Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God threatens the Israelites that the Assyrians will lift them up on poles and their remnants in boiling pots. Then because of their impure and sacrilegious sacrifices He says He struck them with six plagues, namely famine, drought, burning wind, blight, locusts, and pestilence: finally He nearly overthrew them like Sodom, yet they were made no better by these plagues, nor did they return to Him. Therefore He threatens them with the direst and most extreme punishments and adds: Prepare to meet your God, who creates mountains, winds, clouds, etc.
Vulgate Text: Amos 4:1-13
1. Hear this word, you fat cows who are on the mountain of Samaria: who oppress the needy and crush the poor; who say to your masters: Bring, and let us drink. 2. The Lord God has sworn by His holy one: for behold the days shall come upon you, and they shall lift you up on poles, and your remnants in boiling pots. 3. And you shall go out through the breaches, one opposite another, and you shall be cast into Armon, says the Lord. 4. Come to Bethel, and act wickedly: to Galgala, and multiply transgression: and bring your victims in the morning, your tithes in three days. 5. And sacrifice praise from leaven: and proclaim voluntary offerings, and announce them: for so you wished, children of Israel, says the Lord God. 6. Therefore I also gave you numbness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: and you did not return to Me, says the Lord. 7. I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months until the harvest: and I rained upon one city, and upon another city I did not rain: one part was rained upon, and the part upon which I did not rain dried up. 8. And two and three cities came to one city to drink water, and they were not satisfied: and you did not return to Me, says the Lord. 9. I struck you with burning wind and with blight, the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards: the locust devoured your olive groves and your fig groves: and you did not return to Me, says the Lord. 10. I sent death among you in the way of Egypt, I struck your young men with the sword, even to the captivity of your horses: and I made the stench of your camps rise up into your nostrils: and you did not return to Me, says the Lord. 11. I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became like a firebrand snatched from the burning: and you did not return to Me, says the Lord. 12. Therefore I will do these things to you, Israel: and after I have done these things to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. 13. For behold He who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what His thought is, who makes the morning darkness, and walks upon the high places of the earth: the Lord God of hosts is His name.
Verse 1: 1. HEAR THIS WORD, YOU FAT COWS.
1. HEAR THIS WORD, YOU FAT COWS. — In Hebrew, "cow of Bashan." So the Septuagint, Theodotion, Aquila, and the Hebrews generally. But because the region of Bashan, rich in pastures, nourished fat oxen and cows, as is clear from Deuteronomy 32:14, therefore our translator rightly renders it "fat cows"; and Symmachus, fattened oxen; others, wanton cows. Now Theodoret takes the cows to mean the women of Samaria, wanton, rapacious, and imperious. "He calls them," he says, "cows of Bashan, meaning women overflowing with luxury and pleasures. For such were the cows of Bashan, frolicking because of the abundance of pasture. Hence it came about that they converted the goods of the poorer into their own property (just as the cows grazed the meadows of Bashan), and did not hesitate to command the men to whom they were subject by divine law, and ordered them to be brought to heel: such was Jezebel, using her husband (Ahab) as a slave." So also Lyranus, Arias, and Vatablus. For the cow is a symbol of feminine temperament, wantonness, and licentiousness. Hence Aelian, Book 4, Chapter 45, writes that in Egypt the cow was worshipped together with Venus, because the cow was thought to have an affinity and likeness with the goddess: indeed a cow was sacrificed to Venus in Egypt, says Giraldus in his Syntagma; for, as Columella says, Book 6, "cows, frolicking after their spring fattening and excited by an excess of fodder, are wanton." Moreover, "the cow, even though full with young, is not satisfied in her lust." Therefore Amos here seems to describe the families and households of the wicked, which are "like a congregation of bulls among the cows of the peoples," Psalm 67:31.
Better do St. Jerome, Rufinus, Rupert, Albertus, the Gloss, Hugo, Clarius, and others judge that these words pertain as much, indeed more, to the men than to the women of Samaria: for the men, because they were effeminate, wanton, and shameless, are called cows or heifers of the peoples, Psalm 67:31; Hosea 10:11, and elsewhere. This is clear from what follows: "Behold the days shall come upon you," namely men. For the Hebrew שכם schem is masculine, denoting men: therefore he calls the fat cows of Bashan the wealthy (hence the Chaldean translates: the rich in possessions), and the princes of Samaria, who fed on the goods of the poor, both because they were devoted to gluttony and the belly, and because they were destined for fattening and slaughter. Hear St. Jerome: "He speaks to the princes of Israel and all the nobles of the ten tribes, who were devoted to luxuries and plunder, that they may hear the word of God and know that they are not plowing oxen but fat cows from the herd, or that they are nourished in the pastures of Bashan, which are places most fertile in grasses, and by this he signifies that they are prepared not for agriculture but for sacrifice and eating."
Moreover, why they are called "cow of Bashan," Rufinus gives three reasons. First, that their glory was to end in ignominy; for Bashan in Hebrew means confusion and ignominy. Second, that their human voice was to be changed into a bovine one, that is, into lowing, from pain. Third, because their god was their belly, and they devoted themselves to continual banquets and drinking parties, and therefore, as the Psalmist says: "Their iniquity came forth as from fat." Add a fourth: that they worshipped cows, namely golden calves, as gods. Hence Rupert takes the cows of Bashan to mean the priests of Bethel, who visibly prostrated before the calves they worshipped were like cows; but invisibly they prostituted their souls to infernal bulls, that is, to demons. For these said to the princes: Give us victims and offerings, which we may eat and drink; we in turn will expiate your sins before God, and excuse you before the people.
Tropologically St. Jerome says: The cows of Bashan are heretics addicted to lust and gluttony, as were Luther, Calvin, Bucer, etc. Likewise the wealthy and nobles who are insolent and rapacious, who enrich themselves from the goods of others, especially the poor, and revel in them.
WHO SAY TO YOUR MASTERS (namely kings and princes): BRING, AND LET US DRINK — as if to say: Bring the spoils of the poor, so that we may feast and drink together with you; or, as St. Jerome says: "Give us, and let us drink, that is, just command, and we will devastate everything," that is, we will plunder, says the Chaldean, like lictors, or like drunkards we will swallow everything up. For "by the word 'let us drink,' he signifies their drunkenness in wine and luxury, which overthrow the state of the mind," says St. Jerome.
Tropologically, the same thing is said by unjust lawyers and procurators to judges; by counselors, aldermen, and magistrates to princes and officials, equally wicked. For these like harpies gape after the goods of the people, and swooping upon them distribute them among themselves, and from them arrange lavish banquets and drinking parties. This enormous crime, as it overturns the state, so it provokes the dreadful and certain wrath and vengeance of God. Hence he adds:
1. Hear this word, which I raise over you as a lamentation: The house of Israel has fallen, and it shall not rise again. 2. The virgin Israel has been cast down upon her land; there is none to raise her up. 3. For thus says the Lord God: The city from which a thousand went out shall have a hundred left in it; and that from which a hundred went out shall have ten left in it, in the house of Israel. 4. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek Me, and you shall live. 5. And do not seek Bethel, and do not enter Galgala, and do not cross over to Beersheba: for Galgala shall be led into captivity, and Bethel shall be useless. 6. Seek the Lord, and live: lest the house of Joseph be burned like fire, and it devour, and there be none to quench Bethel. 7. You who turn judgment into wormwood, and abandon justice in the land. 8. He who made Arcturus and Orion, and turns darkness into morning, and changes day into night: who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is His name. 9. He who laughs at devastation upon the strong, and brings destruction upon the powerful. 10. They hated the one who reproved at the gate, and abominated the one who spoke perfectly. 11. Therefore because you plundered the poor and took choice prey from him: you shall build houses of hewn stone and shall not dwell in them; you shall plant most beloved vineyards and shall not drink their wine. 12. For I know your many crimes and your mighty sins: enemies of the just, accepting bribes and oppressing the poor at the gate. 13. Therefore the prudent shall be silent at that time, for it is an evil time. 14. Seek good and not evil, that you may live: and the Lord God of hosts shall be with you, as you have said. 15. Hate evil and love good, and establish judgment at the gate: perhaps the Lord God of hosts will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. 16. Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Ruler: in all the streets there shall be lamentation; and in all places that are outside they shall say: Woe, woe! And they shall call the farmer to mourning, and those who know how to lament to lamentation. 17. And in all vineyards there shall be lamentation: for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. 18. Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want it? That day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. 19. As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him; and he should enter a house and lean his hand upon the wall, and a serpent should bite him. 20. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, and gloom and not brightness in it? 21. I hate and have rejected your festivals, and I will not receive the odor of your assemblies. 22. And if you offer Me burnt offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them; and I will not regard the vows of your fatlings. 23. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, and I will not hear the canticles of your lyre. 24. And judgment shall be revealed like water, and justice like a mighty torrent. 25. Did you offer Me victims and sacrifices in the desert for forty years, O house of Israel? 26. And you carried the tabernacle of your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. 27. And I will cause you to go into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord; God of hosts is His name.
