Amos 1:5 - Exposition

The bar which secured the gate of the city ( 1 Kings 4:13 ; Jeremiah 51:30 ; Nahum 3:13 ). Breaking the bar is equivalent to laying the place open to the enemy. From the plain of Avon; Vulgate, de campo idoli ; Hebrew, bikath-Aven ; Septuagint, ἐκ πεδίου ων ; better, from the valley of Aven, or vanity, perhaps so called analogously with Hosea's naming Bethel, Bethaven, "House of God" and "House of vanity" ( Hosea 5:8 ). Robinson and Pusey refer the name to a valley between Lebanon and Antilibanus, a continuation of the Arabah, still called Bukaa, in the middle of which stood Baalbec, "the Temple of the sun of the valley," called Heliopolis by Greek and Roman writers (see 'Classical Museum,' 3:136). The LXX . Renders "On" in Genesis 41:45 by "Heliopolis;" and On and Baal being both titles of the sun, and indeed synonymous, the introduction of "On" into this passage may be accounted for. Him that holdeth the sceptre. The king and princes, as Genesis 41:8 . From the house of Eden; Hebrew, Beth-Eden, "House of delight;" Vulgate, de domo voluptatis ; Septuagint, ἐξ ἀνδρῶν χαῤῥάν , "out of the men of Charran." This last rendering arises from considering that the reference was to the Eden of Genesis 2:1-25 ; which the translators placed in the region of Haran. The place in the text Keil supposes to be the Paradisus of the Greeks, which Ptolemy ( Genesis 5:15 , Genesis 5:20 ) locates southeast of Laodicea. Schrader suggests a place on the banks of the middle Euphrates between Balis and Biredschich called Bit - Adini in inscriptions of Asurnasirhabal and Salmanassur II . But this seems to be a wrong locality. The passage means that all the inhabitants of valley and city, king and peasant, shall be cut off. Shall go into captivity. The word implies that the land shall be "stripped" or "bared" of its inhabitants. Wholesale deportation had not hitherto been common in these regions. Kir has been identified with the country on the banks of the river Kar, which flows into the Araxes on the southwest of the Caspian Sea. It forms part of the territory known as Transcaucasia. From this region the Syrians originally emigrated ( Amos 9:7 ), and back to this land a large body were carried when Tiglath-Pileser, some fifty years later, killed Rezin and sacked Damascus, as related in 2 Kings 16:9 . Saith the Lord. This is the solemn confirmation of the prophet's announcement, and recurs in 2 Kings 16:8 , 2 Kings 16:15 and Amos 2:3 .