Amos 8:7

Such wickedness as this would be severely punished by the Lord. Amo 8:7. "Jehovah hath sworn by the pride of Jacob, Verily I will not forget all their deeds for ever. Amo 8:8. Shall the earth not tremble for this, and every inhabitants upon it mourn? and all of it rises like the Nile, and heaves and sinks like the Nile of Egypt." The pride of Jacob is Jehovah, as in Hos 5:5 and Hos 7:10. Jehovah swears by the pride of Jacob, as He does by His holiness in Amo 4:2, or by His soul in Amo 6:8, i.e., as He who is the pride and glory of Israel: i.e., as truly as He is so, will He and must He punish such acts as these. By overlooking such sins, or leaving them unpunished, He would deny His glory in Israel. שׁכח, to forget a sin, i.e., to leave it unpunished. In Amo 8:8 the negative question is an expression denoting strong assurance. "For this" is generally supposed to refer to the sins; but this is a mistake, as the previous verse alludes not to the sins themselves, but to the punishment of them; and the solemn oath of Jehovah does not contain so subordinate and casual a thought, that we can pass over Amo 8:7, and take על זאת as referring back to Amo 8:4-6. It rather refers to the substance of the oath, i.e., to the punishment of the sins which the Lord announces with a solemn oath. This will be so terrible that the earth will quake, and be resolved, as it were, into its primeval condition of chaos. Râgaz, to tremble, or, when applied to the earth, to quake, does not mean to shudder, or to be shocked, as Rosenmller explains it after Jer 2:12. Still less can the idea of the earth rearing and rising up in a stormy manner to cast them off, which Hitzig supports, be proved to be a biblical idea from Isa 24:20. The thought is rather that, under the weight of the judgment, the ear…

Sinful times are here attended with sorrowful times, so necessary is the connexion between them; it is threatened here again and again that the laughter shall be turned into mourning. I. By the vision of "basket of summer-fruit" is signified the hastening on of the ruin threatened (Amo 8:1-3) and that shall change their note. II. Oppressors are here called to an account for their abusing the poor; and their destruction is foretold, which will set them a mourning (Amo 8:4-10). III. A famine of the word of God is here made the punishment of a people that go a whoring after other gods (Amo 8:11-14); yet for this, which is the most mournful judgment of all, they are not here brought in mourning.

8:7 the Pride of Israel: The same Hebrew phrase alludes in 6:8 to Israel’s arrogance. Here, the phrase is probably a name for God, who is the legitimate object of Israel’s pride. Elsewhere (Ps 47:4; Nah 2:2), this phrase refers to the Promised Land under a king from David’s line (cp. Jer 13:9; Ezek 32:12). If the phrase here means the land, it would spotlight Israel’s perverse pride in its national and geographic identity.