5. And I will break the bar of Damascus] Damascus will be powerless to resist the besieger. The allusion is to the ‘bars’ of bronze or iron by which the gates of every fortified city were secured (see Deuteronomy 3:5; 1 Kings 4:13), and which, when a city is captured, are spoken of as ‘broken’ (Lamentations 2:9; Jeremiah 51:30), or ‘hewn’ asunder (Isaiah 45:2).

and cut off the inhabitant] better, perhaps (note the parallel clause, him that holdeth the sceptre), as R.V. marg. him that sitteth (enthroned): yâshab (‘to sit’) has sometimes this force, even when standing alone; see Isaiah 10:13 R.V.; Psalm 2:4; Psalm 22:3 (R.V. marg.).

from the plain] Biḳ‘âh (from bâḳa‘, to cleave) is a broad ‘cleft,’ or level (Isaiah 40:4) plain, between mountains: it is applied, for instance, to the plain of Jericho, Deuteronomy 34:3, of Megiddo, Zechariah 12:11, 2 Chronicles 35:22, of Lebanon, Joshua 11:17, i.e. Coele-Syria, the flat and broad plain between the two ranges of Lebanon and Hermon, which is still called (in Arabic) el-Beḳâ‘a, and is probably the plain meant here.

of Aven] or of idolatry. The reference is uncertain. The common supposition is that Amos alludes to the worship of the Sun, carried on at a spot in the plain of Coele-Syria, called by the ancients Heliopolis, and now known as Baalbeḳ,—some sixty miles N.N.E of Dan,—where are still, in a partly ruined state, the massive walls and richly decorated pillars and architraves, of two magnificent temples. These temples, dedicated respectively to Jupiter and the Sun, are not of earlier date than the 2nd cent. a.d.,—the temple of Jupiter having been erected as a wonder of the world, by Antoninus Pius (a.d. 133–161); but the massive substructures are considered to date from a much earlier period, and to bear witness to the fact that a temple of the Sun had stood there from a distant past. According to Macrobius (Sat. 1:23) and Lucian (de Dea Syria § 5—both quoted by Robinson, Bibl. Researches, iii. 518) the worship of the Sun as carried on at Heliopolis in Syria was derived from Heliopolis in Egypt; and upon assumption of the correctness of this statement, it has been supposed that, with the worship of the Sun, the Egyptian name of Heliopolis, Aûnû (Heb. On, Genesis 41:45; Genesis 41:50; Genesis 46:20) may have been brought from Egypt; and further that, as the Egyptian On (און) is punctuated in Ezekiel 30:17—by way of contempt—אָוֶן Aven (i.e. idolatry), so here the Syrian On may have been called, whether by Amos himself, or by the later scribes, Aven. These suppositions are however, mere conjectures. The statements of Macrobius and Lucian may be nothing more than inferences from the fact of two celebrated temples being dedicated to a similar cult; and there is no independent evidence that On was a name of the Syrian Heliopolis. (The LXX. rendering here τὸ πεδίον Ὦν is not proof of it: for they represent On in Gen. and Ezek. by Ἡλιούπολις.) In view of the double fact that Coele-Syria was a biḳ‘âh, or broad vale, and that Baalbek, in this vale, was the old-established seat of an idolatrous worship of the Sun, it is not improbable that Amos may mean to allude to it; possibly, also,—though there is no proof that the place was called On,—the designation ‘Plain of Aven (idolatry)’ may have been suggested to him by the thought of the Egyptian On, just as the nickname Beth-Aven for Beth-el (Hosea 4:1; Hosea 4:5; Hosea 5:8; cf. on ch. Amos 5:5) may have been suggested by the place Beth-Aven in the neighbourhood, a little to the east of Beth-el (Joshua 7:2; Joshua 18:12; 1 Samuel 13:5; 1 Samuel 14:23). But the identification cannot be regarded as certain: Wellhausen doubts even whether in the time of Amos Heliopolis was an Aramaic city.

him that holdeth the sceptre] the σκηπτοῦχος βασιλεὺς of Homer (Il. II. 26; Od. ii. 231): comp. the corresponding Aramaic expression (חטראחז) in the Hadad-inscription (8 cent. b.c.) of Zinjirli, lines 15, 20, 25 (see D. H. Müller, Die altsemitischen Inschriften von Sendschirli, 1893, p. 20 sq., or in the Contemp. Review, April, 1894, p. 572 f.).

from the house of Eden] or from Beth-eden. Another uncertain locality. Interpreted as a Hebrew word, ‘Eden—vocalized ‘eden, not ‘çden, as in the ‘garden of Eden’—would signify ‘pleasure.’ Of the identifications that have been proposed, relatively the most probable are, perhaps, either the modern Ehden, a village situated attractively in a fertile valley about 20 miles N.W. of Baalbek or Bît-Adini, a district mentioned in the Assyrian Inscriptions and lying some 200 miles N.N.E. of Damascus, on the Euphrates. The place intended may have been a summer-residence of the kings of Damascus, or the seat of some king who held his position in dependence upon the king of Damascus. See further the Additional Note, p. 228.

