The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 61

crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaotb. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and be doth not resist you" (Jas. v. 1-6). "Punishment is the recoil of crime; and the strength of the back-stroke is in proportion to the original blow."-D. T. Vers. 13-15.-National Jwlgments. "Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, mitb the Lord God, the God of hosts," etc. The same persons are here addressed who in the ninth verse were summoned from Philistia and Egypt. They were now to testify to the facts of the case, that it might be seen that the punishment infilcted upon the inhabitants was richly deserved. The subject of the words is national judg- ment, which we are here led to regard in three aspects. I. IN RELATION TO THE TRUE PROPHETS. "Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob." We may perhaps regard the words also as spoken to the prophets. Hear, ye prophets. 1. The prophets were to make themselves acq1J,Q,inted with the coming Judgments. They were to be watchmen who were to descry afar the coming danger. All true ministers of religion should by earnest study acquaint themselves with the terrible punishment that awaits the guilty world. 2. The prophets were to annoim~ the coming Jwigment. " Hear ye, and testify." Their work is to sound the alarm, to blow the trumpet. " So thou, 0 son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me " (Ezek. x:xxiii. 7). One of the chief duties of a true minister is to " warn every man" (Col. i. 28). II. IN RELATION TO ITS MORAL OAUBE. What was the cause of these threatened judgments? Here it is. "I shall visit the transgressions of Israel." Judgments do not come on men as a matter of necessity; they do not roll on man like the billows of ocean on the shore, by blind force; nor do they come because the Governor of the universe is malevolent, and has pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures. No; he is love. He "desireth not the death of a sinner." They come because of sin. The sins of a nation draw judgment after them as the moon dre.ws after it the billows that beat upon the shore. Let no nation hope to escape judgments until it gets rid of sin. Jndgments are but sins ripened into e. harvest, subterranean fires breaking into volcanoes. Eternal love requires for the order and happiness of the universe that sins and sorrows, transgressions and troubles, should be inseparably linked together. ID. IN RELATION TO 1TB TERRIBLE ISSUES. 1. There is the deprivation of religioUB i1llftitutions. "I will also visit the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altar shall be out off, and fall to the ground." " Signal vengeance was to be taken on the place whence all the evils which spread through the ten tribes originated. The ' horns' were four projecting points, in the shape of horns, at the corners of ancient altars, They may be seen in the representations of those dug up by Belzoni in Egypt. As they were ornamental, the action here described was designed to express the contempt in which the altar would be held by the Assyrians." Corrupt punishment for a nation's trarui~essions would involve the ruin or religious institutions. 2. There is a deprivation oi all their conveniences and luxuries. "And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great housos shall have an end, saith the Lord." Eastern monarchs and princes, we are told, have summer as well as winter houses. The " ivory houses" do not mean houses composed of that material, but richly ornamented dwellings. These were to be destroyed. "The pomp or pleasantness of men's houses," says Matthew Henry, "will be so far from fortifying them against God's judgments, that it will make them the more grievous and vexatious, as their extravagance about them will be put to the score of their sins and fullies. -D.T. EXPOSITION. Samaria, and /oretelle thelr captivity (ven, OHAPTEB IV. 1-3) : tolth bitter irony 1uJ dellcribee tluJ Vers. 1-13.-§ 2. Becund addreee. The peqpk'• devotion f.o idolatry (vllllll. 4, 6): 11~ 'E'rophet reprove, the "°luptuou., 100men o/ ,1w,,o, 1w,,o iM<»'rigible the11 have proi·ed them• OH, IV, 1-18,] THE BOOK 01!' AMOS. 61