Amos 4:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I have often told you that God had spoken, now I assure you that the mighty and eternal God hath sworn the thing, and you must therefore needs conclude it sure and certain. He hath sworn by his holiness, by himself, as he is the holy God, and cannot lie: see Psalms 89:35. The days of darkness, slaughter, famine, desolation, and captivity, threatened against you, shall come upon you, oppressors that crush the poor. He will take; God by the Assyrian army under Shalmaneser, nay, before that time you shall be taken, as fish are taken with the hook, during the intestine wars that are coming upon you. You, who now live, and hear the word of Amos and Hoses, but notwithstanding do continue to act the same violence still. With hooks, or thorns, as the Hebrew, with which they did pierce the greater fish, before they had the skill of making iron darts, as some observe. Your posterity; the children of these oppressors. With fish-hooks; shall be taken as silly fish, and as easily carried away; the enemy shall with delight insnare and destroy them.