3 The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD. 4 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part. 5 Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. 6 The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD. 7 ¶ Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. 8 And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: 9 And the high places of Isaac shall be 1 Or, green worms. desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. 10 Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. 12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: 13 But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. 14 Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son: but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of 'sycamore fruit: 15 And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. 16 Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and 'drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. 17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. 2 Or, who of (or, for) Jacob shall stand? 5 Or, wild figs. "Heb. from behind. Verse 1. Grasshoppers.'-See the note on Nahum iii. 17. -The latter growth after the king's mowings.'-As they make no hay in the East, and do not cut the grass for any use, the word rendered mowings' should be more properly feedings.' Burder, in illustration, very aptly quotes La Roque, to shew the time of the kings must have been the month of March, or thereabouts. La Roque, writing from the papers of D'Arvieux, says, 'The Arabs turn their horses out to grass in the month of March, when the grass is pretty well grown; they then take care to have their mares covered, and they cut grass at no other time in the whole year any more than hay; they never give them any straw but to heat them, when they have been some time without discovering an inclination to drink; they live wholly upon barley. The Arab horses are all designed for riding and war; so, there is reason to believe, were those of the kings of Israel; and if the present usages of the Arabs prevailed anciently, they were turned out early in the spring, in the month of March, and at other times were nourished with barley. These things seem to determine the time of the king's feedings to March, or at the shooting up of the latter growth of April. 14. Sycamore fruit.-The fig-sycamore tree and its fruit have been noticed under 1 Kings x., with an allusion SYCAMORE FIGS (Ficus sycomorus). CHAPTER VIII. 1 By a basket of summer fruit is shewed the propinquity of Israel's end. 4 Oppression is reproved. 11 A famine of the word threatened. THUS hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more. 3 And the songs of the temple 'shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence. 4 ¶ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, 5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit ? 6 That we may buy the poor for 'silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? 7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. 1 Heb, shall howl. 8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. 9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: 10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. 11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: 12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. 13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. 14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again. 2 Heb. be silent. 3 Or, month. 6 Chap. 2. 6. 4 Heb. open. 5 Heb. perverting the balances of deceit. of full weight. Or, if we suppose that the payment they received was weighed by themselves, and in their own scales, it is easy to conclude that they falsified the balance to make their payment too great, as they did the ephah to make the measure of corn too small. 9. I will cause the sun to go down at noon.'-Archbishop Usher understands this literally of an eclipse of the sun, which, according to him, happened in the time of Amos, in the year 3215 A.M., on the day of Pentecost, or of another which occurred ten years after at the Feast of Tabernacles, or, finally, of a third which took place the year after that, during the days of the Passover. The fathers, generally, interpret it of the darkness which took place at our Lord's crucifixion. But Jerome, Theodoret, with the general body of modern interpreters, understand that the expression marks simply the consternation of the Israelites at the calamities which at one fell swoop came upon them. CHAPTER IX. 1 The certainty of the desolation. 11 The restoring of 1 The certainty of the desolation. 11 The restoring of the tabernacle of David. I SAW the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the 'lintel of the door, that 1 Or, chupiter, or, knop. the posts may shake: and 'cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. 2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall 2 Or, wound them. 8 Psal. 139. 8, &c. mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: 3 And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them: 4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them and 'I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good. 5 And the Lord GOD of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. 6 It is he that buildeth his 567stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that 'calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name. 7 Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? 8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. Verse 3.Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence.'-Carmel is even now, and was still more in ancient times, covered with woods and copses-pines and oaks in the upper parts, and laurels and olives below. These, with the numerous caverns which the mountain contains, formed hidingplaces so extensive and numerous, that the search of any persons hidden there would be bewildering and all but hopeless. From this fact arises the emphasis of the expressions here employed. 5. The flood of Egypt.'-This is an interesting allusion to the annual overflowing of the Nile, by which the land is poetically represented as being 'drowned.' This inundation has been noticed under Exod. vii. 15. 6. Buildeth his stories in the heaven,' etc.-Harmer collects from Jer. xxii. 13, 14, that the chief and most ornamented apartments in the palace which Jehoiakim set himself to build were upper chambers. He adds, from Russell, 'The chief rooms of the houses of Aleppo at this day are those above; the ground-floor being there chiefly made use of for their horses and servants. Perhaps the prophet Amos referred to this circumstance when he spoke of the heavens as God's chambers, the most noble and splendid apartments of the palace of God, and where his presence is chiefly manifested; and the bundle or collection of its offices, its numerous little mean apartments, the divisions of this earth.' (Observations, i. 344.) What is here said of the houses in Aleppo is equally true in other Oriental towns, all the state-rooms and apartments occupied by the family being above ground, while the ground floor is occupied by store-rooms, kitchens, and servants' offices and apartments. 