That is, a man having his feet folded together, wearing a robe reaching to the ankles, and that robe golden, bearing a ball on his head, by which the form of the world, its immovable constitution, its roundness, and the variety of the stars are signified, and that all these things are governed and sustained by God, and lead the minds of men to the knowledge of God. For from winds, clouds, mountains, and other created things God is known, as the lion from its claw, as Apelles from a line, as the musician from his voice, as the poet from his verse. Whence St. Augustine, Epistle 28, teaches that this world is God's song and canticle. "If a man," he says, "who is a skilled craftsman of song, knows what lengths to assign to which notes, so that what is sung, with sounds succeeding and departing, may run and pass most beautifully: how much more does God not permit any intervals of time in things being born and perishing — which are like syllables and words belonging to the particles of this age — to pass by in this quasi-wondrous canticle of passing things, either more briefly or more lengthily than the preconceived and predetermined rhythm requires?" Moreover, St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15, teaches that God is designated by wind, on account of the natural power of moving and animating, and the swift and unconquerable departure, and the unknown and invisible hiding places of noble beginnings and ends. In like manner, Eusebius, in the place cited, teaches that the Egyptians, to signify God's providence, depicted the sun surrounded by rays in a ship, which was being carried against the current of the river, driven by oars and sails, and was being borne along by a crocodile lying beneath it. For thus God, like a helmsman, steers this ship of the world, and tames and governs all the animals and inanimate things in it, however fierce, dreadful, and vast they may be. Again, God is the ruler of the seasons like the sun, which, as Lucanus says in book 12:
He divides the seasons of the age, Changes day with night, and with His powerful rays Forbids the stars to go, and stays their wandering courses at their station.
Finally, St. Paulinus, on the 9th Birthday of St. Felix: God is the maker of all nature and art, in every Work the fount and end, making good things, and preserving what He has made.
Eusebius adds another hieroglyphic of God.
And chapter 43:15: 'The treasuries were opened, and clouds flew out like birds.' And chapter 1:6, it is said of Simon the priest: 'Like the morning star in the midst of a cloud.'
WALKING UPON THE HIGH PLACES OF THE EARTH — that is, upon the highest mountains, and rocks and crags inaccessible and impassable to men, meaning: God pervades and transcends all earthly things, however lofty and inaccessible, with His majesty, and contains and governs them with His providence, so that He can stir up winds and storms, pour out clouds upon His proud and impious enemies, transfer mountains, and cast them down into valleys, meaning: God is the one who produces, tempers, and rules the mountains, winds, lightning, thunder, and all sublunary things, as well as celestial ones. Whence all creatures are the armies of God, who obey Him at His nod, and are always ready for Him, so that at His command they may be directed and may attack and overthrow His enemies and the impious. So say St. Jerome, Albertus, Clarius, and others. Hear St. Jerome: "Prepare yourself," he says, "to meet your God, so that you may receive the Lord coming to you with all eagerness. He it is who makes firm the thunder, or confirms the mountains: at whose voice the hinges of heaven and the foundations of the earth are shaken. He it is who creates the spirit." Wherefore Timaeus the Pythagorean calls God "the exemplar world." For just as the world with its embrace encircles and binds all things, so also does God. For He is the greatest and most universal nature, everywhere present, seeing and hearing all things, containing all things, yet contained by the compass of nothing. He Himself is the uncreated world of wisdom, holiness, intelligence, life, reasons, forms — the cause, fount, creator, and ruler of all other things. Wherefore the Egyptians, says Eusebius, book 3 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 117, depict God, whom they call Eneph, in human form, of cerulean color, holding a belt and scepter, and bearing a feather on his head, moreover producing an egg from his mouth. For the shell of the egg exhibits the image of the heaven encircling all things: the yolk represents fire; the air-like substances in the egg represent air; the white represents water; and the more solid parts are a symbol of the earth.
Verse 2: 2. THE LORD GOD HAS SWORN BY HIS HOLY ONE.
2. THE LORD GOD HAS SWORN BY HIS HOLY ONE. — In Hebrew בקדשו becodseo, that is, "by His holiness," that is, by His sanctity: for the Hebrew beth, that is "in," is a mark of swearing. So the Chaldean, Symmachus, and the Hebrews generally, as if to say: God swore by Himself: for He Himself is the supreme and uncreated justice and holiness, which you, O judges and princes, should have imitated and upheld on earth, but now you have violated and overthrown it. Therefore this holiness of God swears that it will be the most fierce avenger of this violation and, if I may say so, sacrilege. So say St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, and others, who moreover offer three other senses. The first is that God swore by His holiness, that is, by His holy temple; the second, by His holy Son; the third, by the holy Prophets. Hence the Septuagint translates: The Lord swore by His holy ones. But what I said at the beginning is the literal and genuine meaning.
FOR BEHOLD THE DAYS SHALL COME UPON YOU, AND THEY SHALL LIFT YOU UP ON POLES. — The Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic have: on weapons; Symmachus: on shields; better Theodotion: on spears, as if to say: The days are at hand when the Assyrians will pierce you, O Samaritans, with their poles and spears. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: He will carry you off with lances. "He preserves the metaphor of cows," says St. Jerome, "so that having said they were fat cows, he might tell that their flesh would be carried on poles or shields." Perhaps he also alludes to the custom of soldiers, namely fierce and savage victors, who carry the heads of the slain on lances as if in triumph, as the Turks do. For a contus is a stake and a longer spear, or an oblong pole of sailors, with which they push and steer a ship. Hence Virgil, Aeneid 5: .... And the sharp point of the pole.
AND YOUR REMNANTS IN BOILING POTS. — The Arabic has: in burning pots; the Syriac: in a hunter's pot; in Hebrew בסירות דוגה besirot duga, that is, in pots for fish, which fishermen keep full of boiling water so that the fresh fish they draw from the sea may be cooked immediately, as if to say: "Just as a boiling cauldron equally envelops small fish, so the cows of Bashan will be overwhelmed by the miseries of captivity without any order," says St. Jerome. Or more precisely and neatly, as if to say: Just as butchers display the heads of oxen and cows they have slaughtered on long poles and staves, so that the people may know what kind and how great a cow was slaughtered and may hasten to buy its flesh; but the remnants, namely the liver, stomach, and intestines, they throw and cook in boiling pots: so also the Assyrian soldiers will display the heads, that is, the nobles of Samaria slain or captured by them, so that from these other nations may infer what kind and how great the people of Samaria were, and how great the slaughter and victory over them: but the remnants, namely the soldiers and citizens who will flee into citadels, fortified cities and houses, or into caves and caverns, in those very places they will burn them like fish in boiling pots. So say Lyranus and Dionysius.
(1) Maurer, after noting that those fat and fierce cows are those wealthy, luxurious, and wanton courtiers about whom the Prophet spoke in chapter 3:9ff. and 15, adds: he calls them cows, not bulls, noting the softness and unbridled character of their morals. Where he uses the feminine ending, he looks to the cows; where the masculine, to those who are signified by the cows.
"For just as Jerusalem," says St. Jerome, "having its peoples shut in and besieged, is likened to a boiling pot full of meat, Ezekiel 24:2, so also the cities of Samaria are compared to boiling pots, which by famine and pestilence compel the shut-in peoples to go out and go into captivity." A Castro adds, as if to say: Their torn bodies, cut into pieces, they will cast into boiling pots, as Antiochus Epiphanes did to the Maccabees, 2 Maccabees 7.
Rupert and Remigius say otherwise, as if to say: The Assyrians will cast the Samaritans confusedly and without any order into Assyrian captivity as into a pot. Secondly, Pagninus, Vatablus, and Clarius explain the Hebrew besirot duga as meaning fishing hooks, as if to say: Just as fishermen extract fish from the sea with hooks, so the Assyrians will extract you from Samaria with their weapons and lead you away into Assyria.
Thirdly, the Chaldean translates: They will lift you up on shields and your daughters in skiffs, or fishing boats, as if to say: By ships that are hollowed out and circular like shields, they will carry you away from Samaria and banish you to Cyprus and other remote islands.
