Amoschapter 2
16 verses · KJVAmos book hub →
Key verse
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:
It stands in Moab burned the bones of Edom's king to lime, verses 1 to 3.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The circle keeps tightening. Moab burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime: atrocity even against the dead. Judah is next, and the charge shifts from cruelty to covenant: 'they have rejected the law of Jehovah, and have not kept his statutes.' Then the trap springs on the audience itself. Israel sells 'the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes,' sleeps on garments taken in pledge beside every altar, drinks fine-money wine in the house of their God. He raised up prophets and Nazirites: 'but ye gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.'
Context
Prophecy · Amos · Amos overview
The world behind this chapter
Amos 2The history
Moab's crime is one nobody today would think of as a war crime: burning the bones of the king of Edom to lime. In that world, denying a body its resting place was an attack on the dead man's afterlife and on his family's honour, and burning bones to powder was the ultimate act of erasure. Notice that the victim is Edom, Amos condemns an atrocity committed against a nation Israel despised.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Selling the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals describes debt slavery at absurdly small sums. A man who could not repay could be taken as a bondservant, and Amos says judges were doing it for the price of footwear. The sandal also carried legal weight, handing over a sandal sealed a property transfer, which is what happens in the book of Ruth.
The garments taken in pledge are covered by an explicit law. A poor man's outer cloak doubled as his blanket, so a creditor holding it as security had to return it before nightfall. Amos says these men were lying down on those cloaks beside the altar, using the collateral as bedding at a religious festival.
The Nazirites and prophets named at the end were the two institutions God had given as a witness. A Nazirite took a vow that included touching no wine; forcing wine on him destroyed the vow. Telling a prophet not to prophesy silenced the other channel. Israel had closed both.
What it meant to them
The chapter's force comes from the reversal. The crimes charged against the foreign nations were battlefield atrocities; the crimes charged against Israel are courtroom and marketplace decisions made by respectable men in good standing.
The comparison God draws is unbearable and meant to be. He destroyed the Amorite before them, brought them up from Egypt, led them forty years, and the return on all of it was a corrupted court and a silenced prophet. The strongest will not stand, and the swift of foot will not save himself.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
Amos 2 falls in Oracles against the nations (chapters 1–2). Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, then Judah, then Israel. The rhetorical net tightens until it catches the audience.
After it: Sermons against Israel, chapters 3–6.
The whole shape of Amos→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Moab burned the bones of Edom's king to limevv. 1-3
he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime: Moab's crime closes the ring of surrounding nations and it is an atrocity against the dead rather than the living, burning a defeated king's bones to lime, an act the bench connects to the war recorded at 2 Kings 3, where an extremity of that campaign is remembered by the nations even where Israel's own record passes over it lightly. The oracle judges a sin against no covenant people and no treaty partner, only against the plain dignity owed even an enemy's corpse, which the commentators read as proof the whole ring of judgments rests on a moral law wider than Israel's own election. Fire on Moab, the judge and the princes cut off, ends the section exactly as each nation before it ended.
Amos 2:1
“The Hebrew tradition is that Moab in revenge tore from their grave and burned the bones of the king of Edom, the ally of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, who was already buried. Probably the "burning of the bones" means, "he burned the king of Edom alive, reducing his very bones to lime" [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Amos 2:2
“The palaces of Kirioth - This was one of the principal cities of the Moabites. Moab shall die with tumult - All these expressions seem to refer to this city’s being taken by storm, which was followed by a total slaughter of its inhabitants.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:2
“Kirioth--the chief city of Moab, called also Kir-Moab (Isa 15:1). The form is plural here, as including both the acropolis and town itself (see Jer 48:24, 41, Margin). die with tumult--that is, amid the tumult of battle (Ho 10:14).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Amos 2:3
“And I will cut off the judge - The title “judge” (shophet) is nowhere used absolutely of a king. Holy Scripture speaks in several places of “all the judges of the earth” Job 9:24; Psa 2:10; Psa 148:11; Pro 8:16; Isa 40:23. Hosea Hos 13:10, under “judges,” includes “kings and princes,” as judging the people. The word “judge” is always used as one invested with the highest, but not regal authority, as of all the judges from the death of Joshua to Samuel.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:3
“The king, the chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall not escape, Jer. xlviii. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
B. Judah despised the law and followed liesvv. 4-5
they have despised the law of the Lord: The formula shifts here in a way every hearer in Israel would have felt, since the six oracles before this named war crimes against neighbors while Judah's charge is purely covenantal, despising the law of the Lord and being led astray by lies their fathers walked after, meaning idolatry inherited across generations rather than any single act of violence. The bench reads the shift as deliberate, moving the whole argument from the natural law that binds every nation to the revealed law that binds Judah and Israel alone, which is the ground the next oracle will stand on at full weight. Fire upon Judah devouring the palaces of Jerusalem is read by the older writers as reaching its fulfilment in the Babylonian destruction more than a century later.
