And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I also have given you. Yahweh details His several chastisements inflicted with a view to reclaiming them; but adds to each the same sad result, "yet have ye not returned unto me." Literally, 'ye have not returned quite unto me' х `aaday (H5704)]. Their repentance was but a half repentance, which is no true and full returning unto (Isaiah 9:13, "The people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts;" Jeremiah 5:3, "O Lord ... thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; time hast consumed them: but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return;" Hosea 7:10, "The pride of Israel testifieth to his face; and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him for all this"): the monotonous repetition of the same burden marking their pitiable obstinacy. Amos refers to Deuteronomy 4:29, "If from thence (from thy state of affliction) thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul."
Cleanness of teeth - explained by the parallel, "want of bread." The famine alluded to is that mentioned 2 Kings 8:1 (Grotius). Where there is no food to masticate, the teeth are free from uncleanness, but it is the cleanness of want. Compare Proverbs 14:4, "Where no oxen are, the crib is clean." So spiritually, where all is outwardly smooth and clean, it is often because there is no solid religion. Better fightings and fears with real piety, than peace and respectable decorum without spiritual life.
Verse 7. And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest - the time when rain was most needed, and when usually "the latter rain" fell-namely, in spring -- the latter half of February and the whole of March and April (Hosea 6:3; Joel 2:23). The drought meant is that mentioned 1 Kings 17:1. (Grotius).
And I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another - any rain that fell was only partial.
Verse 8. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water - i:e., the inhabitants of three cities wandered about (literally, trembled) in search of water, and found only a scanty and unsatisfying supply in one city (Psalms 109:10, "Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg;" cf. Jeremiah 14:1-6). Grotius explains this verse and Amos 4:7, 'The rain fell on neighbouring countries but not on Israel, which marked the drought to be not accidental, but the special judgment of God.' It also seems to have fallen within Israel itself in a partial way, descending on the cities and portions of the penitent, and not falling on the portions of the impenitent. 'The Israelites were obliged to leave their cities and homes to seek water at a distance.' (Calvin.)
Verse 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew - the blighting influence of the east wind on the grain (Genesis 41:6, 'seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind"). The two words "blasting and mildew" occur only in Deuteronomy, and in Solomon's prayer founded upon it (Deuteronomy 28:22; 1 Kings 8:37). Amos plainly refers in this and many other passages to the Pentateuch, as familiar to the ten tribes. "Mildew," i:e., blight whereby the ears turn into an untimely yellow without grain.
When your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased - in vain ye multiplied your gardens, etc., because I destroyed their produce. Bochart supports margin, 'the multitude of your gardens.' Eastern gardens are at once orchard, herb, and flower-garden (Job 8:16; Song of Solomon 4:13-14; Song of Solomon 6:11).
The palmer-worm - a species of locust is here meant, hurtful to fruits of trees, not to herbage or corn. The same east wind which brought the drought, blasting, and mildew, brought also the locusts into Judea (Bochart); as in the plague of locusts brought by the east wind upon Egypt. (Exodus 10:13). Verse 10. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt - such as I formerly sent on the Egyptians (Exodus 9:3, etc.; Exodus 8:1-32, etc.; Exodus 12:29; Deuteronomy 28:27; Deuteronomy 28:60). Egypt is said to be the birthplace of the plague. Compare the same phrase, Isaiah 10:24.
And have taken away your horses - literally, 'Your young men have I slain with the sword,' accompanied with the captivity your horses; I have given up your young men to be slain, and their horses to be taken by the foe (cf. 2 Kings 13:7, "Neither did he (the Lord) leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria (Hazael) had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing"). The possession of the plain of Jezreel tempted Israel to break the law which forbad their multiplying cavalry and horses.
And I have made the stink of your camps - i:e., the stink of the corpses of your slain men (cf. Isaiah 34:3; Joel 2:20).
To come up unto your nostrils. The Hebrew is more emphatic, 'to come up, and that unto your nostrils.'
Verse 11. I have overthrown some of you - some parts of your territory.
As God overthrew Sodom - plainly referring to Deuteronomy 29:23, "The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah
... which the Lord overthrew in his anger," (Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 1:7.") "God" is often repeated in Hebrew instead of I. The earthquake here apparently alluded to is not that in the reign of Uzziah, which occurred "two years" later (Amos 1:1). Traces of earthquakes and volcanic agency abound in Palestine: to some of the effects of these in previous times the allusion here is. Compare the prophecy, Deuteronomy 28:15-68, with Amos 4:6-11 here. Still they were ordinarily more in its outskirts than in itself. Therefore the visitation the more marks the hand of God.
As a firebrand plucked out of ... burning - (cf. Isaiah 7:4). Zechariah derives the expression from Amos (Zechariah 3:2). The phrase is proverbial for a narrow escape from utter extinction. Though Israel revived as a nation under Jereboam II, it was but for a time, and that after an almost utter destruction previously (2 Kings 14:26).