Syria] Heb. Aram, the name borne regularly in the O. T. by the people (and country) whom the classical writers, through a confusion with Assyrian, knew as Syrians and Syria. (See Nöldeke in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lex. s. v. ‘Aram, or in Hermes Amos 1:3, p. 433 ff., and Z.D.M.[115]. 1871, p. 115.) The people calling themselves Aram were very widely diffused over the regions N.E. of Palestine; their different divisions were distinguished by local designations as ‘Aram of Damascus’ 2 Samuel 8:5 f. (also, as the most important branch, called often, as here, ‘Aram’ simply), ‘Aram of Zobah,’ 2 Samuel 10:6; 2 Samuel 10:8; ‘Aram of Maachah,’ 1 Chronicles 19:6; ‘Aram of Beth-Rĕḥôb,’ 2 Samuel 10:6; ‘Aram of the two Rivers’ (i.e. probably between the Euphrates and the Chaboras), Genesis 24:10 : there were also many other tribes which were reckoned as belonging to ‘Aram,’ Genesis 10:23; Genesis 22:20-24. The language spoken by this people is called “Aramaic”; it exists in many dialects, corresponding to the different localities in which it was spoken, as the Palestinian Aramaic of Ezra and Daniel, the Palmyrene Aramaic, the dialects (not all the same) of the various Targums, the Aramaic of Edessa (commonly known as “Syriac,” par excellence), &c. From Amos 9:7 it appears that recollections of the migrations of some of these tribes were retained, and that Aram—i.e., it may be presumed, ‘Aram of Damascus’—came originally from Kir.

[115] .D.M.G … Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.

shall go into captivity] Rather into exile. Though in a passage such as the present there is no appreciable difference between the two ideas, yet gâlâh, the word used here, expresses properly migration from a home, exile; and it is better, where possible, not to confuse it with hâlakh bash-shebî, to go into captivity, or nishbâh, to be taken captive.

unto Kir] In Amos 9:7 stated to have been their original home, which Amos accordingly here declares will be also their place of exile. 2 Kings 16:9 shews how within less than a generation the prophecy was fulfilled. The result of the combined attack of Pekah king of Israel and Rezin king of Damascus upon Judah (2 Kings 16:5 ff.; Isaiah 7) was that Ahaz applied for help to Tiglath-pileser, who, responding to the appeal, attacked Damascus, slew Rezin, and carried away the people into exile to Kir.

The brief notice of the book of Kings may be supplemented by the details given in the annals of Tiglath-pileser. From these we learn that in his 13th year (b.c. 733), the king laid siege to Damascus, and that in (probably) the following year (b.c. 732), after ravaging the surrounding country, he took the city, and carried large numbers of its inhabitants into exile. The place to which they were deported is not, however, mentioned in the existing (mutilated) text of the Inscriptions. The situation of Kir is very uncertain. A people of the same name is mentioned in Isaiah 22:6 beside Elam, as supplying a contingent in the Assyrian army. It is generally supposed to have been the district about the river Kur, which flows into the Caspian Sea on the N. of Armenia; but (Schrader in Riehm, H.W.B., s.v.) this region does not seem to have formed part of the Assyrian dominions in the time of either Tiglath-pileser, or Sennacherib; the k in the Assyrian Kurru (Kur) is also not the same as the ḳ (q) in ḳir. Others (as Furrer in Schenkel’s Bibel-lex.; Dillm. on Isaiah 22:6) think of the place called by the Greeks Cyrrhus (now Kuris) about 30 miles N.E. of Antioch, which gave to the surrounding region the name of Cyrrhestica. Some region more remote from Damascus itself appears however to be required by the allusions in Amos; Cyrrhus, moreover, there is reason to suppose (Schrader, l.c.), was only so called by the Greeks after a place of the same name in Macedonia.

