Amos 4:9

9 I smote you with parching, and with blight: ye multiplied your gardens, your vineyards, and your fig-grounds, and the cankerworm devoured your olive-yards: yet not thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord.

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 Also I withheld from you the rain three months before the harvest: and I will rain upon one city, and on another city I will not rain: one part shall be rained upon, and the part on which I shall not rain shall be dried up.
8 And two or three cities shall be gathered to one city to drink water, and they shall not be satisfied: yet ye have not returned to me, saith the Lord.
9 I smote you with parching, and with blight: ye multiplied your gardens, your vineyards, and your fig-grounds, and the cankerworm devoured your olive-yards: yet not thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord.
10 I sent pestilence among you by the way of Egypt, and slew your young men with the sword, together with thy horses that were taken captive; and in my wrath against you I set fire to your camps: yet not even thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord.
11 I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodoma and Gomorrha, and ye became as a brand plucked out of the fire: yet not even thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.