Amos 4:9

9 I struck your [crops] with blight and mildew. Locusts repeatedly devoured your gardens, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees. And you still didn't return to me, declares 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 I stopped the rain from falling three months before the harvest. I sent rain on one city and not on another. One field had rain. Another field had none and dried up.
8 So people from two or three cities staggered as they walked to another city in order to get a drink of water. But they couldn't get enough. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.
9 I struck your [crops] with blight and mildew. Locusts repeatedly devoured your gardens, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.
10 I sent plagues on you as I did to Egypt. With swords I killed your best young men along with your captured horses. I made the stench from your camps fill your noses. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.
11 I destroyed some of you as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning log snatched from a fire. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.
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