Amos 2:4
“For three transgressions of Judah - We may take the three and four here to any latitude; for this people lived in continual hostility to their God, from the days of David to the time of Uzziah, under whom Amos prophesied. Their iniquities are summed up under three general heads: 1. They despised, or rejected the law of the Lord. 2. They kept not his statutes. 3. They followed lies, were idolaters, and followed false prophets rather than those sent by Jehovah.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:4
“From foreign kingdoms he passes to Judah and Israel, lest it should be said, he was strenuous in denouncing sins abroad, but connived at those of his own nation. Judah's guilt differs from that of all the others, in that it was directly against God, not merely against man.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Amos 2:5
“But I will send a fire upon Judah,.... An enemy, Nebuchadnezzar, who should burn, waste, and destroy, all that were in his way: and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem; the chief city of Judah, the royal city, where stood the temple, the palace of the most High, and the palaces of the king and his nobles; these were burnt with fire when it was taken by the Chaldean army, about two hundred years after this prophecy, Jer 52:13.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:5
“I will send a fire upon Judah - All know now, how Jerusalem, its temple, and its palaces perished by fire, first by Nebuchadnezzar, then by the Romans. Yet some two centuries passed, before that first destruction came. The ungodly Jews flattered themselves that it would never come.”
C. Israel sold the righteous for silver, the poor for a pair of shoesvv. 6-8
they sold the righteous for silver: Israel's oracle, the seventh and longest, is the one the whole chapter has been building toward, and its charges are social rather than military, a righteous man sold for silver and a poor man for the price of a pair of sandals, judges and creditors turning small debts into slavery. The pledge garments kept overnight against Exodus 22:26-27's own law and laid beside every altar, and wine bought with money exacted as fines drunk in the house of their god, describe a religious life financed by the very oppression the law forbids, worship and injustice sharing one roof. A father and his son going in unto the same maid to profane the Lord's holy name is read by the bench as either cultic prostitution attached to the shrines or a plain abuse of a household servant, the readings named without a verdict pressed on the reader.
Amos 2:6
“For three transgressions of Israel, etc. - To be satisfied of the exceeding delinquency of this people, we have only to open the historical and prophetic books in any part; for the whole history of the Israelites is one tissue of transgression against God. Their crimes are enumerated under the following heads: - 1. Their judges were mercenary and corrupt. They took bribes to condemn the righteous; and even for articles of clothing, such as a pair of shoes, they condemned the poor man, and delivered him into the hands of his adversary.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:6
“Israel--the ten tribes, the main subject of Amos' prophecies. sold the righteous--Israel's judges for a bribe are induced to condemn in judgment him who has a righteous cause; in violation of De 16:19. the poor for a pair of shoes--literally, "sandals" of wood, secured on the foot by leather straps; less valuable than shoes.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Amos 2:7
“That pant after the dust of the earth - Literally, “the panters!” with indignation. Not content with having rent from him the little hereditary property which belonged to each Israelite, these creditors grudged him even the “dust,” which, as a mourner, he strewed on his head Job 2:12, since it too was “earth.” Covetousness, when it has nothing to feed it, craves for what is absurd or impossible. What was Naboth’s vineyard to a king of Israel with his “ivory palace?” What was Mordecai’s refusal to bow to one in honor like Haman? What a trivial gain to a millionaire?”
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 2:7
Because the example of the patriarch seemed injurious to many who indulged their flesh so far as to live with sisters in their life time. What ought to be my course? To quote the Scriptures, or to work out what they leave unsaid? In these laws it is not written that a father and son ought not to have the same concubine, but, in the prophet, it is thought deserving of the most extreme condemnation, "A man and his father" it is said "will go in unto the same maid."
