8. The contemplation of such strange moral obliquity excites the prophet’s indignation, which finds expression in the oath (cf. Amos 4:2, Amos 8:7), in which Jehovah solemnly affirms that He abhors Israel.

by himself] Lit. by his soul: the same oath, Jeremiah 51:14 only. (Jehovah’s ‘soul,’ Isaiah 1:14; Isaiah 42:1, Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 6:8 al.)

abhor] From being Israel’s guardian and protector He is turned into its foe. Comp. for the general thought Deuteronomy 28:63; Hosea 5:12; Hosea 5:14; Hosea 13:7 f.; Isaiah 63:10; and below, ch. Amos 9:4.

excellency] pride,—whether of Israel’s vain-glorious temper itself (Isaiah 9:9), or of the objects of which it is proud, its affluence, material splendour, military efficiency, &c. The word will bear either sense: see (a) Hosea 5:5; Hosea 7:10, Isaiah 16:6; and (b) Nahum 2:3, Psalm 47:4, Zechariah 9:6. On the feeble and very inadequate rendering ‘excellency,’ see the Additional Note, p. 238.

his palaces] in which Israel’s pride is only too manifest; the homes of the nonchalant nobles, founded on oppression (cf. Jeremiah 22:13-17, of Jehoiakim), and enriched by what had been wrung from the indigent (cf. ch. Amos 3:10).

and I will deliver up &c.] As in Amos 2:14-16, Amos 3:11 f., Amos 4:2 f., Amos 5:16, there rises before the prophet’s eye a vision of invasion, one of the accompaniments of which would be naturally the siege of the strong cities.

Additional Note on Chap. Amos 6:8 (excellent, excellency)