Fourthly, R. Abraham and R. David translate "pots" as thorns; for the Hebrew siroth also signifies these. Now thorns, that is hooks; or thorns, that is poles and lances sharp like thorns, so that in Hebrew fashion the latter half-verse says the same thing as the former; or thorns, that is whips: for tyrants made whips from thorns, which, because they pricked, tore, and ripped the flesh with their barbs, were called scorpions, which the tyrant Rehoboam threatened the people with, saying: "My father beat you with whips; I will beat you with scorpions," 3 Kings 12:14.
Fifthly, Arias translates "on poles" as "in cold regions," and gives the sense, as if to say: The Assyrians will transfer you, O Samaritans, like cows frolicking in summer, to cold and chilly regions, where for food you will have nothing other than cheap little fish, which were formerly given to slaves to eat.
Finally the Septuagint translates: They will take you up with weapons, and those who are with you into boiling pestilent pots; for ἔμπυροι means burning; instead of which some read ἔγεμοι, that is, desolate ones or desolators; the Complutensian text has ἐμπόροι, that is, merchants. Hence they have: They will take you up with weapons and those who are with you into cauldrons of pestilent merchants.
Verse 3: 3. AND THROUGH THE BREACHES (of the wall of Samaria, which will be broken down and opened by the...
3. AND THROUGH THE BREACHES (of the wall of Samaria, which will be broken down and opened by the Assyrians besieging it with battering rams) YOU SHALL GO OUT ONE OPPOSITE ANOTHER — that is, one with another, or one after another, that is, individually, or two and three together, or in turn and in their order, they will go out as captives led away by the Assyrians: so says St. Jerome. Hence the Chaldean translates: They will break down the walls upon you, and lead you out like women, each one before him. He says "one opposite another," that is, one against another; because he persists in the nomenclature of cows, by which he called them in verse 1; for cows are accustomed to be led out in herds through gates, so that two, three, and four go out together, and others follow in equal order and troop. Others say otherwise, as if to say: One cow will go out toward another breach in the wall, as if to say: Each will go out through the breach opposite her, by which he signifies that there will be many breaks in the wall; just as regarding the walls of Jericho collapsing all around, Joshua says in chapter 6:3: "The walls will collapse entirely, and each one will enter through the place opposite which he stood." Hence Vatablus translates: You will go out each one straight ahead, that is, through the breach that first meets you. So also Clarius and Arias.
AND YOU SHALL BE CAST INTO ARMON — as if to say: The Assyrians will lead you away into Armenia, which is adjacent to Assyria. So say St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Symmachus, Remigius, Rupert, Hugo, and Clarius. The Hebrew is ההרמונה haharmona, which first our translator and the others just mentioned render as "into Armon" or into Armenia. For this land was called Aram or Harmon from Aram the son of Shem, its first inhabitant; for the letter aleph is often interchanged with he. Secondly, others divide Harmona by diastole. Hence Theodotion translates: into the mountain (for hor in Hebrew means mountain) Mona; Aquila, the Syriac, and the Arabic: into Mount Armona; the Septuagint: into Mount Remna, or as Theodoret reads, Armana, as if to say: You will be led away into the mountains of Armenia: for it is mountainous; hence on its mountains the ark of Noah first rested and settled, Genesis 8:4; indeed learned men think that in Hebrew Aram, or Armenia, was named from the mountains, as if to say "high, lofty": because it is higher and more mountainous than all other provinces. The Old Edition translates: into a high mountain.
Thirdly, more recent interpreters, R. David, Vatablus, Arias, a Castro, Marinus, and Pagninus, take Harmon or Armon not as a proper noun but as a common noun meaning palace, a lofty house, a citadel; for the Hebrew רם ram means high, lofty; hence Abram was named as if Ab, that is, father; ram, that is, lofty. The sense is, as if to say: The Assyrian, by storming Samaria and slaughtering or capturing everyone he meets, will press and force the rest of you to flee and throw yourselves into fortified citadels, but in vain; for he will storm those too and capture and slaughter you. Pagninus translates differently; for he renders: You will throw down the palace, namely that of the king, attached to the wall, so that through it you may escape the hands of the attacking Assyrian.
Tropologically, the cows of Bashan, that is, heretics, are cast by the demon onto the mountains of Armenia, that is, of pride; for every heretic is proud, because he prefers his own judgment to the whole Church. Hence Remna is the same as "the vision of someone," says St. Jerome, because heretics do not attack all the doctrines of the Church; "but they promise themselves knowledge of some part, so that they are cast out, because they believe they can split off"; for they want to file down the faith and the Church with the fine little file of their own genius and judgment.
Verse 4: 4. COME. — This is sarcasm, that is, hostile mockery, as if to say: Go on, you sacrilegious ones,...
4. COME. — This is sarcasm, that is, hostile mockery, as if to say: Go on, you sacrilegious ones, frolic with your calves in Bethel, with your idols in Galgala; satiate yourselves with their victims, gorge yourselves with your idol offerings; but know that you will be slaughtered in that very place by the Assyrians, like victims offered to God the Avenger. So says St. Jerome. Therefore the Chaldean and the Septuagint candidly explain this sarcasm when they translate assertively and reproachfully: You have entered Bethel and acted wickedly; in Galgala you have multiplied impious deeds.
BRING YOUR VICTIMS IN THE MORNING — as if to say: You who used to offer the sacrifice of the lamb morning and evening to the true God in Jerusalem according to the law, now as calf-worshippers offer that same thing in the morning to your calves. So say Clarius, Arias, Vatablus, and others. What kind this perpetual sacrifice was I discussed in Exodus 29:38. Secondly, St. Jerome thinks that "morning" signifies the eagerness, speed, and multitude of sacrifices, as if to say: Go on doing what you are doing, continue at the crack of dawn out of the ardor of idolatry to offer victims, so that, as others keep arriving, you may finish everything before evening, lest the day fail you sooner than your sacrifices and crimes. St. Jerome adds that "morning" denotes victims slaughtered the day before and kept contrary to the law until the following morning, as if to say: According to the law of Leviticus 7:15, you were required to eat the victims on the same day you sacrificed them; but now, contrary to the law, either from greed or from gluttony — because you cannot devour so many victims on the same day — you keep many of their remnants until the morning of the following day; for he soon reproaches them for offering leaven in sacrifice contrary to the law.
YOUR TITHES IN THREE DAYS. — The Septuagint has: on the third day, or as the Vatican codex has, your tithes for a period of three days, as if to say: You keep victims until the third day, contrary to the law of Leviticus 7:17. So say St. Jerome, Remigius, and Hugo. But that law of Leviticus forbids only victims to be kept, not tithes, which are the subject here. Secondly, Arias, Vatablus, and Pagninus translate: Bring on the third of days, that is, on the third day, that is, in the third year, your tithes to your idols, according to the law of Deuteronomy 14:29. For "day" among the Hebrews often means "year," as in Genesis 24:1: "Abraham was old and of many days (that is, years)." But that law of Deuteronomy does not command tithes to be brought to the temple, but only to be kept at home and to be distributed in the third year to Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows, as Tobias did, chapter 1:7, "so that in the third year he ministered all the tithe to proselytes and strangers."
I say therefore that properly three days are to be understood here. For God had commanded the Hebrews, in Exodus 23:14 and 19, that on three days, or chief feasts per year, namely on the day of Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, they should go to the temple for the purpose of sacrifice and prayer; and then partly for the journey, partly for offerings and the sacred feast (at which they were to feast with the Levites from their peace offerings before the Lord, that is, in the temple before the ark and the Holy of Holies in which God resided) they brought with them one tenth of their crops and goods, which they are commanded to set apart for this purpose, Deuteronomy 14:22; and thus did Tobias, as is clear from chapter 1:6 and 7. The Prophet teaches here that the Israelites did the same thing at Bethel, like apes of the Jews, as if to say: Go on, three times a year, or at the three chief feasts, bring your tithes to the calves at Bethel, which you used to bring to God in Jerusalem. So say Rupert, Lyranus, a Castro, and others.
For from קראו kiru, that is "call," comes מקרא micra, that is "convocation" and assembly of the people; and from this, solemnity and feast. For at the feast they would convoke the micra, that is, the assembly and gathering of the people, for celebrating the solemnity and for offering victims and any other oblations.
Verse 5: 5. AND SACRIFICE PRAISE FROM LEAVEN.
5. AND SACRIFICE PRAISE FROM LEAVEN. — "Praise," that is, a sacrifice of praise, as the Zurich Bible translates, or of thanksgiving. Hence Aquila translates: eucharist. For this is called in Hebrew from its purpose תודה toda, that is, confession, praise, thanksgiving. It is irony and sarcasm, for he mocks their leavened sacrifices, and therefore impure; for those of the Jews were unleavened and pure, and this by God's prescription, Leviticus 2:41 and 7:12, and so say St. Jerome, Rupert, Lyranus, and Hugo. Therefore some Greeks ignorantly cite this passage to prove against the Latins that the Eucharist should be celebrated with leavened bread, not unleavened. For Amos does not praise but blames and condemns here the leavened sacrifice.
Note: Nothing leavened could be brought to the altar; however, leavened loaves could be brought as gifts for the priests, so that they themselves might eat them, as I showed in Leviticus 7:13. Therefore Vatablus and Arias judge less correctly that leaven could be offered in the sacrifice of praise; for this is expressly forbidden in Leviticus 2:11.
Mystically, leaven is a symbol of corruption and malice, 1 Corinthians 5:6; hence the Chaldean translates: They collect from plunder a sacrifice of praise. For he who prepares a sacrifice for God from plunder offers praise from leaven, says St. Gregory, Homily 22 on the Gospels.
AND PROCLAIM (celebrate, announce, and publicize your victims, as if generous, spontaneous, and) VOLUNTARY OFFERINGS — but in vain. For God abominates them as impure and idolatrous. So say St. Jerome, Rupert, Remigius, and Hugo. Secondly, "proclaim," that is, as Vatablus says, announce voluntary sacrifices and offerings, and indeed feasts of the calves, and at them summon the people so that they may offer voluntary oblations to them, as Aaron did in the fashioning and dedication of the golden calf, Exodus 32:2: "Take," he said, "the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, sons, and daughters, and bring them to me. And the people did what he commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. Which when he had received, etc., he made from them a golden calf." Thus men are stingy and greedy in divine matters, but in things that concern show or the belly, that is, in the service of the world and the devil, they are lavish and willingly and generously exhaust their wealth. Hence Arias translates: Make your vows; Pagninus: Call to the solemnity, make the voluntary offerings be gathered.
FOR SO YOU WISHED, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, SAYS THE LORD GOD. — to offer in the evening to the true God at Jerusalem; now, you calf-worshippers, offer that same thing in the morning to your calves.
Verse 6: 6. THEREFORE I ALSO GAVE YOU NUMBNESS OF TEETH (the Arabic wrongly translates: blessing) IN ALL...
6. THEREFORE I ALSO GAVE YOU NUMBNESS OF TEETH (the Arabic wrongly translates: blessing) IN ALL YOUR CITIES. — So also the Chaldean and the Septuagint. Understand "numbness of teeth" as from famine; for he adds as if explaining: "And want of bread in all your places." For prolonged famine, as it dulls and deadens the appetite, so likewise it contracts the gums and thus dulls and numbs the teeth. So says Rufinus. Hence the Hebrew ניקיון nikion signifies emptiness (so that the teeth are empty of food) and cleanness of teeth, as Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, St. Jerome, Arias, Vatablus, Pagninus, Marinus, and others translate. For when in famine and want the teeth have nothing to bite and chew, they are innocent and clean; and as the gums and sinews dry out and contract, the teeth grow dull, are compressed and become numb, just as the eyes grow dim and numb when the vital spirits fail; therefore our translator and the Septuagint translate "numbness of teeth." This is metalepsis, unless you prefer it to be onomatopoeia, so that the word nikion by its sound represents the sound and grating of numbed teeth. The sense is, as if to say: Because you deprive Me of the sacrifices owed to Me, I likewise will deprive you of the bread and food necessary for life, and I will cause your teeth to grow numb from hunger and from eating unripe fruits, which are sour and astringent.
Note "I gave," namely properly in the past tense; for God often through Elijah and Elisha threatened and brought drought upon the Israelites because of their idols and crimes, and hence famine, as is clear from 3 Kings 17, and 4 Kings 6:25. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Hugo, and Lyranus, although Vatablus and Clarius take it prophetically, understanding "I gave" as "I will give," as if God were here threatening a future famine. The sense would be full if you took "I gave" broadly as "I give, I gave, and I will give," as if to say: Because of your idols and crimes I have often brought famine upon you, and I still bring it now, and in the future I will bring it, both by Myself withholding rains and by means of enemies, especially the Assyrians, devastating the cities and fields of Samaria.
But the first sense is brought out by what he adds after this plague and the four following ones in each verse: "And you did not return to Me." And that of verse 12: "Therefore I will do these things to you, Israel"; which words signify that this famine and the other plagues were past, not future. Note that when he says "numbness of teeth in all cities," it signifies that this disaster and famine would be common and public, so that not so much individuals as entire cities would seem to be estranged from themselves and stunned. For numbness is a kind of alienation either of the mind or of the senses, namely that the senses become compressed. Thus Livy says in Book 5: "Then private mourning was stupefied by public terror, when it was announced that the enemy was at hand."
Verse 7: 7. I ALSO WITHHELD RAIN FROM YOU, WHEN THREE MONTHS YET REMAINED.
7. I ALSO WITHHELD RAIN FROM YOU, WHEN THREE MONTHS YET REMAINED. — This plague of drought and sterility was extraordinary and miraculous, inasmuch as one part of a city that was innocent and pious was rained upon, but not the other part, which was guilty and wicked. Likewise the field of a righteous master was rained upon, while the field of a neighboring unjust master did not receive rain, and this so that it might be manifestly clear to all that this distinction was the work of God the Avenger. Thus God distinguished the fields of Goshen, where the Hebrews were, so that they would not feel the plagues that Moses inflicted on the other fields of Egypt, Exodus 8:22. St. Bonaventure recounts in his Life, chapter 8, that something similar happened to the Greeks through the merits and prayers of St. Francis. For when wolves and hailstorms were devastating the fields, St. Francis said to the natives: "For the honor and praise of almighty God I pledge to you that this entire pestilence will depart, and the Lord looking upon you will multiply you in temporal goods, if believing me, you have mercy on yourselves, so that having first made your confession, you may produce worthy fruits of penance. Again I announce to you that if, ungrateful for the benefits, you return to your vomit, the plague will be renewed, the punishment will be doubled, a greater wrath will rage against you. From that very hour, as they did penance at his exhortation, the disasters ceased. Indeed, what is greater, whenever hail invaded the fields of their neighbors, approaching their boundaries it stopped there, or turned aside to another direction."
Moreover, in Palestine the heat and drought are so great that if rain is lacking, men and beasts must perish from thirst. "In these places," says St. Jerome, "apart from small springs all the water is from cisterns; and if by divine wrath the rains are suspended, the danger from thirst is greater than from famine."
When this barrenness occurred in Amos's time is not known. For when some refer it to the famine that occurred in the time of Elijah, and others to that in the time of Elisha, this does not seem fitting enough: for that drought and famine of Elijah, like that of Elisha, was universal and equal for all, without distinction between the guilty and the innocent; but this one discriminated the harmful from the harmless. Again, Elijah's lasted three years, and Elisha's also lasted a long time; but this one in Amos lasted only three months, namely those that preceded the harvest. Therefore this drought began at the end of April, when the late rain used to begin in Judea, which was most necessary. For this caused the shoots to grow, the stalks to develop into ears, and the swelling ears to conceive grains and produce wheat, which without this rain would have dried up and ended in foliage alone, without grains and fruit. Therefore this late rain was in April, the harvest time; just as the early rain in October was for sowing, namely for watering the seeds and sowings so that they might fix their roots in the earth. So says St. Jerome.
Let the lords and farmers of fields note here that drought and barrenness are sent upon fields by a particular providence and punishment of God. Therefore when they feel it, let them turn to God through penance and prayers, as the Spanish farmers do, who in time of drought decree public processions and flagellations of the farmers; and thus they often draw rain from a reconciled God, indeed almost extort it by force.
Tropologically St. Gregory, Homily 10 on Ezekiel, says: The Lord rains upon one part of the city, not upon another, when He causes one part of the people to receive the seeds of preaching and the word of God, but not the other. Again, one part of the same field is rained upon, not another, when some overcome one vice but not another, for example gluttony, but not anger; or they are patient, but remain greedy; or they are chaste, but proud, etc.
and barrenness are sent upon fields by a particular providence and punishment of God. Therefore when they feel it, let them turn to God through penance and prayers, as the Spanish farmers do, who in time of drought decree public processions and flagellations of the farmers; and thus they often draw rain from a reconciled God, indeed almost extort it by force.
Verse 9: 9. I STRUCK YOU WITH BURNING WIND.
9. I STRUCK YOU WITH BURNING WIND. — He notes here three plagues of the fields: the burning wind, blight, and locusts devouring the sprouts, which, equally with drought, bring sterility and famine. The burning wind, or scorching heat, is the hot East wind, which by its heat dries up and burns all the sap of the stalks and shoots; or the North wind, which by its most bitter cold, mist, and frost similarly burns and withers the crops. Hence it is called burning cold. Hear the Poet: It binds the ocean's wave with force of excessive cold, And bites the meadows scorched with freezing frost. Therefore Theodotion, Symmachus, and Aquila translate it as ανεμοφθοριαν, that is, corruption from wind, or corrupted air; by Pliny, Book 18, Chapter 28, it is called carbuncle in vines, because they seem to be burned as if by a coal of scorching heat; in crops it is called by the same author rust, from the redness it imparts to the crops; by Theophrastus, Book 4, it is called verdigris, because it blows a kind of bronze color upon the crops. Pagninus and Vatablus translate it as aridity, from the effect it produces on the crop.
The second plague is blight, which is properly a disease, and as it were the jaundice of crops, namely when the stalks from excessive moisture (hence called in Hebrew ירקון ierakon, as if "becoming green") wither and become pale like gold or bronze, whence it is also called verdigris and rust; and the withered ones dry up and vanish. Hence by Theodotion it is called ωχρίατις, that is, pallor; by Aquila, Symmachus, and the Septuagint, ἴκτερος, that is, jaundice; for this is the color in those suffering from jaundice. Hence, conversely, jaundice, by Cornelius Celsus and Apuleius, is called aurugo, from the color of gold that it produces in a person. And because the same color arises from fear, hence Jeremiah 30:6 says: "All faces (of the Israelites from excessive terror) are turned to blight." Note here: Ierakon, that is, blight or verdigris or rust, properly arises from moisture, by which the crops wither; yet because the same color and the same corruption and drying of crops arises from scorching heat and burning (although Pliny in the cited passage contends it arises from cold alone), hence likewise scorching is sometimes called blight, verdigris, and rust, as I said just before. The third plague is the locust, about which I spoke in Joel 1:4.
Verse 10: 10. I SENT DEATH AMONG YOU IN THE WAY OF EGYPT.
10. I SENT DEATH AMONG YOU IN THE WAY OF EGYPT. — This is the fifth plague, but inflicted upon people, namely pestilence, as the Hebrew and the Chaldean have, which our translator calls "death" because pestilence brings certain death. Add that the Hebrew דבר deber, that is, pestilence, by catachresis signifies famine, the sword, and whatever is destructive and deadly like pestilence.
You may ask, what and when did this plague occur? St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Hugo, Lyranus, and others think it happened to those Israelites who were sent to the Egyptians to seek help from them against the Assyrians; Vatablus and Arias think it happened to those who went with a garrison soldier to Egypt to buy grain to relieve the famine of Samaria. For these were killed on the journey partly by plague and partly by bandits, and their unburied and rotting corpses exhaled a stench which, after the long delay of the earlier ones, offended the nostrils of others sent in their place. More probably Ribera and a Castro refer these things to the disaster that Jehoahaz king of Israel received from the king of Syria, which was so great that from the entire army of Israel there survived only fifty horsemen, 4 Kings 13:7. For then partly the corrupted and hot air, and partly the putrefaction arising from so many slain corpses, blew stench and pestilence upon the survivors.
You will say: This disaster happened in Samaria, not on the way to Egypt. I answer: That is true; therefore the particle "like" seems to be understood in the Hebrew manner, and it should be translated with the Chaldean: I sent pestilence among you (the Arabic: I struck you with fevers and evils unknown to the foolish) as on the way to Egypt; namely when in the desert I punished and killed your fathers journeying from Egypt to Canaan, because of their murmurings, with plague and other plagues, for example when I sent fiery serpents, which inflicted a pestiferous burning upon them with their bite, Numbers 21:6. Add that perhaps this battle and this slaughter occurred on the road by which they traveled from Samaria to Egypt; for just as now the Roman road, the Milan road, and the Paris road are paved and well-traveled, so then the road to Egypt was famous and public, as is clear from Jeremiah 2:18; Isaiah 10:24; whence Adrichomius and others depict it on their chorographic maps of the Holy Land.
Finally, through the Hebraism כדרך bederech, that is, "on the way," can be explained by כדרך kederech, that is, "like a way," "according to the way," that is, according to the manner, mode, and custom of Egypt, as if to say: I will punish you with pestilence in the manner and severity with which I punished the Egyptians through Moses; for the fifth plague of Egypt was a pestilence so severe that through it all horses, donkeys, camels, and all the animals in all of Egypt were killed, as is clear from Exodus 9:3, 6. Thus bederech, that is, "on the way," is taken for kederech, that is, "according to the way," that is, the custom, Isaiah 10:26: "He will raise up," it says, "the Lord of hosts will raise up a scourge upon him, like the blow of Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and His rod over the sea, and He will raise it in the way of Egypt," that is, according to the way of Egypt, that is, according to the manner in which through the rod of Moses He struck Egypt and inflicted ten plagues upon it; in a similar way He will strike Sennacherib and the Assyrians through an angel, killing in one night 185,000 in their camps.
EVEN TO THE CAPTIVITY (the Chaldean and the Septuagint have: with the captivity) OF YOUR HORSES. — He seems, as I said, to allude to the times of Jehoahaz, when the Israelites were so worn down by the Syrians that only fifty horsemen remained to them, 4 Kings 13.
I MADE THE STENCH RISE UP. — For the Hebrew באש beose means putrefaction and stench; but the Septuagint, reading with different vowel points באש beese, that is, "in fire," translate: I brought your camps in fire. So the Complutensian text, although the Roman text reads: I led out.
Verse 11: 11. I OVERTHREW YOU.
11. I OVERTHREW YOU. — First, through Tiglath-Pileser king of the Assyrians, says Arias, who captured and destroyed all the cities of Israel, except Samaria alone, 4 Kings 15:29; for this happened around the 52nd year of Uzziah, or Azariah king of Judah, as is said in the same place, verse 27. But Amos began to prophesy in the 25th year of Uzziah, as I said in the Prooemium; therefore it could easily have happened that the same prophet, surviving to the 52nd year of Uzziah, after the disaster inflicted on Israel by Tiglath-Pileser, spoke these words; for the Prophets prophesied over very many years, as Isaiah for 96 years, Jeremiah for 45 years, Daniel for 76 years.
Secondly, through the Syrians, who at various other times, but especially in the time of Jehoahaz, as I already said, so wore down Israel that they nearly overthrew it like Sodom, with only a few escaping and surviving. That this is so is clear from the prophecy of Jonah, which is cited in 4 Kings 14:26: "The Lord saw," it says, "that the affliction of Israel was exceedingly bitter, and that they were consumed even to those shut up in prison and the last ones, and there was no one to help Israel. And the Lord did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash, who restored the borders of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Wilderness." That this prophecy of Jonah pertains chiefly to the times of Jehoahaz, not to other times of other kings as some wish, is clear from the sequence and deeds of the kings of Israel. For Jehu, who took the kingdom of Israel from the family of Ahab and transferred it to himself, was powerful and fortunate in war, and under him the kingdom of Israel flourished. Jehoahaz succeeded him, under whom it was worn down by the Syrians, as I said. Jehoahaz was succeeded by his son Joash, to whom Elisha by the triple striking of the arrow predicted a triple victory against the Syrians, which Joash indeed obtained, as is clear from 4 Kings 13:18 and 23; therefore under Joash the kingdom of Israel likewise flourished. Joash was succeeded by his son Jeroboam, who began to reign before Uzziah king of Judah and reigned with him for the last 14 years of his life, about whom Jonah predicts that he would restore the collapsed state of Israel throughout all the days of Jehoahaz, and Scripture expressly says this in 4 Kings 13:22: "Therefore Hazael king of Syria afflicted Israel all the days of Jehoahaz."
Finally, Albertus takes these things prophetically of the future, as if to say: "I overthrew," that is, I will overthrow Israel through Shalmaneser; for he in the sixth year of Hezekiah captured Samaria and utterly destroyed the kingdom of Israel. So also Rupert, who takes these things as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans and by Titus and the Romans. But it is clear from what has been said that these things properly pertain to Israel, that is, to the ten tribes; however, I do not deny that they can be extended to Judah and Jerusalem. For the Prophets who prophesied directly to Judah also indirectly looked toward Israel, and vice versa. Again, that these things pertain not to the future but to the past is clear from what Amos adds: "And you did not return to Me. Therefore I will do these things to you, Israel." For as to Rupert's reply that all these past tenses should be explained as inchoate or destined acts, in this way: "I struck, I sent death among you, I overthrew," etc., that is, I decreed to strike, to send death, to overthrow you, and I threatened through the Prophets; but yet you did not heed these threats, nor did you return to Me; therefore I will do these things to you, Israel — this explanation, I say, seems forced and strained when applied to so many past tenses, all of which signify real action, not intention or threats. Therefore St. Jerome, Remigius, Lyranus, Clarius, Dionysius, Ribera, a Castro, and others everywhere take these past tenses properly as they sound.
AS GOD OVERTHREW SODOM — as if to say: As I overthrew Sodom. God speaks in the Hebrew manner about Himself in the third person, for the sake of honor, as the Germans do. Thus it is said in Genesis 19:24: "The Lord rained from the Lord sulfur and fire upon Sodom," that is, He rained from Himself: although Eusebius, Book 5 of the Demonstrations, chapter 23, thinks that the Father is here speaking of the Son, as if to say: I the Father overthrew Israel, just as My Son overthrew Sodom. Thus many explain that passage of Genesis 19: "The Lord rained from the Lord," as if to say: The Son rained from the Father. See what was said there.
LIKE A FIREBRAND — as if to say: You were nearly overthrown and consumed to destruction, like Sodom; but God having mercy on you and wishing to preserve a remnant of your seed and nation, restrained His hand and the enemies, and snatched a few from this disaster, just as from a fire some half-burned and smoking firebrand is snatched.
Verse 12: 12. THEREFORE (because, namely, by the six plagues already reviewed — famine, drought, burning...
12. THEREFORE (because, namely, by the six plagues already reviewed — famine, drought, burning wind, blight, locusts, and pestilence — which I inflicted upon you, you did not come to your senses nor return to Me, but like Pharaoh you became even more hardened by them) I WILL DO THESE THINGS TO YOU, ISRAEL. — "These things," namely, what He threatened at the beginning of the chapter: "They will lift you up on poles, and your remnants in boiling pots, and you will be cast into Armon." So says a Castro. But these seem lesser than the plagues He already inflicted when He said: "I overthrew you as God overthrew Sodom," etc. But here He threatens to inflict a graver plague, because they despised all the previous ones. Therefore more forcefully and effectively others say: "These things," namely, the most terrible and atrocious things that I have conceived in My indignant mind and cannot express for horror. For He speaks with human emotion, and breaks into words and threats through aposiopesis as an emotional device, just as Virgil, Aeneid 1: Whom I (namely, will punish most severely); but (now) it is better to calm the troubled waves. Thus the Hebrews are accustomed in oaths, especially threatening and execratory ones, to use this formula: "May God do these things to me, and add these things," and they do not express what they imprecate upon themselves to be added or done, as if they did not dare to name those things out of fear and detestation, as being horrible and atrocious evils. By a similar euphemism, that is, good omen, they signify a curse and blasphemy with the opposite word, and call it a "blessing," as in Job 2:9 and 3 Kings 21:10.
BUT AFTER I HAVE DONE THESE THINGS (these atrocious plagues that I have conceived in My mind) TO YOU (begun to do and inflict: for an inchoate act is signified here), PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD, O ISRAEL — as if to say: If the past plagues seem light to you, if you despise these lesser agents, if you disdain to fight with foot soldiers; behold, I who form mountains and create winds, etc., will attack you like an armored horseman, I will put forth My strength, I will hurl all My spears and weapons against you: steel your breast, fit your shield, set yourself against Me, engage Me in combat, dodge or sustain the blow of My right hand, if you can. It is sarcasm. Hence Symmachus and Aquila translate: When I have done this, prepare to resist your God. So say Albertus, Arias, a Castro, and Prado on Ezekiel chapter 5:8.
Thus the mad Emperor Caligula met his Jupiter, who, angry at the sky because its storminess interfered with his pantomimes and spectacles, provoked Jupiter to a fight, indeed to a duel to the death, exclaiming that line of Homer: "Either you take me, or I take you."
Secondly, others, and indeed very many, take these things in the opposite sense, as if God here consoles and invites the overthrown Israel, lest it utterly despair, to prepare itself through penance and conversion for God (and God's clemency and grace), especially for the One to be born in Bethlehem after some centuries: for they think that Amos rises to this in prophetic fashion. Hence in what follows he graphically describes God's omnipotence and magnificence, lest Israel despise His poverty and humility in the flesh, as it did. Therefore the Septuagint, the Syriac, and both Arabic versions translate: Nevertheless, because I will do this, prepare to call upon your God, O Israel. And in what follows, instead of "announcing to man His word," they translate: announcing to men His Christ; and the Chaldean says: Prepare yourself to receive the teaching of the law of your God, O Israel, as if to say: Prepare yourself to receive God made flesh, coming in His assumed humanity, with your whole mind's affection. So say St. Jerome, Remigius, Albertus, Hugo, Vatablus, and Lyranus, who think this prophecy will be fulfilled at the end of the world: for then all Israel will be converted to Christ and will be saved, as the Apostle says in Romans 11.
Therefore Theodoret wrongly refers these things to Cyrus, who freed the Jews from Babylon. For here it is not about the Jews but about the Israelites carried off to Assyria, whom neither Cyrus nor anyone else ever freed from there. The former sense seems literal and genuine; the latter, because held by very many, is probable and fitting, and is to be admitted either as literal or as mystical, as I will soon show; so that it would be antiphrasis, as if to say: Meet and resist God who is angry and avenging, if you can; but because you cannot, meet Him as a humble and gentle Savior, coming in the flesh to redeem and save you. Or, as St. Jerome says, as if to say: "I did what the preceding discourse described to correct you; and because you refused to return to Me, I will do to you what is contained in My secret. You killed My servants whom I had sent to you; lastly I will send My Son: but you, according to your custom, by which you have always resisted the will of God, prepare yourself to contradict and oppose your God, according to that which is written: Behold, this one is set for the fall and the rising of many, and for a sign that will be contradicted. He speaks not as commanding, but as predicting, as if reproaching and rebuking, so that at least when corrected he may not do what was predicted."
This interpretation is favored by the word "after," for which the Hebrew is עקב ekeb, that is, "end" or "reward": for the reward is the end of the work and the worker. Hence from the Hebrew you may translate: at the end; or, as Aquila has: afterward; or, as Theodotion: at the last, meet Him. For at the end of the ages Christ became incarnate, and at the end of the world Israel will meet Him. Or thus: As the reward for which I scourged you as a son, and with so many scourges tried to lead you back to Me, for this paternal care of Mine toward you, give Me at least this as recompense: that when I come in the flesh, you may meet Me and receive Me as your Messiah.
Hence the Church in the Ecclesiastical Office uses these words of Amos to stir up her own people to meet Christ.
The Prophet adds the reason, namely His immense majesty and power: "For," he says, behold, "He Himself" is "the one who forms the mountains," etc. Explaining this tropologically, St. Jerome says: "The Lord is exalted on high, and does not dwell in lowly places, He who is exalted; but the creator of mountains ascends the mountains, in those who have their citizenship in heavenly places, and who, walking in the flesh, do not live according to the flesh but according to the spirit." The Septuagint translates: who confirms the thunder, lest it shatter the world, as it seems to threaten with its roaring.
Verse 13: 13. CREATING THE WIND.
13. CREATING THE WIND. — The Hebrew רוח ruach signifies spirit, soul, and wind. Hence first the Chaldean, the Septuagint, and St. Jerome in his Commentary translate: creating spirit, which the Macedonian heretics who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit eagerly seized upon, and from which they tried to prove that the Holy Spirit is not God but a creature of God. These are refuted by St. Athanasius, in his letter to Serapion; St. Basil, Book 3 Against Eunomius; St. Jerome here; and St. Ambrose, Book 2 On the Holy Spirit, chapter 7. For the discussion here is not about the Holy Spirit, the heavenly one, but about the sublunary and corporeal spirit: for it is joined with clouds, mountains, etc. Secondly, St. Jerome, Rupert, and Remigius translate: creating the soul; or, as Arias says: creating spirits and military courage, that is, instilling in soldiers boldness and warlike virtue. Thirdly, the Alexandrian Arabic translates: I am He who formed the thunder and created the spirit; and the Antiochene Arabic: And I bring back into men the spirit, the breath.
But our translator and Tertullian, in the book Against Hermogenes, chapter 32, and Clarius, Vatablus, Pagninus, and other more recent interpreters most correctly translate: "creating the wind." For rightly the wind is joined with mountains, clouds, etc., and other created sublunary things, which, being both obvious and admirable to man, show him the power and magnificence of God the Creator, especially the winds, which, since their nature is invisible yet sensible, their origin unknown, their motion likewise varied yet their state fixed for each place and time, rightly demonstrate that they are created, governed, and changed by God at His nod. Hence God is said to sit and ride upon the winds, Psalm 17:11: "He ascended upon the Cherubim and flew: He flew upon the wings of the winds." And the whirlwind bore God sitting on the cherubic throne, Ezekiel 1:4. Therefore angels are compared to winds, Psalm 103:4: "Who makes His angels spirits (subtle, swift, and strong like winds), and His ministers a burning fire." Hence God is also said to bring forth winds from His treasuries, Jeremiah 10:13, and accordingly from them Job, chapter 28:25, shows God's power: "Who," he says, "made a weight for the winds and weighed the waters by measure." Hence the Saints also invite the winds, as a magnificent work of God, to praise their Creator who is so powerful, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 148:8: "Praise the Lord from the heavens, etc. Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds: which do His word."
For, as Seneca says in Book 5 of the Natural Questions, chapter 18, "among the other works of Providence, someone may have looked up at this too as worthy of admiration. For He did not invent the winds from a single cause, nor did He arrange them for a single purpose. First, so that they would not allow the air to become stagnant, but by constant agitation would make it useful and life-giving for the earth. Then so that they would supply rains to the earth, and likewise restrain excessive ones. For now they bring clouds, now they drive them away, so that rains may be distributed throughout the whole world. The south wind drives them into Italy, the north wind throws them back into Africa; the etesian winds do not allow clouds to settle over us: the same winds irrigate all of India and Ethiopia with continuous waters during that season." And Pliny, Book 2, chapter 47: "All winds blow in their turns, for the most part so that the opposite one begins as the other ceases, etc. The sun both increases and suppresses the breezes: it increases them at rising and setting, it suppresses them at midday during summer. And so at mid-day or midnight they are usually lulled, because they are dissolved either by excessive cold or by heat," etc.
DECLARING TO MAN HIS WORD. — In Hebrew מה שיחו ma sicho, that is, what His meditation, thought, counsel, word, and work is; for siach signifies meditation and the thing meditated upon, weighty and serious, which we express with our mouth and accomplish by our work: so translate Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Chaldean, and the Hebrews generally. Only the Septuagint, deceived by the similarity and ambiguity of the word, says St. Jerome — namely reading משיחו mescicho, that is, His Messiah or His Christ, instead of מה שיחו ma sicho — translated: Declaring to men His Christ; by whom, although Theodotion understands Cyrus, all others understand Christ the Lord. So say St. Athanasius in his book On the Unity of Faith and the Trinity; Didymus, Book 2 On the Holy Spirit; Tertullian in the cited passage; St. Basil, Book 4 Against Eunomius; St. Ambrose, Book 2 On the Holy Spirit, chapter 7; St. Augustine, Book 18 of the City of God; indeed even the Council of Sardica according to Socrates, Book 2, chapter 20. Therefore it is not credible that the Septuagint were deceived here, but that they translated thus deliberately; either because in the Hebrew codices at that time there was a double reading, one mescicho and the other ma sicho; or because through ma sicho they understood mescicho to be signified.
For the Messiah, or Christ, is the Father's meditation, conception, utterance, word, and supreme, immense, uncreated, and divine work. There is therefore here a double version and a double meaning; but the former is subordinate to the latter. The former: "Declaring to man His word," as if to say: God through the Prophets declares to men His counsels, decrees, and words. So say St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugo, and Lyranus. Therefore the Syriac translates: Showing to men what His glory (praise) is; and the Arabic: Sending one who praises (sings) among men. For who, having recognized God's counsels and glory, would not praise them?
It could also be translated, says St. Jerome: Declaring to man his (man's) word (because the Hebrews have the same pronoun as both reflexive and absolute. For with vav and cholem they signify both "his" and "His own"), as if to say: God knows the secret thoughts of man, namely what he meditates and intends in his mind; indeed He inserts and suggests them to the person himself, if they are good or indifferent, and can declare and express them either to the person through internal inspiration, or to others through the Prophets. So say Arias and Vatablus.
The latter meaning is: "Declaring to man His word," namely Christ, who is the Father's unique conception, the unique Word by which He says, creates, commands, and governs all things: for this Word and utterance of God embraces everything else. Something similar is found in Deuteronomy 18:18, where Moses promises that a Prophet, that is, other Prophets after him, will be given by God; but among them one preeminent and chief, who shall be called the Prophet par excellence, namely Christ. The sense therefore is, as if to say: God the Father announces through us Prophets that He will send His Word in the flesh to men, to reveal to men His will, law, salvation, grace, and glory, and to actually confer and impart these to them. Therefore you, O Israelites, go out to meet this your Messiah when He comes; believe in Him, hope in Him, love Him, worship Him, follow Him, obey Him: so He will free you from the wrath of God, from sin, from death, from hell, from every enemy. He will make you friends, sons, and heirs of God, and blessed forever.
For the Prophets are accustomed to set Christ as the end and liberator of all captivities and miseries. Hence when they have predicted many disasters and many sorrows, they mitigate and sweeten all these by promising Christ: for Christ is the end and goal of the law and the Prophets. This is confirmed because for "His word" Aquila translates τὴν ὁμιλίαν αὐτοῦ; Symmachus, τὸ φώνημα αὐτοῦ; Theodotion, τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ; that is, His speech and His word. And from this passage and similar ones St. John seems to have taken the name λόγος, by which he constantly calls Christ, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Where for "Word" the Greek is λόγος; not that St. John took the word λόγος from Theodotion, who was two centuries later than St. John, but that the Hebrew שיח siach is the same as λόγος, and therefore Theodotion translated it as λόγος. Finally, Theophanes of Nicaea in the Symbol of the New and Old Testament, cited by Turrianus, Book 2 On Hierarchical Orders, chapter 1, from the Septuagint version considers this to be a prophecy of the Transfiguration of Christ.
(1) This verse can be connected with the preceding one thus: Do not think, adds Amos, that God lacks the power to bring to effect what He has threatened, if you do not strive to appease Him by amendment of life, and thus prepare yourself to meet Him; for He is the creator and ruler of all nature. And the creator of wind, a thing plainly contrary to mountains, observes Rosenmuller, which, although it is of the thinnest and rarest substance and lightest, is nevertheless of wondrous and incomparable power and efficacy, so that it casts down and lays flat the most robust and otherwise firmest things.
Behold, says Amos, He who establishes the thunder (that is, who creates the cloud from whose collision the thunder bursts forth) and who creates the spirit, or wind, from whose beating, with the intention of signifying, there arises the voice of which he adds: And declaring to men His Christ, namely when the voice of the Father thundered from the cloud: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him," Matthew 17:5.
MAKING THE MORNING CLOUD. — Thus the Hebrew literally reads, though others translate it variously. First, the Septuagint, adding "and," translate: Making the morning and the cloud; second, Pagninus: Who makes the dawn and the darkness, that is, day and night, joyful and sorrowful things; third, the Zurich Bible: Who makes the dawn from darkness; fourth, Clarius: Who makes the dawn out of darkness, that is, out of the darkness of night, so that dawn and day may succeed the night; fifth, others conversely: Who makes darkness from the dawn, that is, changes day into night, prosperity into adversity; sixth, the Arabic translates: I created the abyss first, and I ascended above the height of the earth, and sent one who praises (sings) among men; seventh, mystically the Chaldean: Who prepares light for the just like the light of the dawn, and prepares darkness for the wicked.
Moreover, the morning cloud shows the great power and wisdom of God. First, because it suddenly produces this cloud after clear nights at dawn through the rising sun, which, drawing out and lifting vapors and exhalations from the earth, covers the air with them as with a cloud. Second, because in the morning the cloud is greatest and most extensive, and veils, clothes, and adorns the whole horizon like a tapestry. Third, because this cloud encircles and swaddles the rising sun, just as an infant when it is born and comes forth is swaddled in little cloths. For thus Job speaks of the first cloud and the first darkness enveloping the newly created world and sea, chapter 38:9: "When I made a cloud its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness as in swaddling clothes." Where the author of the Catena says: "Just as swaddling clothes are very suitable for an infant, so also are clouds and mists for the sea." Fourth, because this cloud veils God, as if rising with the sun in the morning, so that men cannot gaze upon Him, but may look up to Him as invisible and revere Him. Thus Virgil, in Book 1 of the Aeneid, says of the heroes Aeneas and Achates: But Venus hedged them as they walked in dark air, And the Goddess poured around them a thick cloak of mist.
