Amos 8:10
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I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The Ripeness of Israel for Judgment - Amo 8:1-14 Under the symbol of a basket filled with ripe fruit, the Lord shows the prophet that Israel is ripe for judgment (Amo 8:1-3); whereupon Amos, explaining the meaning of this vision, announces to the unrighteous magnates of the nation the changing of their joyful feasts into days of mourning, as the punishment from God for their unrighteousness (Amo 8:4-10), and sets before them a time when those who now despise the word of God will sigh in vain in their extremity for a word of the Lord (Amo 8:11-14).
Open source ↗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.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.
Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
When he has filled his stomach, God will vent His fury upon him, raining it down on him as he eats.
For every head is shaved and every beard is clipped; on every hand is a gash, and around every waist is sackcloth.
They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.
I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths— all her appointed feasts.
For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard— like stubble that is fully dry.
May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.
“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”
And you shall rejoice in your feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.