Amos 8:3 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The songs; which were composed by choicest wits, and set to sweetest tunes, and chanted out by most skilful singers to the best musical instruments. Of the temple; either to take in Judah, and foretell the desolation of their temple; or else, by an irony, the idol temples; or else of the palace, as the word in the Hebrew. All court mirth and jollity, balls and music entertainments. Shall be howlings, Heb. shall howl; be turned into the hideous out cries of undone and despairing men. In that day; when God shall execute his judgments threatened, as he did begin on the death of Jeroboam, and continued that day of vengeance till Shalmaneser finished the work in the ruin of Samaria and its captivity. Saith the Lord God: this is added to assure Israel that what Amos did foretell should be accomplished, for God spake it. There shall be many dead bodies; so there were when Shallum slew Zachariah, so there were when Menahem slew Shallum, when he came with his army against Samaria, when he ripped up the women with child in Tiphsah, 2 Kings 15:16, and when other usurpers pressed through blood and treason to the crown; beside the howlings when Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser cruelly wasted all. In every place; in cities, towns, and country, in palaces and temples too, in all which the bloody effects of enemies swords, the wastes of famine and pestilence, should be seen. They, who howl, who see this, shall cast them forth with silence; either shall secretly bury them, so some, or, to rid themselves of that trouble, shall cast them out wherever they can, with silence, that none may observe them; so great calamitous mortality, that the living suffice not to bury the dead; or so great cruelty by the enemy used against them, that they dare not bury them, or if they do, it must be undiscerned: see Amos 6:10.