Additional Note on Chap. Amos 1:5 (‘Eden)

The following are the principal identifications that have been proposed for ‘Eden (or Beth-‘eden). (1) ‘Edçn, as it is called in Syriac, or ’Ehden, as it is called in Arabic, a village some 20 miles N.W. of Baalbek, on the opposite (N. W.) slope of Lebanon, attractively situated on the side of a rich and highly-cultivated valley, near the cedars, described by Amira—the author of the first Syriac grammar published in Europe (1596, p. 59), whose native place it was—as “loci situ, aquarum copia, terrae fertilitate, aeris temperie, in toto Libano praestantissima; unde non immerito tali nomine est nuncupata” (quoted by Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, col. 2810). The accounts given by modern travellers fully bear out this description: Lord Lindsay, for instance (cited by Dr Pusey) speaks of the slopes of the valleys about it as “one mass of verdure,” with “the springs of Lebanon gushing down, fresh, cool, and melodious, in every direction.” The place is said to be at present a favourite summer resort for the wealthier inhabitants of Tripoli. (2) Bêt-jenn, at the foot (E.) of Anti-Libanus, about 12 miles N.E. of Banias, and 25 miles S.S.W. of Damascus, watered by the Nahr-jennâni, which, flowing down from Anti-Libanus, forms one of the two sources of the A‘waj (the Pharpar), the second great river near Damascus (Porter, Damascus, ed. 2, p. 117 sq.). (3) Jubb ‘Adin, a village situated in the hills, about 25 miles N.E. of Damascus, and 20 miles S.E. of Baalbek. (4) The place called by the Greeks Paradisus, identified by Robinson (B.R[213] III. 544, 556) with old-Jûsieh, far up the valley of Coele-Syria, near Riblah, some 30 miles N.E. of Baalbek—a spot described as being now, at any rate, remarkably “dreary and barren” (Porter, Handbook to Palestine, p. 577). (5) The ‘Eden of Ezekiel 27:23, 2 Kings 19:12 (= Isaiah 37:12), which Schrader (K.A.T[214][215] p. 327) is disposed to identify with the Bît-Adini, often mentioned in the Inscriptions of Asshurnazirpal and Shalmaneser II., a district lying on both sides of the Euphrates, in the middle part of its course, between Bâlis and Biredschik, some 200 miles N.N.E. of Damascus.

[213] .R. … Edw. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine (ed. 2, 1856).

[214] .A.T. … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[215] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

None of these identifications can be regarded as certain: and the grounds upon which some of them have been suggested are very insufficient. The name Bêt-jenn, for instance, was formerly supposed to be Bêt el-janne, i.e. “house, or place, of the garden (Paradise),” which bore the appearance of being an Arabic translation of Beth-‘eden; but this supposition appears not to be correct[216]. The Greek—or ultimately Persian—word Paradisus, again, does not mean a ‘Paradise,’ in our sense of the term, but merely an enclosed park. Jubb ‘Adin would seem to be a place of too little note to have been signalized by the prophet in such a connexion. On the whole, either (1) or (5) appears to be, relatively, the most probable. Bît-Adini (5) might indeed be thought to be too distant from Damascus; but it has been observed that thirty-two kings are mentioned as being in alliance with Ben-hadad (I.), in 1 Kings 20:1; 1 Kings 20:16, and twelve ‘kings of the land of the Hittites,’ or of the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, are mentioned as allies of the same king by Shalmaneser II. (K.A.T[217][218], pp. 202, 203); hence the allusion may not impossibly be to one or other of the subordinate kings who held rule under the suzerainty of the king of Damascus, and who, the prophet declares, will be involved with him in his fall. Perhaps there were various Aramaean settlements in Coele-Syria and Mesopotamia governed in this way; and the “plain of Aven” and “Eden”—whether this be the Syrian ‘Edçn, or Bît-adini—may have been mentioned as representing these. Others have supposed the allusion to be to a summer residence of the kings of Damascus themselves. It is impossible to speak more definitely for lack of the necessary data. We must be content to know that some place or other, connected politically with Damascus, and, no doubt, prominent at the time, is intended by the prophet.

[216] See Robinson, B.R. iii. 447; Porter, Damascus, l. c.; Socin in Bädeker’s Palästina und Syrien, ed. 2, p. 283; all of whom write Bêt-jenn.

