Amos 2

Amos 2 is the second chapter of the Book of Amos in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.^[1][2] This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Amos, especially charges against Moab, Judah, and lastly Israel, the chief subject of Amos' prophecies.^[3] It is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.^[4][5]

Text

• The original text is written in Hebrew language.
• This chapter is divided into 16 verses.

Textual versions

Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:

• Masoretic Text (10th century)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[6][7]
  • 4Q78 (4QXII^c): extant: verses 11‑16^[6]
  • 4Q82 (4QXII^g): extant: verses 1, 7‑9, 15‑16^[6]
  • Wadi Murabba'at (MurXII): extant: verse 1^[6]

POxy VI 846: Amos 2 (LXX)

Ancient translations in Koine Greek:

• Septuagint (3rd century BC)
  • Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 846 (~AD 550; extant: verses 6-12)
• Theodotion version (~AD 180)

Structure

NKJV groups this chapter into:

• Amos 2:1-3 = Judgment on Moab
• Amos 2:4-5 = Judgment on Judah
• Amos 2:6-16 = Judgment on Israel

Verse 1

Thus saith the Lord;

For three transgressions of Moab, and for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:^[8]

• "He burned the bones of the King of Edom into lime": This profanation of the corpse of the King of Edom (see 2 Kings 23:16; Jeremiah 8:1, 2) is not mentioned in the historical books. Some of the older commentators, as Tirinus and Corn. a Lapide, think that the prophet wishes to show that the sympathy of God extends beyond the covenant people, and that he punishes wrongs inflicted even on heathen nations. But as in the case of the other nations, Amos reproves only crimes committed against Israel or Judah, so the present outrage must have the same connection. The reference to the King of Moab's sacrifice of "his eldest son," even if we suppose (which is improbable) the son of the King of Edom to be meant, is plainly inapplicable (2 Kings 3:27), as the offence regarded the king himself, and not his son, and the expression, "burned into lime," can hardly be thought to refer to a human sacrifice. Josephus noted that it was the king of Moab's own son, whom the father offered to Molech.^[9] The act mentioned probably occurred during the time that the Edomites joined Jehoram and Jehoshaphat in the league against Mesha, the King of Moab (2 Kings 3:7, 9), the author of the inscription on the celebrated stone (Mesha Stele) erected by him at Dibon. Unfortunately, the last lines of that inscription, describing the war against the Edomites, are lost. The paragraph that remains is this: "And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim [i.e. the men of Edom], and take... Chemosh... in my days. Wherefore I made... year ... and I..." The Jewish tradition, quoted by Jerome, tells that after this war the Moabites, in revenge for the assistance which the King of Edom had given to the Israelites, dug up and dishonoured his bones. Edom was then in vassalage to Israel, but regained its independence some ten years later (2 Kings 8:20). The sacrilegious act was meant to redound to the disgrace of Israel^[10][3]

Verse 4

Thus saith the Lord;

For three transgressions of Judah, and for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have despised the law of the Lord,

and have not kept his commandments,

and their lies caused them to err,

after the which their fathers have walked:^[11]

• "For three transgressions of Judah etc.": No difference of Jew and Gentile. Romans 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law, and as many as have signed in the law, shall be judged by the law." Jerome: "Those other nations, Damascus and the rest, he upbraids not for having cast away the law of God, and despised His commandments, for they had not the written law, but that of nature only. So then of them he says, that "they corrupted all their compassions" - and the like. But Judah, who, at that time, had the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had received the law and commandments and judgments and precepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, for that it had "cast aside His law and not kept His commandments;" wherefore it should be punished as it deserved.^[12]

Verse 10

Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

and led you forty years through the wilderness,

to possess the land of the Amorite.^[13]

• "Also I": (Literally, "And I," I, emphatic; thus and thus did ye to Me; and thus and thus, with all the mercy from the first, did I to you,) I brought you up from the land of Egypt It is this language in which God, in the law, reminded them of that great benefit, as a motive to obedience; "I brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 5:6; Deuteronomy 6:12; only there, since God has not as yet "brought them up" into the land which He promised them, but they were yet in the wilderness, He says, "brought them forth;" here, "brought them up," as to a place of dignity, His own land.^[12]
• "And led you forty years through the wilderness": These are the very words of the law (Deuteronomy 29:4-5), and reminded them of so many benefits during the course of those "forty years," which the law rehearsed; the daily supply of manna, the water from the rock, the deliverance from the serpents and other perils, the manifold forgivenesses. To be "led forty years through the wilderness," alone, had been no kindness, but a punishment. It was a blending of both.^[12] The words, taken from the law, must have re-awakened in the souls of Israelites the memory of mercies which they did not mention, how that same book relates "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about; He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone did lead him" Deuteronomy 32:10, Deuteronomy 32:12. In the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went until ye came to this place" Deuteronomy 1:31; or that minute tender care, mentioned in the same place (Deuteronomy 29:4-5), "your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot." But unless Israel had known the law well, the words would only have been very distantly suggestive of mercy, that it must have been well with them even in the wilderness, since God "led them." They had then the law in their memories, in Israel also, but distorted it or neglected it.^[12]
• "to possess the land of the Amorite": the whole land of Canaan, so called from a principal nation of it.^[14]

See also

• Related Bible parts: Amos 1, Amos 7

Notes and references

Bibliography

External links

Jewish

• Amos 2 Hebrew with Parallel English
• Amos 2 Hebrew with Rashi's Commentary

Christian

• Amos 2 English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate