Amos 8:8-10

8-10. Figurative description of the impending judgment and of the resulting lamentation. The description of the judgment is introduced by a rhetorical question, the answer to which is in the affirmative. Surely their conduct deserves the severest and most terrible retribution.

Shall not the land tremble In an earthquake. In Amos 4:11, Amos called attention to the terrors of a former earthquake; do they not deserve another similar visitation?

For this Or, on account of this the wickedness and corruption described.

Mourn In terror, and over the destruction wrought. 8b may be translated as continuing the rhetorical question, “shall it not rise up wholly like the River, and shall it not be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt?” Or, following the English translations, it may be understood as the reply to 8a. That which they deserve shall indeed come to pass.

It The land.

As a flood Better, R.V., “like the River.” The last word, when in the singular, is used almost exclusively of the Nile.

Cast out R.V., “shall be troubled,” by being driven hither and thither in restless convulsions (Isaiah 57:20). The verb is omitted in LXX. and in the parallel passage (Amos 9:5), and may not be original. Drowned Better, R.V., “sink again.”

As by the flood of Egypt Better, R.V., “like the River of Egypt” the Nile, when its waters subside after the inundation. The rise and fall of the Nile are perhaps not the most appropriate figures for an earthquake, since the latter causes sudden convulsions, while the rise and fall of the Nile are gradual.

Amos 8:9 adds a new feature to the terror of this day of Jehovah (see on Joel 2:10; Joel 2:30-31).

Cause the sun to go down at noon The imagery is probably borrowed from an eclipse of the sun. Amos may have seen the eclipse of 763 B.C., which was observed as a total eclipse in Nineveh on June 15, and which must have been visible in Palestine as a “fairly large partial eclipse.”

Go down Literally, go in. The sun appeared to go into the earth when it set.

Darken the earth By hiding the sun.

Clear day Literally, day of light broad daylight.