Amos 4:9

9 says the LORD. I struck you with disease and mildew. I destroyed your gardens and your vineyards. The locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you didn't return to me,

Amos 4:9 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 4:9

I have smitten you with blasting and mildew
"Blasting" is what we commonly call "blights", generally occasioned by an east wind; and so Kimchi interprets the word here used; and the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "a burning wind"; which causes the buds and leaves of trees to shrivel up as if they were burnt with fire. "Mildew" is a kind of clammy dew, which falling upon corn corrupts and destroys by its moisture; and is a kind of jaundice to the fruits of the earth; and has its name as that, from yellowness, in the Hebrew language: when the Lord is said to smite them with these the sense is, that he sent these upon the fruits of their gardens, fields and vineyards, which consumed them: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive
trees increased, the palmer worm devoured [them];
just when they were budding and blossoming, and bringing forth fruit; and so what the blasting and mildew did not consume, that the palmer worm, a kind of locust, did; which has its name from its biting and cutting off the leaves and branches of trees, as of those mentioned vines, olives and fig trees, with which the land of Canaan abounded, the cutting off which was a great calamity. The Targum is,

``the multitude of your gardens the palmer worm hath eaten:''
yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord;
this dispensation of Providence was also without its desired fruit and effect; (See Gill on Amos 4:6).

Amos 4:9 In-Context

7 says the LORD. I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. I allowed no rain to fall on one city, no rain to fall on another city. One field was rained on, and the field dried up where it didn't rain.
8 So two or three thirsty towns went to one city to drink water, and weren't satisfied; yet you didn't return to me,
9 says the LORD. I struck you with disease and mildew. I destroyed your gardens and your vineyards. The locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you didn't return to me,
10 says the LORD. I sent a plague against you like the one in Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword. I carried away your horses. I made the stink of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you didn't return to me,
11 says the LORD. I destroyed some of you, as when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning coal plucked out of the fire; yet you didn't return to me,
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