pointing it differently, read, Τύρος, but the continuation of the sentence is scarcely to be deemed a translation, κυκλόθεν ἡ γῆ σου ἐρημωθήσεται "Thy land shall be made desolate round about thee" The adversary meant is Shalmaneser, who attacked Israel more than once and besieged Samaria; or his successor, Sargon, who claims to have reduced the city and removed the inhabitants (2 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 18:9, etc.; see Introduction to Micah). Thy strength. All wherein thou trustedst shall be brought down to the ground (Obadiah 1:3). Palaces, in which were stored the fruits of injustice and rapine (ver. 10). Amos 3:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Thus do they bring about the ruin of the kingdom. Amos 3:11. "Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, An enemy, and that round about the land; and he will hurl down thy glory from thee, and thy palaces are plundered. Amos 3:12. Thus saith Jehovah, As the shepherd delivers out of the mouth of the lion two shin-bones or an ear-lappet, so will the sons of Israel deliver themselves; they who sit on the corner of the couch and on the damask of the bed." The threat is introduced in the form of an aposiopesis. צר, enemy, וּסביב הארץ, and indeed round about the land ( ו explic. as in Amos 4:10, etc.; and סביב in the construct state construed as a preposition), i.e., will come, attack the land on all sides, and take possession of it. Others regard צר as an abstract: oppression (from the Chaldee); but in this case we should have to supply Jehovah as the subject to והוריד; and although this is probable, it is by no means natural, as Jehovah is speaking. There is no foundation, on the other hand, for the remark, that if tsar signified the enemy, we should either find the plural צרים, or הצּר with the article (Baumgarten). The very indefiniteness of tsar suits the sententious brevity of the clause. This enemy will hurl down the splendour of Samaria, "which ornaments the top of the mountain like a crown, Isaiah 28:1-3" (Hitzig: עז, might, with the subordinate idea of glory), and plunder the palaces in which violence, i.e., property unrighteously acquired, is heaped up (Amos 3:10). The words are addressed to the city of Samaria, to which the feminine suffixes refer. On the fall of Samaria, and the plundering thereof, the luxurious grandees, who rest upon costly pillows, will only be able to save their life to the very smallest extent, and that with great difficulty. In the simile used in Amos 3:12 there is a slight want of proportion in the two halves, the object of the deliverance being thrown into the background in the second clause by the passive construction, and only indicated in the verb, to deliver themselves, i.e., to save their life. "A pair of shin-bones and a piece (בּדל ἁταξ λεγ.), i.e., a lappet, of the earth," are most insignificant remnants. The grandees of Samaria, of whom only a few were to escape with their life, are depicted by Amos as those who sit on costly divans, without the least anxiety. פּאת מטּה, the corner of the divan, the most convenient for repose. According to Amos 6:4, these divans were ornamented with ivory, and according to the verse before us, they were ornamented with costly stuffs. דּמשׂק comes from דמּשׂק, Damascus, and signifies damask, an artistically woven material (see Ges. Thes. p. 346). This brings the visitation of God to an end. Even the altars and palaces are to be laid in ruins, and consequently Samaria will be destroyed.