Amos 9:7 - Exposition

Israel's election to be God's people should not save them, unless their conduct corresponded with God's choice. If they opened not, they were no better in his eyes than the heathen, their delivery from Egypt had no more significance than the migration of pagan nations. Here is a contrast to Amos 6:1 , etc. The children of Israel were now no dearer than the children of the Ethiopians ( Cushites ) . The Cushites are introduced as being descendants of the wicked Ham, and black in complexion (as Jeremiah 13:23 ), the colour of their skin being considered a mark of degradation and of evil character. The Philipstines from Caphtor; from Cappadocia ( LXX . and Vulgate). This rendering is mistaken. The immigration spoken of took place before the Exodus (see Deuteronomy 2:23 ; Jeremiah 47:4 ); and Caphtor is either Crete (see Dillman on Genesis 10:14 ) or the coast land of the Delta, "which was occupied from an early period by Phoenician colonists, and thus came to be known to the Egyptians as Keft ur, or 'greater Phoenicia,'" Keft being the Egyptian name of Phoenicia" ( Monthly Interpreter , 3:136). Medieval Jewish writers identified it with Damiette. The Syrians ( Arum, Hebrew) from Kir; τοὺς σύρους ἐκ βόθρου , "the Syrians out .of the ditch"; Syros de Cyrene (Vulgate); see note on Amos 1:5 . "Aram" here probably means the Damascenes, Damascus shortly before the time of Moses having been occupied by a powerful body of immigrants from Armenia.