In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
In that day - quoted by James (Acts 15:16-17), "After this" - i:e., in the dispensation of Messiah-the Shiloh, who was to "come" when "the sceptre" had "departed from Judah," and "unto whom the gathering of the people was to be" (Genesis 49:10; Hosea 3:4-5; Joel 2:28; Joel 3:1).
Will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen - not "the house of David," which is used of his affairs when prospering (2 Samuel 3:1), but the tent or booth, expressing the low condition to which his kingdom and family had fallen in Amos' time, and subsequently at the Babylonian captivity, before the restoration; and, secondarily, in the last days preceding Israel's restoration under Messiah, the antitype to David (Psalms 102:13-14; note, Isaiah 12:1; Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:24; Ezekiel 37:24). The type is taken from architecture (Ephesians 2:20). The restoration under Zerubbabel can only be a partial, temporary fulfillment; because it did not include Israel, which nation is the main subject of Amos' prophecies, but only Judah; also Zerubbabel's kingdom was not independent and settled; also, all the prophets end their prophecies with Messiah, whose advent is the cure of all previous disorders. "Tabernacle" is appropriate to Him, as His human nature is the tabernacle which He assumed in becoming Immanuel, "God with us" (John 1:14). "Dwelt" - literally, tabernacled "among us" (cf. Revelation 21:3). Some understand "the tabernacle of David" as that which David pitched for the ark in Zion, after bringing it from Obed-edom's house. It remained there all his reign, for 30 years, until the temple of Solomon was built; whereas the "tabernacle of the congregation" remained at Gibeon (2 Chronicles 1:3), where the priests ministered in sacrifices at "the high place" (1 Chronicles 16:39). Song and praise was the service of David's attendants before the ark-a type of the Gospel separation between the sacrificial service (Messiah's priesthood, now in heaven) and the access of believers on earth to the presence of God, apart from the former (cf. 2 Samuel 6:12-17; 1 Chronicles 16:37-39; 2 Chronicles 1:3).
And close up the breaches thereof - literally, of them, i:e., of the whole nation, Israel as well as Judah. It is striking that Amos prophesying in Israel closes with a promise, not to the ten tribes primarily, but to the royal house of David and to Israel, only through its restoration. 'Strange comment on human greatness, that the royal line was not to be employed in the salvation of the world, until it was "fallen." The royal palace had to become the hut of Nazareth ere the Redeemer of the world could be born, whose glory and kingdom were not of this world ... who came to take from us nothing but our nature, that He might sanctify it-our misery, that He might bear it for us' (Pusey).
And I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old - as it was formerly in the days of David and Solomon, when the kingdom was in its full extent, and undivided.