Amos 9:7 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Ethiopians. — Israel had presumed on the special favour of Jehovah. The prophet asks them whether, after all, they are better or safer than the Ethiopians, whom they despised. He who led Israel from Egypt also brought the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir. Caphtor is mentioned in the table of races, Genesis 10:14 (where the clause referring to the Philistines should probably be placed at the end of the verse). The LXX. followed by the Targums and Peshito interpret Caphtor as Cappadocia, probably from resemblance in form. R. S. Poole, art. “Caphtor,” in the Dictionary of the Bible, compares the Egyptian Kebtu or Koptos, and places the Caphtorim in Upper Egypt, while Ebers holds that they had their settlements in the Nile delta. But the identification of Caphtor with Crete is most probable. So Rosenmüller, Ewald, Dillmann, &c. On Kir, probably E. of the Euphrates, see Note on Amos 1:5.