Amos 6

1 What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem, and you who feel secure in Samaria! You are famous and popular in Israel, and people go to you for help.

2 But go over to Calneh and see what happened there. Then go to the great city of Hamath and down to the Philistine city of Gath. You are no better than they were, and look at how they were destroyed.

3 You push away every thought of coming disaster, but your actions only bring the day of judgment closer.

4 How terrible for you who sprawl on ivory beds and lounge on your couches, eating the meat of tender lambs from the flock and of choice calves fattened in the stall.

5 You sing trivial songs to the sound of the harp and fancy yourselves to be great musicians like David.

6 You drink wine by the bowlful and perfume yourselves with fragrant lotions. You care nothing about the ruin of your nation.

7 Therefore, you will be the first to be led away as captives. Suddenly, all your parties will end.

8 The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his own name, and this is what he, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “I despise the arrogance of Israel, and I hate their fortresses. I will give this city and everything in it to their enemies.”

9 (If there are ten men left in one house, they will all die.

10 And when a relative who is responsible to dispose of the dead goes into the house to carry out the bodies, he will ask the last survivor, “Is anyone else with you?” When the person begins to swear, “No, by . . . ,” he will interrupt and say, “Stop! Don’t even mention the name of the LORD .”)

11 When the LORD gives the command, homes both great and small will be smashed to pieces.

12 Can horses gallop over boulders? Can oxen be used to plow them? But that’s how foolish you are when you turn justice into poison and the sweet fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

13 And you brag about your conquest of Lo-debar. You boast, “Didn’t we take Karnaim by our own strength?”

14 “O people of Israel, I am about to bring an enemy nation against you,” says the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies. “They will oppress you throughout your land— from Lebo-hamath in the north to the Arabah Valley in the south.”

Amos 6 Commentary

Chapter 6

The danger of luxury and false security. (1-7) Punishments of sins. (8-14)

Verses 1-7 Those are looked upon as doing well for themselves, who do well for their bodies; but we are here told what their ease is, and what their woe is. Here is a description of the pride, security, and sensuality, for which God would reckon. Careless sinners are every where in danger; but those at ease in Zion, who are stupid, vainly confident, and abusing their privileges, are in the greatest danger. Yet many fancy themselves the people of God, who are living in sin, and in conformity to the world. But the examples of others' ruin forbid us to be secure. Those who are set upon their pleasures are commonly careless of the troubles of others, but this is great offence to God. Those who placed their happiness in the pleasures of sense, and set their hearts upon them, shall be deprived of those pleasures. Those who try to put the evil day far from them, find it nearest to them.

Verses 8-14 How dreadful, how miserable, is the case of those whose eternal ruin the Lord himself has sworn; for he can execute his purpose, and none can alter it! Those hearts are wretchedly hardened that will not be brought to mention God's name, and to worship him, when the hand of God is gone out against them, when sickness and death are in their families. Those that will not be tilled as fields, shall be abandoned as rocks. When our services of God are soured with sin, his providences will justly be made bitter to us. Men should take warning not to harden their hearts, for those who walk in pride, God will destroy.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew in Zion.
• [b]. Hebrew of Joseph.
• [c]. Hebrew Jacob. See note on 3:13 .
• [d]. Or to burn the dead. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
• [e]. Lo-debar means “nothing.”
• [f]. Karnaim means “horns,” a term that symbolizes strength.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 6

This chapter seems to be directed both to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and the ten tribes of Israel, under the names of Zion and Samaria, and to the principal men in both; who are reproved and threatened for their carnal security and self-confidence, being in no fear of the evil day, though they had no reason for it no more than other people, Am 6:1-3; are charged with wantonness, luxury, intemperance, and want of sympathy with those in distress, Am 6:4-6; therefore are threatened to be carried captive first, and their city to be delivered up; which, for the certainty of it, is not only said, but swore to, Am 6:7,8; and a great mortality in every house, and the destruction of all houses, both great and small, Am 6:9-11; and since a reformation of them seemed impracticable, and not to be expected, but they gloried in their wealth, and boasted of their strength, therefore they should be afflicted by a foreign nation raised against them, which affliction should be general, from one end of the country to the other, Am 6:12-14.