What he has prophesied and threatened with clear words so far, he prophesies here with dark words and visions. The mercy and long-suffering of God is praised to us, who does not want the death of the sinner, but rather that he converts and lives. Therefore, He postpones the punishment and invites to repentance. But finally, when he sees that he can do nothing, neither by threats nor by friendly enticements, he is extremely angry and strikes. This is how he has always dealt with the Jews, with Pharaoh, and with the traitor Judas, on whom he has shown his terrible judgments, so that they might be examples of his wrath. We see the same thing here. He sent his word so abundantly, he exhorted in many ways, sometimes with revealed words, sometimes by visions, to entice them to repentance. But since all this was of no avail, he rejected this whole people in a frightening way.
V. 1. Behold, there stood one making locusts.
Formator locustarum, that is, "who made locusts", since it began to grow or the late rains to arrive. This is a description of the time by which he indicates that the locusts are made at the most inopportune time, namely at the beginning, when the seeds are rising, since the seeds and all fruits can suffer nothing less than locusts, which eat them away 2c.
After the king had his sheep sheared (Post tonsionem regis).
One wants, 1) that by tonsio regis [the shearing of the king] the grazing on the field is indicated, as also our farmers are used to do at the beginning, when the seeds begin to grow, 2) and this shearing or grazing of the seeds the kings reserved for themselves.
1) D.: voluit instead of: volunt in the manuscript.
2) D. continues: that they graze the tops of the growing seed. But I like better that one understands it simply: since now first the sheep of the king had been shorn.
and claimed it for themselves, as our princes claim the fish and game of the forest.
V. 3: When they wanted to eat up the herbs in the land.
Instead of consummasset, it should more correctly read: "When they wanted to eat up the herbage in the land. This is a threat of God, by which he indicates that it will happen that the army of the Assyrians, which he calls locusts, will devastate everything, and nothing will be left.
O Lord, have mercy!
Here the prophet makes himself a wall for the people, so that he averts the wrath of God, so that he may not destroy them. 3) But still, he does not completely turn away the wrath of God, for the LORD postponed the plague from striking immediately at the beginning, as he had threatened. 4) Therefore, this is the attitude of the prophet, since he says:
Who will help Jacob up again? because he is low.
As if he wanted to say: Spare, Lord, that you do not destroy, do not send the king of the Assyrians against Jacob, since Jacob is nothing compared to the Assyrian; who will therefore help? That is, who can make Jacob stand against the mighty Assyrian?
V. 3.5 ) Then the LORD repented, and said, Well, it shall not be.
Namely, now, at this time, when the kingdom is in bloom. For at that time the
3) D. continues: And indeed this prayer was not in vain, for the Lord 2c.
4) D. f: Therefore, this passage contains a wonderful consolation and a beautiful example of how powerful a believing prayer is and how much it is able to do. These examples should also inspire us not only to pray diligently and often, but also to pay great attention to our prayers and those of others, since God has promised that He will hear us and shows by such examples that He keeps His promise. But this is the attitude of the prophet, since he says:
5) Here the Weimar edition has (incorrectly) the verse number "6th".
Kingdom of Israel at its peak when Jeroboam reigned, who was a good and excellent king in outward appearance, as we said at the beginning [in the preface].
V. 4. And behold, the Lord called the fire to punish with it.
That is) I have seen a matter negotiated, in which one dealt with it that after negotiated matter should be punished with fire. But the fire was so great that it consumed not only the wood, but also, which is contrary to nature, the great depths, that is, standing waters and other seas. 2) He indicates the fierceness of the fire, that it not only dried up the water, which is also usually dried up by the blazing sun, but also the deep waters 2c.
And already ate a part of it.
Instead of partem it should [according to the Hebrew] more correctly read: the field. The summa of all this is: he compares the kingdom to a great deep and a fertile field. At that time the kingdom of Israel was in bloom, as I have said, since Jeroboam reigned. Nothing was less in view, nor was anything less believed, than that this kingdom should be laid waste. But here he threatens that all should perish and be consumed by fire. 4) For as a deep or a small field are nothing against a devouring fire, so also he considers the kingdom of Israel to be nothing compared to the power of the Assyrians who were to come through the judgment of God 2c.
