Amoschapter 9
15 verses · Amos · about 760 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that 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.
It stands in No place to hide, from Sheol to the top of Carmel, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The Lord stands beside the altar and orders the sanctuary struck from the top down, and no hiding place is left: dig into Sheol, climb to heaven, hide in Carmel's caves, lie on the sea floor, and the hand finds them there. Israel's exodus is set beside the migrations of Ethiopians, Philistines, and Syrians: election is not entitlement. Israel will be sifted among the nations as grain in a sieve, yet not the least kernel shall fall. Then the sunrise ending: 'In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen' (James cites it at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15)) and Israel replanted on their land, never again plucked up.
Context
Prophecy · Amos · Amos overview
The world behind this chapter
Amos 9The history
The list of hiding places is a tour of the extremes of the known world. Digging into Sheol, the realm of the dead below; climbing to heaven above; hiding on the summit of Carmel, a wooded ridge riddled with caves where fugitives genuinely did hide; and the bottom of the sea, the one place Israelites considered wholly outside human reach.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The sieve image is a threshing-floor tool. After winnowing, grain was shaken in a sieve so that the small stones and dirt fell through or stayed behind; the good kernels were kept. Amos says Israel will be shaken among the nations that way, and not a pebble will fall to the ground unnoticed, the shaking is a sorting, not a scattering.
The line about the Ethiopians, the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir is a deliberate flattening of Israel's exceptionalism. God says he ran their migrations too. Israel's exodus was not the only journey he directed.
The booth of David is a humble word. It is the same term used for the temporary shelter of branches a family lived in during the Feast of Tabernacles, and for a watchman's hut in a vineyard. David's royal house is pictured not as a fallen palace but as a collapsed shack, and it is the shack God says he will raise up and repair.
What it meant to them
The closing harvest picture would have made a farmer laugh out loud. The ploughman overtakes the reaper and the treader of grapes the one sowing seed, the seasons run into each other because the crop is so heavy the work never finishes. Mountains dripping sweet wine is the same joke, told bigger.
This is the passage James stood up and quoted at the council in Jerusalem, when the question was whether Gentiles belonged in the church without becoming Jews first. The rebuilt booth of David exists so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, all the nations called by his name. The final promise, that they will be planted on their own land and never again uprooted, still waits for the King who will keep it.
Sources cited
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
Amos 9 falls in Five visions and restoration promise (chapters 7–9). Locusts, fire, plumb line, summer fruit, the LORD at the altar. Amaziah the priest expels Amos from Bethel; the book ends with the tabernacle of David raised up (9:11, cited in Acts 15:16).
The tabernacle of David. ‘In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen’ (9:11), cited in Acts 15:16.
Before it: Sermons against Israel, chapters 3–6.
The whole shape of Amos→The structure of this chapter
People2
Places2
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. No place to hide, from Sheol to the top of Carmel
1. (v. 1)
Amos 9:1
“I saw the Lord - He saw God in vision; yet God no more, as before, asked him what he saw. God no longer shows him emblems of the destruction, but the destruction itself. Since Amos had just been speaking of the idolatry of Samaria, as the ground of its utter destruction, doubtless this vision of such utter destruction of the place of worship, with and upon the worshipers, relates to those same idolaters and idoltries . True, the condenmation of Israel would become the condemnation of Judah, when Judah’s sins, like Israel’s, should become complete.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Amos 9:1
“Let us now see the design of the vision. The greater part of interpreters think that the destruction of the kingdom and of the priesthood is predicted here, at the time when Zedekiah was taken and led ignominiously into exile, and when his children were killed, and when afterwards the temple was erased and the city demolished.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Amos 9:1
“He demands many victims on the altar, but they are to be human victims. CALVIN and FAIRBAIRN, and others, make it in the temple at Jerusalem. Judgment was to descend both on Israel and Judah.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Smite the lintel of the door: The fifth and last vision moves the Lord himself onto the altar, ordering the temple struck at its lintel so the posts shake and the building comes down on the worshippers under it, all of them, the last of them, with none who flees getting away and none who escapes being delivered. The bench reads the setting at the altar as the sharpest picture yet of the false worship the book has attacked since chapter 4, judgment breaking out from the very place the people trusted for safety rather than from an enemy at the border.
