Amos 2:9

9 Yet I destroyed the Amorite {before them}, {who was as tall as} cedars and was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

Amos 2:9 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 2:9

Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them
Here the Lord by the prophet reckons up the many favours and blessings he had bestowed upon Israel, which was an aggravation of their sins, and showed them to be guilty of great ingratitude, and a justification of him in his punishment of them he drove out the seven nations of Canaanites from before them, to make way for them, and destroyed them, of which the Amorite was a principal, and is here put for all the rest: whose height [was] like the height of the cedars;
being both tall of stature, and in great honour and dignity with the other nations, and in very opulent and flourishing circumstances: and he was strong as the oaks:
not only like the tall cedars of Lebanon for their height and largeness of stature, but like the sturdy oaks for the strength of their bodies, being of the race of the giants, ( Numbers 13:28 Numbers 13:32 Numbers 13:33 ) ( Deuteronomy 3:11 ) ; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath;
that is, utterly destroyed him, root and branch, so that nothing of him remained; still persisting in the metaphor of a tree. Jarchi interprets it of their superior and inferior princes; but it seems best to understand it of children with their parents, the one being the fruit, the other the root; and, both being destroyed, there must be utter ruin.

Amos 2:9 In-Context

7 Those who trample the heads of the powerless into the dust of the ground and turn aside the way of the destitute, a man and his father {have sexual relations with} the same girl, so that [they] profane my holy name.

8 They stretch themselves out beside every altar on clothing taken in pledge and they drink wine, bought with fines imposed, in the house of their God.

9 Yet I destroyed the Amorite {before them}, {who was as tall as} cedars and was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

10 And I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and I led you in the wilderness forty years to take possession of the land of the Amorite.

11 And I raised up some [of] your sons to [be] prophets and some [of] your young men to [be] Nazirites. Is it not so, O {people} of Israel? [This is] the declaration of Yahweh!

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "from the face of them"
• [b]. Literally "whose height was as the height of"