V. 7. And he had the lead cord (trulla cementarii) in his hand.
The Hebrew word does not mean a mason's trowel, but a lead-loth or a straightedge, in ordinary language "a straightedge," which masons use to make the walls straight. And since it is said here: The Lord stood on a wall
1) The first sentence reads with D.: I have seen that God let fire come to Him, which should devastate everything far and wide.
2) The following is missing from D.
3) The following sentence reads with D.: He calls "the deep" the great and densely dwelling people.
4) The following is missing from D.
of the lead cord, this is a Hebrew way of speaking, that is, he stood on the maller made straight with a lead cord.
V. 8. I will no longer overlook him.
This means that even though I will postpone for a while the captivity that I threatened Israel with, I will no longer overlook their sins. I will punish them in some part, I will straighten and adjust the protruding stones with my guide, that is, I will punish the sins of the king or the king's house. And in this third vision he threatens misfortune to the royal house of Jeroboam, with the exclusion of the other people, of whom he says he wants to scourge for a time. It is therefore the opinion, as if he wanted to say: Just as a mason uses his guide to set in order the stones that stand out and are not well aligned with the others, so that a proper assembly may come into being: so too, by my judgment of the great captivity of the whole kingdom in the midst of the people, I will set the house of King Jeroboam straight, as he immediately adds.
V. 9.5 ) But the high places of Isaac shall be laid waste.
Here he mixes the three visions with each other, as if to say: what I have foretold will happen, but still I will postpone a little the two things I have now threatened the whole kingdom with, but I will not postpone the third. And what we read [in the Vulgate]:
Excelsa idoli, should be read more correctly like this: 6) the altars of mockery. He calls the godless worship of godlessness altars or houses of mockery, because even
5) The Weimar edition asked this still with drawn to the eighth verse. Only the following section has the verse number "9.
6) Instead of the following in this passage D. has: The altars of Isaac. But he calls so either a temple, which is so called by the patriarch Isaac, or the whole people of Israel, although the prophet has the meaning of the word in mind, because Isaac has his name from mocking. And he punishes with this name the godless worship, because superstitious, likewise self-chosen works or services are nothing but a kind of mockery, whereby God is mocked, who promotes another worship in his word.
The godless mock God with their own invented worship. Thus Ishmael mocks the good Isaac, as also Paul says, Gal. 4, 29: "But as in those days he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, so it is now also." Thus the ungodly always mock the preaching of the godly with their statutes of men This battle of Isaac and Ishmael will never cease.
And the churches (sanctificationes) of Israel will be destroyed.
Sanctificatio, a foundation ("gestifft"). Thus it says in the Psalm [Ps. 114, 2.]: "Then Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion", that is, Judah is "his bishopric", in Judah he wanted to have the priesthood, and in Israel his dominion, that is, the kingdom. All this, he says, shall be laid waste.
And I will make myself a sword over the house of Jeroboam.
This actually goes to the king. He threatens the king's house, that is, the descendants of the king, with destruction, which occurred since Jeroboam was dead, since Zechariah, the godless son of Jeroboam, was killed, 2 Kings 15:10.
V. 10. Then Amaziah sent.
1) Here we have an example of the dispute and the mockery, of which I said shortly before. This history is extremely remarkable, in which one can see what godlessness is and what it thinks of the word of God; how it despises everything that is of God, so that its own remains unharmed. Thus the godless priest Amaziah here scorns and despises the godly prophet Amos, who was despised and a lowly shepherd. Therefore he admonishes the king not to believe the prophecy of Amos, because it is a lie, 3) since he speaks against the king and against the kingdom, of which they were quite sure that it was established by God. Thus the God-
1) The first sentence is missing in D.
2) D. continues thus: and what the world, that is, the holiest and wisest keep from the word of God 2c.
3) D. f: and inflammatory speeches,
The godless blind one another through their ungodliness and seduce one another, as the apostle says 2 Tim. 3, 13: "But with evil men and seducing men it becomes the longer the worse, they seduce and are seduced. But he adds the ungodly teaching of the ungodly priest:
Amos makes an uproar against you in the house of Israel.
