They that swear by the sin of Samaria— The calf set up at Beth-el by Jeroboam. Instead of, The manner of Beer-sheba, Houbigant reads very properly, Thy god, O Beer-sheba! Compare chap. Amos 5:5.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The prophet is called upon to attend to another vision, and, lo! a basket of summer fruit stood before him, an emblem of that people ripe for destruction, and ready to be devoured by their enemies.
1. Their end is come: they have been suffered, like fruit, to grow till they were fully ripe, and now are to be spared no longer: God's patience is wearied out, and their ruin determined. Though God bears long, the impenitent sinners' fate will come at last.
2. Their ruin will be terrible. The songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God; the places where their idols' praises resounded, now shall be filled with shrieks and groans; and there shall be many dead bodies in every place, slain by the sword, the famine, or the pestilence: they shall cast them forth with silence; without any funeral solemnity, or expression of grief, as if the dead were happier than the living; or sullenly submitting, because they cannot help themselves; or bidding others be silent, and not take the least notice of what might dishearten the besieged, or encourage their enemies. Note; (1.) Sinful mirth will end in bitter mourning. (2.) God's judgments do often but harden the hearts of the impenitent.
2nd, A people whose iniquities were so flagrant may expect the judgment that they have provoked.
1. Their sins were heinous. They swallow up the needy by oppression and iniquity; even to make the poor of the land to fail, starving them for want of necessary food. So addicted were they to covetousness, that, though they kept up the form of religion, they were tired and weary of the service, longing for the sacred hours of the sabbath and new moons to be gone, that they might resume their work and merchandise, which met with this unwelcome interruption; nor did they make any conscience how they got their wealth, so they did but get it. They sold by a small measure, making the ephah small; but, when they received money, they would use their own weights, making the shekel great, refusing to take it unless it weighed more than it ought; and falsified the balances by deceit, that so the scale might always hang in their favour: and by such fraudulent practices they so impoverished their poor neighbours, that they were forced to sell themselves to these oppressive masters; they buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, to such necessities were they reduced: yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat; making them take the corn which was not fit for bread, and exacting their own price for it. Note; (1.) Covetousness is destitute of all bowels and mercies. (2.) To a worldly man the sabbath is an irksome day; and, when he is employed in religious duties, his heart goeth after his covetousness; and even on his knees the thoughts of business thrust out the thoughts of God. (3.) He who is destitute of true piety can never be an honest man.
2. Their ruin is sure and terrible, confirmed by the oath of God, who saith, Surely I will never forget any of their works, but remember them in terrible judgment: they shewed no mercy, and they shall find none. And woe to the miserable sinner who is under such a curse! Shall not the land tremble for this? as weary to bear such miscreants upon it, and ready to swallow them up by an earthquake; see chap. Amos 1:1.; and every one mourn that dwelleth therein, shocked at this inhumanity, or confounded at the judgments sent upon the transgressors? It shall rise up wholly as a flood, the calamity overwhelming the land, as Egypt was covered with the overflowing of the Nile. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day; in the midst of their prosperity their whole kingdom, with the princes and nobles, shall be destroyed suddenly and unexpectedly: or when these oppressors were in the midst of life and prosperity, death should at a stroke close their eyes in darkness, and send them to the grave. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; when, their temples destroyed, their country desolate, themselves captives, every sound of joy would be banished, and with every expressive sign of bitter woe they would bewail their hopeless miseries, as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day, no prospect remaining of the removal of these calamities. Note; (1.) Riches got by rapine will in the end bring ruin. (2.) They who will not tremble for the sins of the land shall be made to tremble when the threatened judgment comes. (3.) However high the oppressor may be seated, the flood of God's wrath shall overwhelm him. (4.) The sinner's mirth will end in mourning; and God sometimes is pleased to arrest him in the midst of his career of prosperity, and by a sudden stroke to send him into darkness.
3rdly, We have had already heavy temporal judgments denounced; but we have also,
1. A spiritual judgment threatened; a famine not of bread nor of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; from the time of their last captivity, no more prophets shall appear to them; having rejected God and his Christ, in vain will they seek for prophets of their own, and pine away in their iniquities, rejected and destitute, as they are this day. Note; (1.) The word of God is the food of immortal souls. (2.) They who have abused the means of grace that they have enjoyed, are justly punished by having them removed. (3.) Among the heaviest curses of God upon a place or nation, is the taking from them the light of truth, and abandoning them to the blindness and hardness of their own hearts:
2. The ringleaders in idolatry are doomed to destruction. They that swear by the sin of Samaria, impious and profane, glorying in their shame, and swearing by their idols which they should have detested, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth, and the manner of Beer-sheba liveth; making their adjurations by the hated deities there placed, and the worship performed to them; even they shall fall, and never rise up again; driven into a captivity from which they never have returned.