Amos 4:6

6 “I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth ^[a] and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

Amos 4:6 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 4:6

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your
cities
Meaning a famine, having no food to foul them with, or to stick in them. This was not the famine in Samaria, ( 2 Kings 6:25 ) ; for that was only in that city, and for a short time, while besieged; whereas this was in all the cities in Israel; rather therefore it designs the famine predicted by Elisha, which should be upon the land for seven years, ( 2 Kings 8:1 ) ; and want of bread in all your places:
this is the same with the former clause, and explains it, and still makes the famine more general, not only in their cities, but in all their places of abode, their towns and villages: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord;
this judgment had no influence upon them, to bring them to a sense of their evils, particularly their idolatry, and to repentance them, and to reclaim them from them, and return them to the Lord, and to his worship, as the Targum paraphrases it.

Amos 4:6 In-Context

4 “Go to Bethel and transgress; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.

5 Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.

6 “I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

7 “I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.

8 People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

Footnotes

• [a]. That is, with empty stomachs