Basil of Caesarea· written before 379· Letter CLXpatristic
Amos 2:7
“When God's people sin in the face of light, they often fall lower than even those who know not God. go in unto the same maid--from Am 2:8 it seems likely "the damsel" meant is one of the prostitutes attached to the idol Astarte's temple: prostitution being part of her filthy worship. to profane my . . . name--Israel in such abominations, as it were, designedly seeks to insult God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
D. I destroyed the Amorite: and you made the Nazirites drink
1. (vv. 9-11)
Amos 2:9
“They were of great stature ( whose height was like the height of the cedars ) and the people of Israel were as shrubs to them; and they were also of great strength, not only tall, but well-set: He was strong as the oaks. Their kingdom was eminent among the nations, and over-topped all its neighbours.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:9
“Yet - (and I) I (Emphatic) destroyed Such were “their” doings; such their worship of “their God.” And what had “God” done? what was it, which they thus requited? The Amorite - These, as one of the mightiest of the Canaanite tribes, stand in Moses for all.”
Amos 2:10
“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” Exo 20:2; Deu 5:6; Deu 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.”
Amos 2:11
“And I raised up of your sons for prophets - Amos turns from outward mercies to inward, front past to present, from miracles of power to miracles of grace. God’s past mercies live on in those of today; the mercies of today are the assurance to us that we have a share in the past; His miracles of grace are a token that the miracles of His power are not our condemnation. God had, from the time of Moses, “raised up” prophets.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:11
“God left nothing undone to secure the purity of their worship and their faithfulness to it (La 4:7). The same comes from a Hebrew root, nazar, "to set apart." Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were Nazarites. Is it not even thus--Will any of you dare to deny it is so?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
whose height was like the height of the cedars: The Lord's own recital of grace interrupts the charge sheet, and the bench reads the interruption as the argument's real hinge, since the sins just listed are set against benefits Israel could never claim to have earned. The Amorite destroyed before them, his height like the cedars and his roots and fruit both cut off, recalls the giant peoples of Numbers 13:33 whose land Israel simply received; the exodus from Egypt and forty years in the wilderness are named as gift rather than achievement, and prophets and Nazarites raised up from Israel's own sons as a further unearned mercy. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel presses the recital home as a question no honest hearer could answer no to.
2. (v. 12)
Amos 2:12
“But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink,.... Contrary to their vow and calling, and in contempt of it, and to make them like themselves; they either persuaded them, or forced them to it: and commanded the prophets, saying, prophesy not; hard and heavy things, judgments and denunciations of vengeance, only smooth things; by this authoritative language it appears that this is said of the rulers and governors of the people, as king, princes, and priests; see Amo 7:12.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 2:12
“But ye gave the Nazarites wine - This was expressly forbidden in the laws of their institution. See Num 6:1-3. Prophesy not - They would not worship God, and they would not hear the voice of his prophets.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 2:12-16
ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink: The grace just recited is answered with its own rejection, wine given to Nazarites to break the very vow of Numbers 6 that set them apart, and prophets commanded outright, prophesy not, the silencing of the voice Amos himself will meet again at Amaziah's mouth in chapter 7. The judgment that follows is the covenant curse of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 enacted as a battlefield collapse rather than described in the abstract, the swift unable to flee, the strong stripped of strength, the archer and the horseman both failing, until the most courageous man in the army runs away naked, having thrown down even his weapons to survive. Amos closes the whole opening section on that image, courage itself unable to save when the Lord himself is the adversary.
E. Pressed down: the swift and the strong will not escapevv. 13-16
Amos 2:13
“Behold, I are pressed under you,.... With the weight of their sins, with which they had made him to serve, and had wearied him; his patience was quite wore out, he could bear them no longer: as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves; as a cart in harvest time, in which the sheaves of corn are carried home; when one sheaf is laid upon another, till they can lay no more, and the cart is loaded and overloaded with them, and ready to break, or be pressed into the earth with them: thus.”
Amos 2:14
“The flight shall perish from the swift - The swiftest shall not be able to save himself from a swifter destruction. None, by might, by counsel, or by fleetness, shall be able to escape from the impending ruin. In a word, God has so fully determined to avenge the quarrel of his broken covenant, that all attempts to escape from his judgments shall be useless.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 2:15
“Neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself - I believe all these sayings, Amo 2:13-16, are proverbs, to show the inutility of all attempts, even in the best circumstances, to escape the doom now decreed, because the cup of their iniquity was full.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 2:16
“Shall flee away naked - In some cases the alarm shall be in the night; and even the most heroic shall start from his bed, and through terror not wait to put on his clothes.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
This page carries no textual note on Amos 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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