[217] .A.T. … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[218] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

Verse 5. - The bar which secured the gate of the city (1 Kings 4:13; Jeremiah 51:30; Nahum 3:13). Breaking the bar is equivalent to laying the place open to the enemy. From the plain of Avon; Vulgate, de campo idoli; Hebrew, bikath-Aven; Septuagint, ἐκ πεδίου Ων; better, from the valley of Aven, or vanity, perhaps so called analogously with Hosea's naming Bethel, Bethaven, "House of God" and "House of vanity" (Hosea 5:8). Robinson ('Bibl. Res.,' 677) and Pusey refer the name to a valley between Lebanon and Antilibanus, a continuation of the Arabah, still called Bukaa, in the middle of which stood Baalbec, "the Temple of the sun of the valley," called Heliopolis by Greek and Roman writers (see 'Classical Museum,' 3:136). The LXX. Renders "On" in Genesis 41:45 by "Heliopolis;" and On and Baal being both titles of the sun, and indeed synonymous, the introduction of "On" into this passage may be accounted for. Him that holdeth the sceptre. The king and princes, as ver. 8. From the house of Eden; Hebrew, Beth-Eden, "House of delight;" Vulgate, de domo voluptatis; Septuagint, ἐξ ἀνδρῶν Ξαῥῤάν, "out of the men of Charran." This last rendering arises from considering that the reference was to the Eden of Genesis 2, which the translators placed in the region of Haran. The place in the text Keil supposes to be the Paradisus of the Greeks, which Ptolemy (5:15, 20) locates southeast of Laodicea. Schrader suggests a place on the banks of the middle Euphrates between Balis and Biredschich called Bit-Adini in inscriptions of Asurnasirhabal and Salmanassur II. But this seems to be a wrong locality (see 'Die Keilinschriften,' p. 327). The passage means that all the inhabitants of valley and city, king and peasant, shall be cut off. Shall go into captivity. The word implies that the land shall be "stripped" or "bared" of its inhabitants. Wholesale deportation had not hitherto been common in these regions. Kir has been identified with the country on the banks of the river Kar, which flows into the Araxes on the southwest of the Caspian Sea. It forms part of the territory known as Transcaucasia. From this region the Syrians originally emigrated (Amos 9:7), and back to this land a large body were carried when Tiglath-Pileser, some fifty years later, killed Rezin and sacked Damascus, as related in 2 Kings 16:9. Saith the Lord. This is the solemn confirmation of the prophet's announcement, and recurs in vers. 8, 15 and Amos 2:3. Amos 1:5Aram-Damascus. - Amos 1:3. "Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have threshed Gilead with iron rollers, Amos 1:4. I send fire into the house of Hazael, and it will eat the palaces of Ben-hadad, Amos 1:5. And break in pieces the bolt of Damascus, and root out the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and the sceptre-holder out of Beth-eden: and the people of Aram will wander into captivity to Kir, saith Jehovah." In the formula, which is repeated in the case of every people, "for three transgressions, and for four," the numbers merely serve to denote the multiplicity of the sins, the exact number of which has no bearing upon the matter. "The number four is added to the number three, to characterize the latter as simply set down at pleasure; in other words, it is as much as to say that the number is not exactly three or four, but probably a still larger number" (Hitzig). The expression, therefore, denotes not a small but a large number of crimes, or "ungodliness in its worst form" (Luther; see at Hosea 6:2)

(Note: J. Marck has correctly explained it thus: "When this perfect number (three) is followed by four, by way of gradation, God not only declares that the measure of iniquity is full, but that it is filled to overflowing and beyond all measure.").

