14

15

1

Because they ripped up the women with child of
Gilead,

That they might enlarge their border:

But I will kindle a fire on the wall of Rabbah;
† Which shall devour the palaces thereof,
With shouting in the day of battle,

With a whirlwind in the day of tempest.
And their king shall go into captivity,
He and his princes together, saith Jehovah.

CHAP. II.

THUS saith Jehovah:

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:

+ Hebr. And it.

---of Gilead] The historians of these times, transmitted down to us, are so concise, that we often want authority for the particular facts referred to.

14. a fire] The Ammonites were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar Jer. xxvii. 3, 6.

---tempest] This image is naturally and sublimely introduced. So,

Eneas nubem belli, dum detonet, omnem

Sustinet. En. x. 809.

15. their king] Or, Malchom, their God. So Vulg. Syr. 6. MS. Pachom. and Boch. Hieroz. ii. xxxiv. 358. See Jer. xlviii. 7. xlix. 3. 1 Kings xi. 33.

66

he] ΑΠ οι ιερείς αυτών. 6. π [i. e. παντες] ιερείς τε αυτέ, apud Montf. Cum sacerdotibus ejus, Syr. Nec male, ut videtur ex Jer. xlix. 3." Secker. The reading may have been, 17w1 1375) N17,

.כהניו ושרי or

CHAP. II.

1. Moab] For the origin of this People, see Gen. xix. 37. Their country lay to the east of the dead sea.

--burned the bones] Insulted his remains in a revengeful savage manner.

and s

2

3

4

5

6

But I will send a fire on Moab,

Which shall devour the palaces of Kirioth:
And Moab shall die with tumult,

With shouting, with the sound of the trumpet.
And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof;
And all the princes thereof will I slay with him,
saith Jehovah.

Thus saith Jehovah:

For three transgressions of Judah,

And for four, I will not turn away the punishment

thereof:

Because they have rejected the law of Jehovah,
And have not kept his statutes:

And their § false gods have caused them to err,
After whom their fathers walked:

But I will send a fire on Judah,

* Which shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
Thus saith Jehovah:

For three transgressions of Israel,

Hebr. And it.

§ lies.

which.

* And it.

2. Kirioth] A city of Moab. Jer. xlviii. 24, 41. conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. xxvii. 3, 6.

Moab was

3. ---the judge] Probably the title of the chief magistrate. Thus the Carthaginians had their Suffetes. Houbigant reads

.שריו and בקרבו

4. their false gods] Vulg. idola sua. The next line naturally refers to the idolatries of Judah, with accounts of which their history abounds. Compare Isai. xlv. 20.

5. ---a fire] This refers to the burning of Jerusalem by Nebuzar-adan. 2 Kings xxv. 9.

6. Israel] Amos first prophesies against the Syrians, Philistines, Tyrians, Edomites, Amonites, and Moabites; who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the twelve tribes, and had occasionally become their enemies and oppressors. Having thus not only taught his countrymen that the providence of God extended to other nations, but conciliated attention to himself by such interesting predictions; he briefly mentions the idolatries and consequent destruction of Judah, and then passes on to his propor subject, which was to exhort and reprove the kingdom of Israel, and to denounce judgments against it. The reason why that kingdom was particularly addressed seems to have

7

8

And for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof:

Because they sell the righteous for silver,

And the needy in return for sandals:

They bruise the head of the poor in the dust of the earth,

And turn aside the way of the humble:

And a man and his father go in unto the same damsel,
To pollute † mine holy name:

And they stretch themselves on garments taken to
pledge,

Near every altar;

Hebr. the name of mine holiness.

been, that Pul invaded it in the reign of Uzziah; 2 Kings xv. 19; and that, in less than half a century after the first Assyrian invasion, it was subverted by Shalmaneser. 2 Kings xvii. 6.

---sandals] So c. viii. 6. Even for so inconsiderable a price as that specified.

7. bruise] Houbigant says that the true reading is from terere; that the has been introduced by eastern scribes from the Arabic form; and that it is marked with a circle above it in MSS. as a suspicious letter. Vulg. 6. Syr. render according to the sense of : and Ps. lvi. 1, 2. lvii. 3, 6. translate NW by xaтaяaTv, as if it had that sense in the Hebrew. See also Vulg. ó. c. viii. 4. That some verbs are used with, see c. iv. 11. ix. 13. Ez. xviii. 32, compared with v. 23.

---turn aside] From right and justice. See c. v. 12. Isai. x.

