Amos 3:15 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I will smite; by the greatness of the desolation it shall appear that God did smite, though by the Assyrian; or perhaps it may refer to the earthquake foretold two years before it came, Amos 1:1. The winter house; which probably was in the chief city, where the rich and great men retired in the winter time, as more for their delight than the country, horrid and cold, and stripped of its glory. The summer house; the houses of pleasure, where the nobles and rich men of Israel spent the summer time. The houses of ivory; not built with, but beautified with ivory, or the elephant's tooth, called here and elsewhere, by way of eminency, the tooth. Shall perish; by the violence of the enemies, these stately houses shall be ransacked first, and pulled down next, and left in rubbish. The great houses; or many, for the word includes both. The magnificent palaces of princes and the nobles of Israel shall have an end; shall cease for ever, either be utterly wasted, or cease to be theirs whose once they were. Saith the Lord; all this shall infallibly come to pass and be fulfilled in due time.