That these numbers are to be understood in this way, and not to be taken in a literal sense, is unquestionably evident from the fact, that nit he more precise account of the sins which follows, as a rule, only one especially grievous crime is mentioned by way of example. לא אשׁיבנּוּ (I will not reverse it) is inserted before the more minute description of the crimes, to show that the threat is irrevocable. השׁיב signifies to turn, i.e., to make a thing go back, to withdraw it, as in Numbers 23:20; Isaiah 43:13. The suffix attached to אשׁיבנּוּ refers neither to qōlō (his voice), nor "to the idea of דּבר which is implied in כּה אמר (thus saith), or the substance of the threatening thunder-voice" (Baur); for hēshı̄bh dâbhâr signifies to give an answer, and never to make a word ineffectual. The reference is to the punishment threatened afterwards, where the masculine stands in the place of the neuter. Consequently the close of the verse contains the epexegesis of the first clause, and Amos 1:4 and Amos 1:5 follow with the explanation of לא אשׁיבנו (I will not turn it). The threshing of the Gileadites with iron threshing-machines is mentioned as the principal transgression of the Syrian kingdom, which is here named after the capital Damascus (see at 2 Samuel 8:6). This took place at the conquest of the Israelitish land to the east of the Jordan by Hazael during the reign of Jehu (2 Kings 10:32-33, cf. 2 Kings 13:7), when the conquerors acted so cruelly towards the Gileadites, that they even crushed the prisoners to pieces with iron threshing-machines, according to a barbarous war-custom that is met with elsewhere (see at 2 Samuel 12:31). Chârūts ( equals chârı̄ts, 2 Samuel 12:31), lit., sharpened, is a poetical term applied to the threshing-roller, or threshing-cart (mōrag chârūts, Isaiah 41:15). According to Jerome, it was "a kind of cart with toothed iron wheels underneath, which was driven about to crush the straw in the threshing-floors after the grain had been beaten out." The threat is individualized historically thus: in the case of the capital, the burning of the palaces is predicted; and in that of two other places, the destruction of the people and their rulers; so that both of them apply to both, or rather to the whole kingdom. The palaces of Hazael and Benhadad are to be sought for in Damascus, the capital of the kingdom (Jeremiah 49:27). Hazael was the murderer of Benhadad I, to whom the prophet Elisha foretold that he would reign over Syria, and predicted the cruelties that he would practise towards Israel (2 Kings 8:7.). Benhadad is generally regarded as his son; but the plural "palaces" leads us rather to think of both the first and second Benhadad, and this is favoured by the circumstance that it was only during his father's reign that Benhadad II oppressed Israel, whereas after his death, and when he himself ascended the throne, the conquered provinces were wrested from him by Joash king of Israel (2 Kings 13:22-25). The breaking of the bar (the bolt of the gate) denotes the conquest of the capital; and the cutting off of the inhabitants of Biq‛ath-Aven indicates the slaughter connected with the capture of the towns, and not their deportation; for hikhrı̄th means to exterminate, so that gâlâh (captivity) in the last clause applies to the remainder of the population that had not been slain in war. In the parallel clause תּומך שׁבם, the sceptre-holder, i.e., the ruler (either the king or his deputy), corresponds to yōshēbh (the inhabitant); and the thought expressed is, that both prince and people, both high and low, shall perish.

The two places, Valley-Aven and Beth-Eden, cannot be discovered with any certainty; but at any rate they were capitals, and possibly they may have been the seat of royal palaces as well as Damascus, which was the first capital of the kingdom. בּקעת און, valley of nothingness, or of idols, is supposed by Ewald and Hitzig to be a name given to Heliopolis or Baalbek, after the analogy of Beth-aven equals Bethel (see at Hosea 5:8). They base their opinion upon the Alex. rendering ἐκ πεδίου Ὦν, taken in connection with the Alex. interpretation of the Egyptian On (Genesis 41:45) as Heliopolis. But as the lxx have interpreted אן by Heliopolis in the book of Genesis, whereas here they have merely reproduced the Hebrew letters און by Ὦν, as they have in other places as well (e.g., Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 10:5, Hosea 10:8), where Heliopolis cannot for a moment be thought of, the πέδιον Ὦν of the lxx furnishes no evidence in favour of Heliopolis, still less does it warrant an alteration of the Hebrew pointing (into און). Even the Chaldee and Syriac have taken בּקעת און as a proper name, and Ephraem Syrus speaks of it as "a place in the neighbourhood of Damascus, distinguished for idol-chapels." The supposition that it is a city is also favoured by the analogy of the other threatenings, in which, for the most part, cities only are mentioned. Others understand by it the valley near Damascus, or the present Bekaa between Lebanon and Antilibanus, in which Heliopolis was always the most distinguished city, and Robinson has pronounced in favour of this (Bibl. Res. p. 677). Bēth-‛Eden, i.e., house of delight, is not to be sought for in the present village of Eden, on the eastern slope of Lebanon, near to the cedar forest of Bshirrai, as the Arabic name of this village 'hdn has nothing in common with the Hebrew עדן (see at 2 Kings 19:12); but it is the Παράδεισος of the Greeks, which Ptolemy places ten degrees south and five degrees east of Laodicea, and which Robinson imagines that he has found in Old Jusieh, not far from Ribleh, a place belonging to the times before the Saracens, with very extensive ruins (see Bibl. Researches, pp. 542-6, and 556). The rest of the population of Aram would be carried away to Kir, i.e., to the country on the banks of the river Kur, from which, according to Amos 9:7, the Syrians originally emigrated. This prediction was fulfilled when the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser conquered Damascus in the time of Ahaz, and broke up the kingdom of Syria (2 Kings 16:9). The closing words, 'âmar Yehōvâh (saith the Lord), serve to add strength to the threat, and therefore recur in Amos 1:8, Amos 1:15, and Amos 2:3.

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