The reason for the proof is taken from the royal dignity, from the quantity and greatness, as the enemies of the gospel nowadays ungodly oppose the dignity and the majesty of the emperor in all things, 4) likewise the reputation of the church 2c. So here the godless priest opposes the kingdom of 5) Israel and the king to the prophet, of which they were quite sure that both were fully instituted by God, 6) which the prophets could not deny. And since the wicked knew that both the king and the kingdom were instituted by GOD, they gave no ear to the prophets who condemned the king and the kingdom, and thus concluded: If the king is instituted by GOD, it follows that GOD is with the king; he confirms the kingdom, therefore he is not in error. 7) Therefore, since the prophets condemned these things, they were killed, they were accused of stirring up sedition, as here Amaziah says: "The land cannot suffer his words." Thus Christ had to hear [Luc. 23, 5.], "He hath stirred up the people, that he hath taught to and fro throughout all the Jewish country. "2c. 8) But this is the form of the Word of God, so it goes with the preachers of the Word.
4) D. f: whom, as you know, we serve sacredly and conscientiously, and the 2c.
5) D.: the priesthood; so also the Hallic manuscript.
6) Here D. continues thus: Based on this confidence, they either despised and laughed at the prophets, or persecuted them because they so concluded 2c.
7) D. f: Therefore, he who speaks against the king, who threatens him with evil, is a rebel. Thus the prophets were killed 2c.
8) Instead of the last sentence D. has: Therefore it is not to be wondered at that these things are also reproached to us. For why should we have it better than our Lord Jesus Christ, than all holy prophets have had it?
V. 11 For thus saith Amos, Jeroboam shall die by the sword.
Here, he impiously falsifies the words of the prophet to make him all the more detestable. Because he lies, and puts the words of the prophet wrongly before the king. The prophet had threatened doom to Jeroboam's Hanse, that is, to his children; but the latter twists the prophecy and draws it unjustly on Jeroboam. We see the same thing happening to us in all things today. All the prophets condemn this impiety. They condemned the godlessness of the people, the godless people countered them, to protect their godlessness, that they were God's people, that they had the word of God 2c. But the prophets said that these promises did not concern the ungodly, but only the godly, of whom there have always been very few, and that only these should be preserved for the sake of the promises made to the fathers, while all the rest have been corrupted. And this is what Isaiah says [Cap. 10, 22]: "For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, yet the rest of them shall be converted," and what Paul says in the letter to the Romans, Cap. 11, 1: "Has God cast away His people? Let that be far off! For I am also an Israelite" 2c.; namely, the good part of the people [is to be preserved). 1)
V. 13: For it is the king's pen.
As if he wanted to say: Pack yourself, here you have nothing to prophesy, "it is the king's pen". Beware that you do not set yourself against the Israelite kingdom, which is ordered by God; flee, lest you be seized and killed. Here you will not be able to find your food; go to Judah. When the servants of the word hear this, they must be driven out 2c.
1) Added by us according to the Zwickau manuscript.
V. 14. I am not a prophet.
At this point the interpreters have struggled in many ways, but in vain. For what I have said above [Cap. 1, 1.] about the ranks of the prophets also belongs here, so that the opinion is: I do not belong to the number or to the state of the prophets. For they were ranks of the prophets, therefore in the sacred histories "children of the prophets" are called the hearers and followers of the prophets.
But I am a cowherd 2c.
As if he wanted to say: I do not preach for the sake of earning my living with it, I do not seek my profit or wealth, but acquire my food with my hand, I am satisfied with picking mulberries.
V. 16. Do not drip against the house of Israel.
The prophets often use this word for the word "preach", since the one who preaches drips, namely when he announces the wrath of God and the future punishment, that is, threatens and warns before the calamity follows; when this happens, the great rain follows.
V. 17. Your wife will become a harlot in the city.
Fornicabitur, that is, it will be desecrated.
Drin field is to be divided by the cord.
"By the cord," that is, your field shall be divided out.
In an unclean land.
That is, in captivity 2c.