Amos ix. 11, 12. In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old : that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this.
PROPHECIES are of necessity involved in some measure of obscurity; so that the full extent of their meaning cannot be seen at first, nor the precise period for their accomplishment ascertained. To many of them is affixed an apparently determinate,
but really indeterminate, date ; " In that day" The expression, " In that day," always refers to some sig- nally important time, But not always to the same time : it sometimes refers to one advent of our Lord, and sometimes to another ; so that we cannot deter- mine, except by the passage itself, whether it relate to his coming in the flesh, or his coming to destroy Jerusalem, or his coming to reign in the Millennium, or his coming to judge the world. The context how- ever will generally enable us to fix the period intended, if it relate only to one ; or to specify the different seasons^ if its reference be more extensive. It is with these words that the prophecy before us is in- troduced : and in it the diversity of their meaning will appear.
Let us consider,
I. The import of the prophecy —
It evidently has different seasons of accomplish- ment. It speaks of,
1. The return of the Jews from Babylon —
[All the prophets who lived before that event spake of it; to some it afforded very ample scope for the minutest predic- tions. By their captivity in Babylon, the Jews were reduced to the lowest state of degradation : their polity, both civil and religious, was destroyed ; and there were no remains of that grandeur to which they had been elevated in the days of David. But, on their return from Babylon, things were re- stored, in a measure, " as in the days of old;" and their inve- terate enemies of Edom became subject to thema. This however is certainly only a subordinate sense of this prophecy; for it refers much more strongly to,]
2. The conversion of the Gentiles —
[When we speak of David's kingdom as typical of the Messiah's ; and his enemies, of the Messiah's enemies ; we perhaps may be thought to lean rather to the side of fancy than of judgment. But fancy should find no scope for exer- cise in interpreting the word of God : truth, and truth alone, should be the object of our research. The propriety of such representations is strongly marked by an inspired writer ; who, when determining a controversy of the utmost importance to the Jews, adduces this very passage against them, to shew, that
a Obad. ver. 18—21.