Amos 2:9

9 "But it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them, who were tall like cedar trees and as strong as oaks -- I destroyed them completely.

Amos 2:9 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 2:9

Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them
Here the Lord by the prophet reckons up the many favours and blessings he had bestowed upon Israel, which was an aggravation of their sins, and showed them to be guilty of great ingratitude, and a justification of him in his punishment of them he drove out the seven nations of Canaanites from before them, to make way for them, and destroyed them, of which the Amorite was a principal, and is here put for all the rest: whose height [was] like the height of the cedars;
being both tall of stature, and in great honour and dignity with the other nations, and in very opulent and flourishing circumstances: and he was strong as the oaks:
not only like the tall cedars of Lebanon for their height and largeness of stature, but like the sturdy oaks for the strength of their bodies, being of the race of the giants, ( Numbers 13:28 Numbers 13:32 Numbers 13:33 ) ( Deuteronomy 3:11 ) ; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath;
that is, utterly destroyed him, root and branch, so that nothing of him remained; still persisting in the metaphor of a tree. Jarchi interprets it of their superior and inferior princes; but it seems best to understand it of children with their parents, the one being the fruit, the other the root; and, both being destroyed, there must be utter ruin.

Amos 2:9 In-Context

7 They walk on poor people as if they were dirt, and they refuse to be fair to those who are suffering. Fathers and sons have sexual relations with the same woman, and so they ruin my holy name.

8 As they worship at their altars, they lie down on clothes taken from the poor. They fine people, and with that money they buy wine to drink in the house of their god.

9 "But it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them, who were tall like cedar trees and as strong as oaks -- I destroyed them completely.

10 It was I who brought you from the land of Egypt and led you for forty years through the desert so I could give you the land of the Amorites.

11 I made some of your children to be prophets and some of your young people to be Nazirites. People of Israel, isn't this true?" says the Lord.