13. The plowman shall overtake the reaper,' etc.Similar expressions occur in Lev. xxvi. 5, and appear to be used as poetical terms to denote the copiousness and long continuance of the harvest and vintage. Harmer thinks that the expressions involve the intimation that the vintage and harvest should not be gathered in an immature condition, as is now, and probably was then, often necessary from fear of the Arabs and others, who are in the habit of committing ruinous depredations upon the ripened fruits and corn fields. Thus understood, the words of the prophet would express not only abundance, but peace and safety. 'The mountains shall drop sweet wine.'-This is a fine poetical expression, denoting the abundance of the vintages-vineyards being usually planted on the declivities of the hills. 651 OBADI A H. THE Scriptures afford us no information whatever concerning Obadiah; and the time in which he lived can only be conjectured from the bearing of his prophecy. The uncertainty concerning the person and history of this prophet has given occasion to a multitude of conjectures, which it is not worth while to repeat, since none of them come to us with the least authority. The opinion most generally entertained by the Jews themselves, that this was the same Obadiah who is so honourably distinguished in the history of Elijah, seems the least probable of any; and some of the more judicious of the Hebrew commentators, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi, candidly confess that the time and history of the prophet are unknown. However, from the matter of the prophecy, which recites the triumph of the Edomites over the desolation of Israel, and their most unbrotherly conduct on that occasion, and proceeds to pronounce their doom, it is generally concluded by modern writers that Obadiah was the contemporary of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and delivered this prophecy within the interval of the few years which took place between the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and the desolation of Edom by the same prince. The object of the prophecy is substantially the same as that in Jer. xlix. 7-22, and it is observable that the early part of the present book abounds in expressions identical with or similar to those found in that prophecy of Jeremiah; on which account, as well as because Edom has already engaged a considerable share of our attention, no further observations will now be offered. The book is the shortest in the Old Testament, and from its extreme brevity little can be said with respect to its style and composition. An addiction to the interrogative form of address has been indicated as one of the characteristics of Obadiah; and it is perceived that, for the sake of emphasis, he repeats the same thought in a different form. His style has been thought to bear considerable resemblance to the more elevated portions of Jeremiah and Zephaniah. Obadiah has a more considerable number of separate commentaries than the extreme brevity of the book would have led one to expect; or, perhaps, in another view, that brevity accounts for the number, many trying their hands upon so small a book who would not adventure upon the larger prophecies. Regii Abdias Propheta explanatus Commentariolo, Cellæ, 1537; Draconitis Commentariolus in Obadiam et Psalmum cxxxvii., Argent., 1538; Castillo Comment. in Abdiam prophetam, 1556; Grynæi, Comm. in Abdiam et Psalmos lxxii. et lxxiv., Basilæ, 1584; Leon, Comment. in Abdiam, etc. Salmanticæ, 1589; Leuchtii, Erklärung des Propheten Obadias, Darmstd., 1606; Reuteri Comm. in Obadiam, Trajecti ad Viadr., 1617; Gesneri Comm. in Obadiam, Hamb., 1618; Zierlein, Kurze Erklärung des Propheten Obadia, Rotenburg, 1620; Marbury, Commentary on the Prophecy of Obadiah, Lond., 1639; Ellis, Comm. in Obadiam prophetam, Lond., 1641; Leusden, Obadias Ebraice et Chaldaice, etc., Ultraj., 1657; Pfeifferi Comm. in Obadiam.... exhibens vers. Lat. et Examen Comm. Isaac Abarbanelis, etc., Viteb., 1666; Crocii Specimen philologicum in prophetam Obadiam, Ebraice, Chaldaice, Syriace, et Arabice, cum Comm. Řabbinorum quorundam, Bremæ, 1673; Leighi Comm. in Prophetam Obadiam, Hafn., 1697; Heupelii Adnotationes philologice in Obadiam, Argentor., 1699; Outhof, De Profecy van Obadia, etc., Groningen, 1700; Zeirolden, Die Weissagung des Propheten Obadiæ, etc., Francf., 1719; Schröer, Der Prophet Obadias aus der Biblischen und Weltlichen Historie erläutert und mit theologischen Anmerkungen, Breslau, 1766; Huppach, Versuch einer neuen übersetzung des Propheten Obadias, Coburg, 1779; Schnurrer, Dissertatio philologica in Obadiam, Tubing., 1787; Plum, Observationes in textum et versiones, maximè Græcas, Obadiae et Habacuci, Hauniæ, 1796; Holzapfel, Obadiah, neu übersetzt und erläutert, Rinteln, 1798; Venema, Prælectiones in Obadiam, cum Notis J. H. Verschuirii et J. A. Lotze, in Verschuirii Opusculis, Ultraj., 1810; Hendewerk, Obadia prophet Oraculum in Idumæos, etc., Regiomonti, 1836. 652 1 2 Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised. 3 T The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? 4 Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD. 5 If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave *some grapes ? 6 How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up! 7 All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: "the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding 'in him. 8 Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau? 9 And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter. 1 Jer. 49. 14. distress. 14 Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have "delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. 15 15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return thine own head. upon 16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall 16swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. 1 17 But upon mount Zion shall be "deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. 18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken 3 Jer. 49. 9. 8 Isa. 29. 14. 11 Or, do not behold, &c. 16 Or, sup up. 2 Jer. 49. 16. 6 Heb. the men of thy bread. 7 Or, of it. 10 Or, carried away his substance. 14 Or, shut up. 15 Ezek. 35. 15. 20 And the captivity of this host of the |