2. (vv. 2-4)
Amos 9:2
“Nay, he that escapes of them, that thinks he has gained his point, shall not be delivered. Evil pursues sinners, and will arrest them. This is here enlarged upon by showing that wherever sinners flee for shelter from God's justice, it will overtake them, and the shelter will prove but a refuge of lies.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Amos 9:3
“He had contrasted heaven and hell, as places impossible for man to reach; as I David says, “If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there: If l make my bed in hell, behold Thee” Psa 139:8. Now, of places in a manner accessible, he contrasts Mount Carmel, which rises abruptly out of the sea, with depths of that ocean which it overhangs. Carmel was in two ways a hiding place.”
Amos 9:4
“I will set mine eyes upon them for evil - I will use that very providence against them which before worked for their good. Should they look upward, they shall see nothing but the terrible lightning-like eye of a sin-avenging God.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 9:4
“His eyes are in every place, are upon all men and upon all the ways of men, upon some for good, to show himself strong on their behalf, but upon others for evil, to take notice of their sins ( Job xiii. 27 ) and take all opportunities of punishing them for their sins.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Though they dig into hell: Four directions are named and each is closed: dig into hell and the Lord's hand reaches there, climb to heaven and he brings them down, hide in the top of Carmel and he searches them out, hide in the bottom of the sea and he commands the serpent to bite them, go into captivity and he commands the sword to follow. The bench reads the four-fold sweep as a deliberate answer to any hope of escape by height, depth, wilderness or exile, and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good reverses the covenant blessing of eyes upon the land for good, the same divine attention now working the other way.
B. The God who builds his chambers in heaven sifts Israel
1. (vv. 5-6)
Amos 9:5
“And who is He who should do this? God, at whose command are all creatures. This is the hope of His servants; from where Hezekiah begins his prayer, “Lord of hosts, God of Israel” Isa 37:16. This is the hopelessness of His enemies. “That toucheth the land” or “earth, and it shall melt,” rather, “hath melted.” His Will and its fulfillment are one. “He spake, and it was; He commanded and it stood fast” Psa 33:9. His Will is first, as the cause of what is done; in time they co-exist.”
Amos 9:6
“And he hath founded his troop in the earth: all the creatures, which are one army, one body; so closely are they connected, and so harmoniously do they all act for the accomplishing of their creator's purposes. Calleth for the waters - Either in judgment to drown, or in mercy to give rain.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:6
“Buildeth his stories in the heaven - There is here an allusion to large houses, where there are cellars, or places dug in the ground as repositories for corn; middle apartments, or stories, for the families to live in; and the house-top for persons to take the air upon.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 9:6
“It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven,.... The three elements, according to Aben Ezra, fire, air, and water; the orbs, as Kimchi, one above another; a word near akin to this is rendered "his chambers", which are the clouds, Psa 104:3; perhaps the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, which are three stories high, may be meant; we read of the third heaven, 2Co 12:2; and particularly the throne of God is in the highest heaven; and the "ascents" (y) to it, as it may be rendered.”
toucheth the land: The third of the book's three doxologies closes the judgment section (after 4:13 and 5:8-9), the Lord who touches the land until it melts and rises like the flood of Egypt, the same image 8:8 already used, now paired with the Lord who builds his stories in the heaven and calls for the waters of the sea. The bench reads the repeated hymn form as the book's own signature, naming the Creator at every hinge so the reader cannot mistake the coming judgment for anything less than the world's own maker acting in it, closed by the same anchor the whole book repeats, The Lord is his name.
