Amos 7:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Thus hath the Lord God showed, in vision or hieroglyphic: see Amos 7:1. And, behold: see Amos 7:1. Called to contend by fire; declared he would judge as by fire: literally, say some, God would from heaven by fire punish. Others say metaphorically, by drought which should scorch up all fruits of the earth, and dry up fountains and rivers. Or else by very sore, wasting, and irresistible judgments, that like fire should consume all, hereby denoting the Assyrian rage. It devoured; eat up, i.e. visionally, or in the emblem. The great deep; not literally, but, as the other, Amos 7:2, in hieroglyphic; so it appeared to Amos. And did eat up a part of the land too; it seemed to seize on the earth: now this in vision awakens the prophet, as before, to pray earnestly.