Amos 6:9-14

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 6:9-14 Meaning and Commentary

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or to burn the dead. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
• [b]. Lo-debar means “nothing.”
• [c]. Karnaim means “horns,” a term that symbolizes strength.