And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:
Ver. 8. Behold, I will set a plumbline] I will call them to a strict account, and show them no favour, Jeremiah 16:3, I will now actually execute my justice which I have hitherto suspended; and pay them home for the new and the old; bringing upon them an evil, an only evil, without mixture of mercy, Ezekiel 7:5 .
I will not again pass by them any more] A metaphor from men that pass by such things as they slight and count inconsiderable; winking at small faults as not worthy to be reckoned upon. Hence, Micah 7:18, God is said to pardon iniquity and pass by transgression; as elsewhere he is said to bind them up in a bundle, to seal them up in a bag, to cast them behind his back, to remove them "as far as the east is from the west," Psalms 103:12, so that he beholdeth no sin in Jacob nor perverseness in Israel, Numbers 22:21. The Church, privy to her own infirmities, calleth herself black, Song of Solomon 1:5, but Christ calleth her fair all over, Song of Solomon 4:7. She saith, God hath punished us less than our sins, Ezra 9:13. He saith, She hath received double for her sins, Isaiah 40:2. Too much, saith God; too little, saith she. O beautiful contention! But this is a privilege proper to the communion of saints, with whom God will not deal according to the rigour of his law (as he doth with the wicked), but according to his prerogative.