And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.
And ye shall go out at the breaches - namely, of the city walls broken through by the enemy.
Every cow at that which is before her - as a herd of cows go one after the other through a gap in a fence. Figure for, 'the once luxurious nobles (cf. Amos 4:1, kine of Bashan) shall go out each one right before her; not through the gates, but each at the breach before him, not turning to the right or left, apart from one another. The image happily represents the confusion with which one should hurry after another, reckless and desperate. Calves had been their object of worship; so like calves they had become in their sensual animal life, and like calves or cows they should flee in disorder through the breaches.
And ye shall cast them into the palace - "them," i:e., 'your posterity,' from Amos 4:2. Yourselves shall escape through the breaches, after having cast your little children into the palace, so as not to see their destruction, and to escape the more quickly. Rather, 'ye shall cast yourselves into the palace,' so as to escape from it out of the city (Calvin). Thus, 'ye shall cast yourselves' answers to the headlong awkward plunging motion of the cow, as represented by the desperate movements of the ruined nobles flinging themselves forward from, palace to palace. The Hebrew for "the palace" [haharmownaah] may rather be translated as a proper name, 'The mountains of Monah' - i:e., of Armenia (Pusey): so in Amos 5:27 God saith, "I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus." The palace, the scene of the princes' drunken riots, and the storehouse of violence and robbery (Amos 3:10; Amos 3:15; Amos 4:1), is to be the scene of their ignominious flight. Compare, in the similar case of Jerusalem's capture, the king's escape by way of the palace, through a breach in the wall, Ezekiel 12:5; Ezekiel 12:12. Gesenius translates, 'ye shall be cast (as captives) into the (enemy's) stronghold;' in this view, the enemy's stronghold is called "palace," in retributive contrast to the "palaces" of Israel's nobles, the storehouses of their robberies (Amos 3:10).