Amos 2:9

9 "I destroyed the Amorites to make room for my people in the land. The Amorites were as tall as cedar trees. They were as strong as oak trees. But I cut off their fruit above the ground and their roots below it.

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 grind the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground. They refuse to be fair to those who are crushed. A father and his son have sex with the same girl. They treat my name as if it were not holy.

8 They lie down beside every altar on clothes they had taken until the owner paid back what was owed. In the house of their God they drink wine that was taken as fines.

9 "I destroyed the Amorites to make room for my people in the land. The Amorites were as tall as cedar trees. They were as strong as oak trees. But I cut off their fruit above the ground and their roots below it.

10 "People of Israel, I brought you up out of Egypt. I led you in the desert for 40 years. I gave you the land of the Amorites.

11 I raised up prophets from among your children. I also set some of your young people apart to me as Nazirites. Isn't that true, people of Israel?" announces the Lord.