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Selected Verse: Amos 2:4 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Am 2:4 |
King James |
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked: |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
From foreign kingdoms he passes to Judah and Israel, lest it should be said, he was strenuous in denouncing sins abroad, but connived at those of his own nation. Judah's guilt differs from that of all the others, in that it was directly against God, not merely against man. Also because Judah's sin was wilful and wittingly against light and knowledge.
law--the Mosaic code in general.
commandments--or statutes, the ceremonies and civil laws.
their lies--their lying idols (Psa 40:4; Jer 16:19), from which they drew false hopes. The order is to be observed. The Jews first cast off the divine law, then fall into lying errors; God thus visiting them with a righteous retribution (Rom 1:25-26, Rom 1:28; Th2 2:11-12). The pretext of a good intention is hereby refuted: the "lies" that mislead them are "their (own) lies" [CALVIN].
after . . . which their fathers . . . walked--We are not to follow the fathers in error, but must follow the word of God alone. It was an aggravation of the Jews' sin that it was not confined to preceding generations; the sins of the sons rivalled those of their fathers (Mat 23:32; Act 7:51) [CALVIN]. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
For three transgressions of Judah etc. - Rup.: "Here too there is no difference of Jew and Gentile. The word of God, a just judge, spareth no man's person. whom sin joins in one, the sentence of the Judge disjoins not in punishment" Rom 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law, and as many as have signed in the law, shall be judged by the law." Jerome: "Those other nations, Damascus and the rest, he upbraids not for having cast away the law of God, and despised His commandments, for they had not the written law, but that of nature only. So then of them he says, that "they corrupted all their compassions" - and the like. But Judah, who, at that time, had the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had received the law and commandments and judgments and precepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, for that it had "cast aside His law and not kept His commandments;" wherefore it should be punished as it deserved.
And since they rejected and despised these, then, in course, "their lies deceived them," that is, their idols; "lies" on their part who made them and worshiped them for the true God, and "lies" and lying to them, as deceiving their hopes. "For an idol is nothing in the world" Co1 8:4, as neither are all the vanities in the world whereof people make idols, but they deceive by a vain show, as though they were something. Jerome: "They would not have been deceived by their idols, unless they had first rejected the law of the Lord and not done His commandments." They had sinned with a high hand: "despising" and so rejecting the law of God; and so He despised and rejected them, leaving them to be deceived by the lies which they themselves had chosen. So it ever is with man. Man must either "love God's law and hate and abhor lies" Psa 119:163, or he will despise God's law and cleave to lies.
He first in act "despises" God's law, (and whoso does not keep it, despises it,) and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his God. He first chooses willfully his own "lie," that is, whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own "lie" deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves. So, whatever false maxim anyone has adopted against his conscience, whether in belief or practice, to justify what he wills against the will of God, or to explain away what God reveals and he mislikes, stifling and lying to his conscience, in the end deceives his conscience, and at the last, a man believes that to be true, which, before he had lied to his conscience, he knew to be false. The prophet uses a bold word in speaking of man's dealings with his God, "despises." Man carries on the serpent's first fraud, "Hath God indeed said?" Man would not willingly own, that he is directly at variance with the Mind of God. Man, in his powerlessness, at war with Omnipotence, and, in his limited knowledge, with Omniscience! It were too silly, as well as too terrible.
So he smoothes it over to himself, "lying" to himself. "God's word must not be taken so precisely;" "God cannot have meant;" "the Author of nature would not have created us so, if He had meant;" and all the other excuses, by which he would evade owning to himself that he is directly rejecting the Mind of God and trampling it under foot. Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God, and did not keep it; then, he "despised" it. On the one side was God's will, His Eternal Wisdom, His counsel for man for good; on the other, what debasements! On the one side were God's awful threats, on the other, His exceeding promises. Yet man chose whatever he willed, lying to himself, and acting as though God had never threatened or promised or spoken. This ignoring of God's known Will and law and revelation is to despise them, "as effectually as to curse God to His face" Job 2:5. This rejection of God was hereeditary.
Their lies were those "after which their fathers walked," in Egypt and from Egypt onward, in the wilderness (see the note at Amo 5:25-26) , "making the image of the calf of Egypt and worshiping Baalpeor and Ashtoreth and Baalim." Evil acquires a sort of authority by time. People become inured to evils, to which they have been used. False maxims, undisputed, are thought indisputable. They are in possession; and "possession" is held a good title. The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. The descent "of the image of the great goddess Diana from Jupiter" or of the Coran, becomes a "thing" which cannot be spoken against" Act 19:35-36. The "lies after which the fathers walked" deceive the children. The children canonize the errors of their fathers." Human opinon is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as God's truth.
The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, does not excuse it Neh 5:5. "Judah is the Church. In her the prophet reproves whosoever, worshiping his own vices and sins, cometh to have that as a god by which he is overcome; as Peter saith, "Whereby a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" Pe2 2:19. The covetous worshipeth mammon; the glutton, his belly Phi 3:19; the impure, Baalpeor; she who, "living in pleasure, is dead while she liveth" Ti1 5:6, the pleasure in which she liveth." Of such idols the world is full. Every fair form, every idle imagination, everything which gratifies self-love, passion, pride, vanity, intellect, sense, each the most refined or the most debased, is such a "lie," so soon as man loves and regards it more than his God. |
| The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917] |
For three
The judgments on Judah and Israel were fulfilled as to Judah in the 70 years' captivity; as to Israel (the northern kingdom) in the world-wide dispersion which still continues. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
| Judah. - Amo 2:4. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His ordinances, and their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked, Amo 2:5. I send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem." With the announcement that the storm of the wrath of God will also burst upon Judah, Amos prepares the way for passing on to Israel, the principal object of his prophecies. In the case of Judah, he condemns its contempt of the law of its God, and also its idolatry. Toorh is the sum and substance of all the instructions and all the commandments which Jehovah had given to His people as the rule of life. Chuqqı̄m are the separate precepts contained in the thōrâh, including not only the ceremonial commands, but the moral commandments also; for the two clauses are not only parallel, but synonymous. כּזביהם, their lies, are their idols, as we may see from the relative clause, since "walking after" (bâlakh 'achărē) is the standing expression for idolatry. Amos calls the idols lies, not only as res quae fallunt (Ges.), but as fabrications and nonentities ('ĕlı̄hı̄m and hăbhâlı̄m), having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them. The "fathers" who walked after these lies were their forefathers generally, since the nation of Israel practised idolatry even in the desert (cf. Amo 5:26), and was more or less addicted to it ever afterwards, with the sole exception of the times of Joshua, Samuel, David, and part of the reign of Solomon, so that even the most godly kings of Judah were unable to eradicate the worship upon the high places. The punishment threatened in consequence, namely, that Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Lies - Idols. To err - Their idolatry blinded them, partly from the natural tendency of this sin, and partly from the just judgment of God. After which - Idols. Walked - Successively, one generation after another. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
For three transgressions of Judah - We may take the three and four here to any latitude; for this people lived in continual hostility to their God, from the days of David to the time of Uzziah, under whom Amos prophesied. Their iniquities are summed up under three general heads:
1. They despised, or rejected the law of the Lord.
2. They kept not his statutes.
3. They followed lies, were idolaters, and followed false prophets rather than those sent by Jehovah. |
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.
4 Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
6 But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.
19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
5 Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.
35 And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
36 Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly.
25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
163 I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love.
4 As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
5 But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
4 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked: