Amos 4:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lord hath sworn by his holiness As sure as God is holy and true, so certainly will he bring the threatened judgment upon you; that he will take you away with hooks “The original word in the masculine is used for thorns; but in the feminine it signifies shields. So that, perhaps, a fishing instrument may be denoted, which, like some now in our use, resembled a shield, or a basket, in its form. Our translators render the word hooks, from their analogy to thorns.” Newcome. And your posterity Or remainder; with fish-hooks Invaders and spoilers are often compared to fishers. The sense here seems to be, that the several invaders of Israel, coming after one another, should make an entire riddance of the whole nation, so that their posterity, or remainder, which had escaped the first invaders, should certainly fall into the hands of those that came after.