Fifth, because this cloud is dewy and fruitful. For it produces manna and dew, by which grasses and crops are moistened and enriched. Moreover, it brings warmth and life-giving breath to the earth and all earthly things. Hence we observe that "mists exist neither in summer nor in the greatest cold: nor dews in frost, or heat, or winds, except on a clear night," says Pliny, Book 2, chapter 60. Therefore from the cloud Jeremiah celebrates the magnificence of God in chapter 10:13: "He raises up," he says, "clouds from the ends of the earth." Psalm 147:16: "Who gives snow like wool: He scatters the mist like ashes." Sirach 24:6: "I (Wisdom) like a mist covered all the earth." And chapter 43:15: "The treasuries were opened, and clouds flew out like birds." And in chapter 1:6, of Simon the high priest it is said: "Like the morning star in the midst of a cloud."
WALKING UPON THE HIGH PLACES OF THE EARTH — namely upon the highest mountains, and rocks and crags inaccessible and impassable to men, as if to say: God pervades and transcends all earthly things, however lofty and inaccessible, with His majesty, and contains and governs them with His providence, so that He can stir up winds and whirlwinds, pour clouds upon His proud and wicked enemies, move mountains, and cast them into valleys, as if to say: God is He who produces, tempers, and governs mountains, winds, lightning, thunder, and all things beneath the moon, as well as celestial things. Hence all creatures are the army of God, who obey Him at His nod, and are always ready for Him, to be carried at His command and to attack and lay flat His enemies and the wicked. So say St. Jerome, Albertus, Clarius, and others. Hear St. Jerome: "Prepare yourself," he says, "to meet your God, so that you may receive the Lord coming to you with all eagerness. This is He who establishes the thunder, or confirms the mountains: at whose voice the hinges of heaven and the foundations of the earth are shaken. This is He who creates the spirit." Therefore Timaeus the Pythagorean calls God "the exemplary world." For just as the world with its embrace encircles and binds all things, so also does God. For He Himself is the greatest and most universal nature, present everywhere, seeing and hearing all things, containing everything, yet contained by no circumference. He Himself is the uncreated world of wisdom, holiness, intelligence, life, reasons, forms — the cause, fount, creator, and ruler of all other things.
Therefore the Egyptians, says Eusebius, Book 3 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 117, depict God, whom they call Eneph, in human form, of blue color, holding a belt and a scepter, bearing a feather on his head, and producing an egg from his mouth. For the shell of the egg represents the image of the sky encircling all things; the yolk represents fire; the air-spaces in the egg represent air; the white represents water; and the more solid parts are the symbol of earth. Eusebius adds another hieroglyph of God. For just as God, like a helmsman, steers this ship of the world, and tames and governs all the animals and inanimate things in it, however wild, dreadful, and vast. Again, God is the prince of the seasons, like the sun, which, as Lucan says in Book 12: He divides the seasons of time, Changes day for night, and with powerful rays forbids the stars To wander, and halts their roving courses at their station. Finally, St. Paulinus, on the Ninth Birthday of St. Felix: God is the craftsman of all nature and art, The fount and end in every work, making good things and preserving what He has made.
and that all these things are governed and sustained by God, and lead the minds of men to the knowledge of God. For from winds, clouds, mountains, and other created things God is recognized, just as a lion from its claw, just as Apelles from a single line, just as a flute-player from his voice, just as a poet from his verse. Hence St. Augustine, Epistle 28, teaches that this world is God's song and canticle. "If a man," he says, "who is a craftsman of song knows what pauses to assign to which notes, so that what is sung may run and pass most beautifully with succeeding and departing sounds: how much more God, who permits no intervals of time in things being born and dying — which are like syllables and words belonging to the parts of this age — in this wonderful song, as it were, of passing things, to pass by either more briefly or more slowly than the foreknown and predetermined melody requires?" Moreover, St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15, teaches that God is designated by the wind, because of the natural power of moving and animating, and the swift and insurmountable departure, and the unknown and invisible hiding places of noble origins and ends. Similarly, Eusebius in the cited passage teaches that the Egyptians, to signify God's providence, depicted the sun surrounded by rays in a ship that was being driven against the current by oars and sails, and was being carried by a crocodile spreading itself beneath it. For thus God, like a helmsman, steers this ship of the world.
That is, a man having feet crossed, wearing a flowing robe, and that of gold, bearing a ball on his head, by which the form of the world, its immovable constitution, its roundness, and the variety of the stars are signified, and that all these things are governed and sustained by God, and lead the minds of men to the knowledge of God. For from winds, clouds, mountains, and other created things God is recognized, just as a lion from its claw, just as Apelles from a single line, just as a flute-player from his voice, just as a poet from his verse. Hence St. Augustine, Epistle 28, teaches that this world is God's song and canticle. "If a man," he says, "who is a craftsman of song knows what pauses to assign to which notes, so that what is sung may run and pass most beautifully with succeeding and departing sounds: how much more God, who permits no intervals of time in things being born and dying — which are like syllables and words belonging to the parts of this age — in this wonderful song, as it were, of passing things, to pass by either more briefly or more slowly than the foreknown and predetermined melody requires?" Moreover, St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15, teaches that God is designated by the wind, because of the natural power of moving and animating, and the swift and insurmountable departure, and the unknown and invisible hiding places of noble origins and ends. Similarly, Eusebius in the cited passage teaches that the Egyptians, to signify God's providence, depicted the sun surrounded by rays in a ship that was being driven against the current by oars and sails, and was being carried by a crocodile spreading itself beneath it. For thus God, like a helmsman, steers this ship of the world, and tames and governs all the animals and inanimate things in it, however wild, dreadful, and vast. Again, God is the prince of the seasons, like the sun, which, as Lucan says in Book 12: He divides the seasons of time, Changes day for night, and with powerful rays forbids the stars To wander, and halts their roving courses at their station. Finally, St. Paulinus, on the Ninth Birthday of St. Felix: God is the craftsman of all nature and art, The fount and end in every work, making good things and preserving what He has made.
WALKING UPON THE HIGH PLACES OF THE EARTH — namely upon the highest mountains, and rocks and crags inaccessible and impassable to men, as if to say: God pervades and transcends all earthly things, however lofty and inaccessible, with His majesty, and contains and governs them with His providence, so that He can stir up winds and whirlwinds, pour clouds upon His proud and wicked enemies, move mountains, and cast them into valleys, as if to say: God is He who produces, tempers, and governs mountains, winds, lightning, thunder, and all things beneath the moon, as well as celestial things. Hence all creatures are the army of God, who obey Him at His nod, and are always ready for Him, to be carried at His command and to attack and lay flat His enemies and the wicked. So say St. Jerome, Albertus, Clarius, and others.
Hear St. Jerome: "Prepare yourself," he says, "to meet your God, so that you may receive the Lord coming to you with all eagerness. This is He who establishes the thunder, or confirms the mountains: at whose voice the hinges of heaven and the foundations of the earth are shaken. This is He who creates the spirit." Therefore Timaeus the Pythagorean calls God "the exemplary world." For just as the world with its embrace encircles and binds all things, so also does God. For He Himself is the greatest and most universal nature, present everywhere, seeing and hearing all things, containing everything, yet contained by no circumference. He Himself is the uncreated world of wisdom, holiness, intelligence, life, reasons, forms — the cause, fount, creator, and ruler of all other things. Therefore the Egyptians, says Eusebius, Book 3 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 117, depict God, whom they call Eneph, in human form, of blue color, holding a belt and a scepter, bearing a feather on his head, and producing an egg from his mouth. For the shell of the egg represents the image of the sky encircling all things; the yolk represents fire; the air-spaces in the egg represent air; the white represents water; and the more solid parts are the symbol of earth. Eusebius adds another hieroglyph of God.
He predicts and laments the extreme and eternal devastation of Samaria, to be brought about by the terrible God who makes Arcturus and Orion, and who laughs at the devastation upon the strong, because of its crimes, especially because of the plundering and oppression of the poor. Then, verse 14, He exhorts it to penance. For, verse 21, He asserts that He does not care about its victims and external ceremonies, indeed He detests them.