2. (v. 7)
Amos 9:7
“Are you not like the children of Ethiopia to me, O sons of Israel, says the Lord? Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from Cyrene? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth: yet will I not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. LXX: Are you not like the children of Ethiopia to me, O sons of Israel, says the Lord?”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Amospatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:7
“Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel! - Their boast and confidence was that they were children of the patriarch, to whom God made the promises.”
Amos 9:7
“The Arabians - A wild, thievish, and servile nation. Have not I brought - And whereas you boast my kindness to you, bringing you out of Egypt, and thereupon conclude, God cannot leave you whom he hath so redeemed; you argue amiss, for this aggravates your sin.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
children of the Ethiopians: Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me strips Israel of any claim to unique privilege on the ground of ethnicity alone: the God who brought Israel from Egypt also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir, each nation's migration his doing. The bench reads the verse as the deliberate undercutting of any presumption that election exempts from judgment, the same exodus language used of Israel's neighbors so the exodus itself cannot be treated as a talisman.
3. (vv. 8-10)
Amos 9:8
“The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom - The kingdom of Israel, peculiarly sinful; and therefore to be signally destroyed by the Assyrians. I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob - The race shall not become extinct: I will reserve them as monuments of my justice, and finally of my mercy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 9:10
“All the sinners of my people - Those who are the boldest and most incredulous; especially they who despise my warnings, and say the evil day shall not overtake nor prevent us; they shall die by the sword. It is no evidence of a man’s safety that he is presumptuously fearless. There is a blessing to him who trembles at God’s word.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 9:10
“All the sinners--answering to the chaff in the image in Am 9:9, which falls on the earth, in opposition "to the grain" that does not "fall." overtake . . . us--"come on us from behind" [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the sinful kingdom: The eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom to destroy it, yet saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob draws the line the whole book has been driving toward, judgment on the kingdom as a political and religious order without the extinction of the people as such. The sifting among all nations like corn in a sieve, yet not the least grain falling upon the earth, is read by the bench as the same distinction in agricultural picture, a scattering that loses no true grain even while the sinners who deny the evil will overtake them die by the sword.
C. Raising up the fallen tabernacle of Davidvv. 11-12
the tabernacle of David: In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen is verified as the passage James quotes at the Jerusalem council, Acts 15:16, as his warrant for receiving the Gentiles called by the Lord's name without circumcision, which is the New Testament's own use of the verse and the note states it as such. The bench reads the fallen tabernacle as David's collapsed dynasty and kingdom, its ruins raised and rebuilt as in the days of old, with the remnant of Edom and all the heathen which are called by my name in verse 12 carrying the same wider reach James draws from it.
Amos 9:11
“After him James spoke as follows: "Men, brethren, Simon hath declared how God did purpose to take from among the Gentiles a people for His name. And thus do the words of the prophets agree, as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, among whom my name has been invoked, saith the Lord, doing these things.”
Irenaeus· written before 202· Against Heresies Book IIIpatristic
4 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:11
“In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen,.... Not in the day of Israel's ruin, but in the famous Gospel day, so often spoken of by the prophets; and this prophecy is referred to the times of the Messiah by the ancient (q) Jews; and one of the names they give him is taken from hence, "Barnaphli" (r), the Son of the fallen. R. Nachman said to R.”
Amos 9:11
“In that day I will raise up - Amos, as the prophets were taught to do, sums up his prophecy of woe with this one full promise of overflowing good. For the ten tribes, in their separate condition, there was no hope, no future. He had pronounced the entire destruction of “the kingdom” of Israel. The ten tribes were, thenceforth, only an aggregate of individuals, good or bad. They had no separate corporate existence. In their spiritual existence, they still belonged to the one family of Israel; and, belonging to it, were heirs of the promises made to it.”
Amos 9:11
“In him God's covenant with David had its accomplishment; and the glory of that house, which was not only sullied, but quite sunk, revived again; the breaches of it were closed and its ruins raised up, as in the days of old; nay, the spiritual glory of the family of Christ far exceeded the temporal glory of the family of David when it was at its height.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Amos 9:11
“Raise up - Bring back out of captivity, and re-establish in their own land, the house of David, and those that adhere to his family. Fallen - By the revolt of the ten tribes. The breaches - Which are in it by that long division.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amos 9:11
- Quoted inActs 15:16“‘After this I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,”
'I will build again the tabernacle of David', James at the Jerusalem Council
Amos 9:12
“That they may possess the remnant of Edom - Bp. Newcome translates this clause as follows: “That the residue of men may seek Jehovah, and all the heathen who are called by my name.” Here, instead of אדום Edom, he reads אדם Adam, men or mankind, which is the reading of the Arabic, and some MSS. of the Syriac, and of Act 15:17. The Pachomian MS. of the Septuagint adds here, ὁπως εκζητησωσι με, that they may seek me.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:12
“The remnant - Left by Nebuchadnezzar. All the heathen - That is, round about. That doth this - But this is also a prophecy of setting up the kingdom of the Messiah, and bringing in the Gentiles.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amos 9:12
“Hence as an act of sovereign grace, fulfilling His promise, it is spoken of God. Proclaim His title as sovereign, "the Lord that doeth this" ("all these things," Ac 15:17, namely, all these and such like acts of sovereign love).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
D. The plowman overtakes the reaper; planted and never plucked upvv. 13-15
the plowman shall overtake the reaper: The closing promise pictures a fertility so continuous that the plowman overtakes the reaper and the treader of grapes the man still sowing, with mountains dropping sweet wine and hills melting in abundance, the picture of covenant blessing without interruption. I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, waste cities rebuilt, vineyards planted and drunk from, and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up keep their own named referent, Israel returned to her own land under the anti-supersessionism ruling, and the book that opened on roaring judgment against the nations closes on the Lord's own oath, saith the Lord thy God.
Amos 9:13
“Behold the days are coming - The Day of the Lord is ever coming on: every act, good or bad, is drawing it on: everything which fills up the measure of iniquity or which “hastens the accomplishment of the number of the elect;” all time hastens it by. “The plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed.” The image is taken from God’s promise in the law; “Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time” Lev 26:5; which is the order of agriculture.”
3 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:13
“Behold the days come - Here is another promise literally of abundant plenty to the returned captives, and mystically of abundant grace poured forth in gospel-days.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amos 9:13
“And the mountains drip sweetness. Therefore, the mountains, as it seems, here he calls the churches of Christ, on account of the loftiness of the doctrines in them, and the excellence of their piety towards God, and because the mountains appear to be covered with various plants, while the churches of Christ have countless heads of saints, like cedars and the tallest trees, which are established by the outlets of spiritual waters.”
Cyril of Alexandria· written before 444· Commentary on Amospatristic
Amos 9:13
“These had been long confined to the vineyard of the Jewish church; divine revelation, and the power that attended it, were to be found only within that enclosure; but in gospel-times the mountains and hills of the Gentile world shall be enriched with these privileges by the gospel of Christ preached, and professed, and received in the power of it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Amos 9:14
“They shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine - When threatened with great evils, Amo 5:11, it is said, “They shall plant pleasant vineyards but shall not drink the wine of them.” Previously to their restoration, they shall labor for others; after their restoration, they shall labor for themselves.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 9:15
“And I will plant them upon their own land - The promises and threatenings of God are, to individuals, conditional upon their continuing to be of that character, to which God annexes those promises or threats. Theodoret: “The God of all often promises, when those who receive the promises, by joying in iniquity hinder those promises from taking effect.”
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 9:15
“Pulled up - On condition that they seek the Lord. This was on God's part with admirable constancy performed through six hundred years, perhaps the longest time of freedom from captivity they ever knew.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amos 9:15
“Two things secure the perpetuity of the church:-- 1. God's grants to it: It is the land which I have given them; and God will confirm and maintain his own grants. The part he has given to his people is that good part which shall never be taken from them; he will not revoke his grant, and all the powers of earth and hell shall not invalidate it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This page carries no textual note on Amos 9. 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; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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