The words excellency and excellent are unfortunately, to the great detriment of the sense, used frequently in both the Authorized and the Revised Versions, to represent various Hebrew words expressive of majesty, pride, glory[230]. Excellency is thus used (as here) for gâ’ôn, majesty, pride (in a good or a bad sense according to the context), in Exodus 15:7 (“in the greatness of thy majesty (cognate with the verb rendered ‘hath triumphed gloriously’ in v. 1, 21; lit. hath risen up majestically) thou overthrowest them that rise up against thee”); Isaiah 13:19 (A.V. pride), Isaiah 60:15 (“an everlasting pride”); Ezekiel 24:21 (R.V. pride, as Leviticus 26:19 in A.V., in the same phrase); Amos 8:7; Nahum 2:2; Psalm 47:4; Job 37:4 (R.V. majesty); for ga’ăwâh, majesty, Deuteronomy 33:26; Deuteronomy 33:29, Psalm 68:34; for gôbah, loftiness, Job 40:10 (R.V. dignity, using ‘excellency’ for gâ’ôn); for hâdâr, splendour, glory, Isaiah 35:2 (‘the splendour of Carmel,’ ‘the splendour of our God’); and excellent for gâ’ôn, Isaiah 4:2 (read this verse, “In that day shall the sprouting of Jehovah be for an ornament and for a glory, and the fruit of the land for majesty and for beauty, to them that escape of Israel,” and it both expresses more exactly the original, and also exhibits more clearly the prophet’s thought that a true glory is to take the place of the false glory which, as ch. 2, 3 has shewn, is to vanish away); for gç’ûth, also majesty, Isaiah 12:5 (R.V. marg. gloriously); for ’addîr, noble or glorious, Psalm 8:1; Psalm 8:9 (“How glorious is thy name in all the earth!”), Psalm 16:3 (the saints of God are the nobles, in whom the Psalmist delights), Psalm 76:4 (“all-bright (?)[231] art thou, and glorious, (coming down) from the mountains of prey”); for nisgâb, exalted (so R.V.), Psalm 148:13 : in the Prayer-Book Version of the Psalms, it stands similarly for ’addîr, Psalm 8:1; Psalm 8:9, for nikbâdôth, ‘glorious things,’ Psalm 87:2, for nisgâb, exalted, Psalm 139:5 (i.e. here, too high for me), Psalm 148:12 : cf. excel for ’addîr, Psalm 16:3. These renderings are the more to be regretted, as the Hebrew words in question are elsewhere expressed quite correctly: thus gâ’ôn is pride in A.V., R.V., of Isaiah 23:9, Jeremiah 13:9 (‘the pride of Judah’), Hosea 5:5; Hosea 7:10, Zechariah 9:6; Zechariah 10:11 &c.; majesty in Isaiah 2:10; Isaiah 2:19; Isaiah 2:21, Micah 5:4; gç’ûth is majesty, Isaiah 26:10, Psalm 93:1;’addîr is glorious in Isaiah 33:21 (R.V. in majesty); noble, Jeremiah 14:3; Jeremiah 30:21 (R.V. here prince), and the cognate verb is glorious in Exodus 15:6; Exodus 15:11; hâdâr is majesty in Psalm 21:6; Psalm 29:4; Psalm 96:6 and frequently; and nisgâb is constantly exalted (as Isaiah 2:11; Isaiah 2:17 &c.), and with name (exactly as Psalm 148:13), Isaiah 12:4Verse 8. - Hath sworn by himself (nephesh); in anima sua (Vulgate), "by his soul;" a concession to human language (comp. Amos 4:2; Jeremiah 51:14; Hebrews 6:13, 17, 18). God thus shows that the threat proceeds from him, and is immutable. The excellency; the pride (ὕβριν, Septuagint; superbiam, Vulgate); that of which Jacob is proud (Hosea 5:5), as, for instance, his palaces, built by exaction, maintained in voluptuous luxury. Will deliver up to the enemy for destruction (Deuteronomy 32:30; Obadiah 1:14). Amos 6:8This threat is carried out still further in Amos 6:8-11. Amos 6:8. "The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by Himself, is the saying of Jehovah, the God of hosts: I abhor the pride of Jacob, and his palaces I hate; and give up the city, and the fulness thereof. Amos 6:9. And it will come to pass, if then men are left in a house, they shall die. Amos 6:10. And when his cousin lifts him up, and he that burieth him, to carry out the bones out of the house, and saith to the one in the hindermost corner of the house, Is there still any one with thee? and he says, Not one; then will he say, Hush; for the name of Jehovah is not to be invoked. Amos 6:11. For, behold, Jehovah commandeth, and men smite the great house to ruins, and the small house into shivers." In order to show the secure debauchees the terrible severity of the judgments of God, the Lord announces to His people with a solemn oath the rejection of the nation which is so confident in its own power (cf. Amos 6:13). The oath runs here as in Amos 4:2, with this exception, that instead of בּקדשׁו we have בּנפשׁו in the same sense; for the nephesh of Jehovah, His inmost being or self, is His holiness. מתאב, with the guttural softened, for מתעב. The participle describes the abhorrence as a continued lasting feeling, and not a merely passing emotion. גּאון יעקב, the loftiness or pride of Jacob, i.e., everything of which Jacob is proud, the true and imaginary greatness and pride of Israel, which included the palaces of the voluptuous great men, for which reason they are placed in parallelism with גאון יע. This glory of Israel Jehovah abhors, and He will destroy it by giving up the city (Samaria), and all that fills it (houses and men), to the enemies to be destroyed. גאון יע, to give up to the enemy, as in Deuteronomy 32:30 and Obadiah 1:14; not to surround, to which וּמלאהּ is unsuitable. The words not only threaten surrounding, or siege, but also conquest, and (Amos 6:11) the destruction of the city. And then, even if there are ten in one house, they will all perish. אנשׁים: people, men. Ten in one house is a large number, which the prophet assumes as the number, to give the stronger emphasis to the thought that not one will escape from death. This thought is still further explained in Amos 6:10. A relative comes into the house to bury his deceased blood-relation. The suffix to נשׂאו refers to the idea involved in מתוּ, a dead man. Dōd, literally the father's brother, here any near relation whose duty it was to see to the burial of the dead. מסרף for משׂרף, the burner, i.e., the burier of the dead. The Israelites were indeed accustomed to bury their dead, and not to burn the corpses. The description of the burier as mesârēph (a burner) therefore supposes the occurrence of such a multitude of deaths that it is impossible to bury the dead, whose corpses are obliged to be burned, for the purpose of preventing the air from being polluted by the decomposition of the corpses. Of course the burning did not take place at the house, as Hitzig erroneously infers from להוציא עצמים; for עצמים denotes the corpse here, as in Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32, and 2 Kings 13:21, and not the different bones of the dead which remained without decomposition or burning. The burier now asks the last living person in the house, who has gone to the very back of the house in order to save his life, whether there is any one still with him, any one still living in the house beside himself, and receives the answer, אפס (Adv.), "Nothing more;" whereupon he says to him, has, "Be still," answering to our Hush! because he is afraid that, if he goes on speaking, he may invoke the name of God, or pray for the mercy of God; and he explains his words by adding, "The name of Jehovah must not be mentioned." It is not Amos who adds this explanation, but the relation. Nor does it contain "the words of one who despairs of any better future, and whose mind is oppressed by the weight of the existing evils, as if he said, Prayers would be of no use, for we too must die" (Lievl., Ros.). לא להזכּיר, "it is not to (may not) be mentioned," would be unsuitable as an utterance of despair. It rather indicates the fear lest, by the invocation of the name of God, the eye of God should be drawn towards this last remaining one, and he also should fall a victim to the judgment of death. This judgment the Lord accomplishes not merely by a pestilence which breaks out during the siege, and rages all around (there is no ground for any such limitation of the words), but also by sword and plague during the siege and conquest of the town. For the reason assigned for the threat in Amos 6:11 points to the latter. כּי links the words to the main thought in Amos 6:11, or even Amos 6:10: "When the Lord delivers up the city and all that fills it, they will all perish; for, behold, He commands, orders the enemy (the nation in Amos 6:14), and it will smite in pieces the houses, great and small." The singular הבּית is used with indefinite generality: every house, great and small (cf. Amos 3:15). Amos 6:8 Interlinear
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