1. xxix. 21.

---the same damsel] Houbigant observes that ó. have g

αυτην παιδίσκην.

προς την

To pollute] To treat me as if I was not a holy and fearful God. Ezek. xx. 39. Or, by giving occasion of reproach among the heathen. Ezek. xx. 9. For the change from the participle to the preter tense, see Isai. xxix. 21. Amos, v. 7, 12. vi. 6.

8. stretch themselves] Bow themselves down; in the force of the conjugation Hithpahel, which this Hebrew verb wants. See Ps. cxxv. 5, according to the Greek, Latin, and English versions: et deflectentes se. The sense is, that they recline at an idolatrous banquet. See Spencer de leg. Hebr. iii. c. vii.

---taken to pledge] Retained contrary to the law. Ex. xxii, 26, 7,

9

10

11

12

And drink the wine of men punished by unjust fines,

In the house of their gods.

Yet destroyed I the Amorite from before them, Whose height was as the height of the cedars, And he was strong as the oaks :

Yet destroyed I his fruit from above, and his roots
from beneath.

Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
And led you in the desert forty years;

That ye might possess the land of the Amorite.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets,
And of your young men for Nazarites.
Is it not even thus,

O ye sons of Israel, saith Jehovah?
But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink:
And ye commanded the prophets,
Saying, Prophesy not.

Or, unjustly fined.

---punished by unjust fines] The law allowed of pecuniary amercements in some cases. Ex. xxi. 22. Deut. xxii. 19. But the prophet speaks of wine purchased with money arising from iniquitous mulcts.

In this verse the future tense is twice affected by the dis

tant vau.

9. The image is a grand and natural one:

Ηριπε δ, ως οτε τις δρυς ήριπεν, η αχερωνίς,

Με πιτες βλωθρή, την τ ούρεσι τεκίονες άνδρες
Εξέταμον πελεκεσσι νεηκεσι, νηιον είναι.

Ille, mordaci velut icta ferro

Pinus, aut impulsa cupressus euro,
Procidit late.

Il. xiii. 359.

Hor. Od. L. iv. vi.

So virgil compares the destruction of Troy to the cutting down of an ancient ornus, or mountain ash; and the fall of Entellus to that of a pine. Æn. ii. 626. v. 447.

The prophet diversifies and continues the image with great beauty.

11. Nazarites] Persons separated to God by certain ceremonies: Numb. vi.: and particularly commanded to refrain frem wine. Ib. v. 3,

13

14

15

16

Therefore behold I will press your place,
As a § loaded corn-wain presseth its sheaves.
And flight shall perish from the swift,
Neither shall the strong establish his force;
And the mighty shall not deliver himself,
Neither shall he that handleth the bow stand;
And the swift of foot shall not deliver himself,
Neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself:
And he that establisheth his heart among the mighty,
Shall flee away naked in that day, saith Jehovah.

§ Hebr. full.

13. --press] I give pyn and pyn an active sense; as the word of the same form has in Syr. and Chald. See Cast. lex.

See also the Syriac and Chaldee versions of this passage.

"Active sumitur in Hiphil, ut et py." Secker.

---your place] See the original word, Ex. x. 23. xvi. 29. Judges vii. 21. 1 Sam. xiv. 9. 2 Sam. vii. 10. Hab. iii, 16. Zech. xii. 6.

By a full corn-drag I understand one fully laden, so as to make it weighty.

The pronouns may be referred to y: sibi manipulos, i. e. suos manipulos: or we may suppose it redundant, as 15, Cantic. ii. 11. Hos. viii. 9. Isai. xxxi. 8, 7, ib. xl. 9.: or we may suspect its genuineness; as there is no trace of it in the versions or Chald.; and as it resembles the close of the foregoing word.

Our marginal rendering is, I will press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth. Quod plenum sibi est manipulis. And Houbigant renders, Ego igitur isum locum, ubi estis, ita calcabo ut calcat manipulos plenum plaustrum.

I am pressed---] "They are said to weary God. Isai. i. 14. xliii. 24. Mal. ii. 17. But there is no authority for using the word here passively. And the next verse being joined to this by t makes it more natural that this should begin to express their punishment." Secker.

14. ---swift] Here the swift is opposed to the strong; and v. 16, to him that rideth on a swift beast. I suppose that the four last verses of this chapter refer to the inextricable calamities caused by the earthquake. See c. i. 1.

---among the mighty] Syr. as the mighty
15. himself] One MSS. supplies 19.