[281] The verb, which in the text is active, must be taken in the passive. The word not translated above is הַהַרְמוֹנָה _unto the Harmôn_, which name does not occur elsewhere. LXX. read εἰς τὸ ὄρος τὸ Ῥομμάν, which Ewald renders _ye shall cast the Rimmon to the mountain_ (cf. Isa. ii. 20), and he takes Rimmon to be the Syrian goddess of love. Steiner (quoted by Wellhausen) renders _ye shall be cast out to Hadad Rimmon_, that is, _violated as_ קדשֹות Hitzig separates ההר from מונה, which he takes as contracted from מענה, and renders _ye shall fling yourselves out on the mountains as a refuge_. But none of these is satisfactory.
[282] I have already treated this passage in connection with Isaiah's prophecies on women in the volume on Isaiah i.-xxxix. (Expositor's Bible), Chap. XVI.
[283] Cf. chap. vi. 4.
[284] v. 11.
[285] vi. 8, 11.
[286] Cf. what was said on building above, p. 33.
[287] See p. 141.
[288] v. 26.
[289] v. 25.
[290] Another proof of how the spirit of ritualism tends to absorb morality.
[291] Ver. 4: cf. 1 Sam. i.; Deut. xiv. 28. Wellhausen offers another exegesis: Amos is describing exactly what took place at Bethel--sacrifice on the morning, _i.e._ next to the day of their arrival, tithes on the third day thereafter.
[292] See Wellhausen's note, and compare Lev. vii. 13.
[293] Matt. vi. 2.
[294] גֶשֶׁם: _Hist. Geog._, p. 64. It is interesting that this year (1895) the same thing was threatened, according to a report in the _Mittheilungen u. Nachrichten des D.P.V._, p. 44: "Nachdem es im December einigemal recht stark geregnet hatte besonders an der Meeresküste ist seit kurz vor Weihnachten das Wetter immer schön u. mild geblieben, u. wenn nicht weiterer Regen fällt, so wird grosser Wassermangel entstehen denn bis jetzt (16 Febr.) hat Niemand Cisterne voll." The harvest is in April-May.
[295] Or in the fashion of Egypt, _i.e._ a thoroughly Egyptian plague; so called, not with reference to the plagues of Egypt, but because that country was always the nursery of the pestilence. See _Hist. Geog._, p. 157 ff. Note how it comes with war.
[296] Apertly, openly.
[297] Men.
[298] Undo.
[299] _Hist. Geog._, Chap. iii., pp. 73 f.
[300] This and similar passages are dealt with by themselves in Chap. XI.
[301] Cf. LXX.: Βαιθὴλ ἔσται ὡς οὐχ ὑπάρχουσα.
[302] The name Bethel is always printed as one word in our Hebrew texts. See Baer on Gen. xii. 8.
[303] Wellhausen thinks _at Bethel_ not genuine. But Bethel has been singled out as the place where the people put their false confidence, and is naturally named here. LXX.: τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραήλ.
[304] Ver. 7 is plainly out of place here, as the LXX. perceived, and therefore tried to give it another rendering which would make it seem in place: ὁ ποιῶν εἰς ὕψος κρίμα, καὶ δικαιοσύνην εἰς γὴν ἔθηκεν. So Ewald removed it to between vv. 9 and 10. There it begins well another oracle; and it may be that we should insert before it הוי, as in vv. 18, vi. 1.
[305] Literally _the Group_ and _the Giant_. כימה, Kimah, signifies group, or little heap. Here it is rendered by Aq. and at Job ix. 9 by LXX. Ἀρκτοῦρος; and here by Theod. and in Job xxxviii. 31, _the chain_, or _cluster, of the group_ Πλειάδες. The Targ. and Pesh. always give it as Kima, _i.e._ Pleiades. And this is the rendering of most moderns. But Stern takes it for Sirius with its constellation of the Great Dog, for the reason that this is the brightest of all stars, and therefore a more suitable fellow for Orion than the dimmer Pleiades can be. כסיל, the Fool or Giant, is the Hebrew name of Ὠρίων, by which the LXX. render it. Targum ניפלא. To the ancient world the constellation looked like the figure of a giant fettered in heaven, "a fool so far as he trusted in his bodily strength" (Dillmann). In later times he was called Nimrod. His early setting came at the time of the early rains. Cf. with the passage Job ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31.