Amos 1:5 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Amos 1:5
I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.
to burst (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
bar
בְּרִ֣יחַbe.Ri.ach
H1280
a bolt · noun, common masculine singular construct
Damascus
דַּמֶּ֔שֶׂקda.Me.sek
H1834
Damascus · proper noun, a place name
off
וְהִכְרַתִּ֤יve.hikh.ra.Ti
H3772
to cut (off · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
inhabitant
יוֹשֵׁב֙yo.Shev
H3427
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
plain
מִבִּקְעַתmi.bik.'at-
H1237
properly · preposition + proper noun, a place name
Aven
אָ֔וֶן'A.ven
H206
Aven · proper noun, a place name
holdeth
וְתוֹמֵ֥ךְve.to.Mekh
H8551
to sustain · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct
sceptre
שֵׁ֖בֶטShe.vet
H7626
a scion · noun, common masculine singular absolute
house
בַּיִתbayith
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications
Eden
עֵדֶןʻÊden
H5731
Eden
people
עַם'am-
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct
Syria
אֲרָ֛ם'a.Ram
H758
Aram or Syria · proper noun, a place name
captivity
וְגָל֧וּve.ga.Lu
H1540
to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
Kir
קִ֖ירָהKi.rah
H7024
Kir · proper noun, a place name + directional suffix
saith
אָמַ֥ר'a.Mar
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Kings 16:9 And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it capt…
Amos 9:7 Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egyp…
Jeremiah 51:30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have…
Isaiah 43:14 Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, an…
Lamentations 2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no mo…
Jeremiah 50:36 A sword is upon the liars; and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men; and they shall be dismayed.
Nahum 3:13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 1:3–end
What the Lord says here may be explained by what he says Jer 12:14, Thus said the Lord, against all my evil neighbours that touch the inheritance of my people Israel, Behold, I will pluck them out. Damascus was a near neighbour to Israel on the north, Tyre and Gaza on the west, Edom on the south, Ammon and (in the next chapter) Moab on the east; and all of them had been, one time, one way, or other, pricking briers and grieving thorns to Israel, evil neighbours to them; and, because God espouses his people's cause, he there calls them his evil neighbours, and here comes forth to reckon with them. The method is taken in dealing with each of them is, in part, the same, and therefore we put the…
bar of Damascus--that is, the bar of its gates (compare Jer 51:30).
the inhabitant--singular for plural, "inhabitants." HENDERSON, because of the parallel, "him that holdeth the scepter," translates, "the ruler." But the parallelism is that of one clause complementing the other, "the inhabitant" or subject here answering to "him that holdeth the scepter" or ruler there, both ruler and subject alike being cut off.
Aven--the same as Oon or Un, a delightful valley, four hours' journey from Damascus, towards the desert. Proverbial in the East as a place of delight [JOSEPHUS ABASSUS]. It is here parallel to "Eden," which also means "pleasantness"; situated at Lebanon. As JOSEPHUS ABASSUS is a…
The bar of Damascus - The gates, whose long traverse bars, running from wall to wall, were their strength. I will throw it open; and the gates were forced, and the city taken, as above.
The plain of Aven - the house of Eden - These are names, says Bochart, of the valley of Damascus. The plain of Aven, or Birkath-Aven, Calmet says, is a city of Syria, at present called Baal-Bek, and by the Greeks Heliopolis; and is situated at the end of that long valley which extends from south to north, between Libanus and Anti-Libanus.
The people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir - Kir is supposed to be the country of Cyrene in Albania, on the river Cyrus, which empties itself into the Caspian Sea.…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 5) Holding the scepter from the house of pleasure, and the people of Syria will be transferred to Cyrene, says the Lord. LXX: And I will cut off the tribe from men from Haran, and the captive people of Syria will be led, says the Lord. So that it is understood, I will crush and destroy, and the people of Syria will be transferred to the farthest borders of Egypt. And that which is said at the beginning: Concerning the three sins of Damascus, and concerning the four, shall I not (Alternate: shall I not indeed) turn away from him, and according to the Septuagint, shall I not (Alternate: shall I not indeed) reject him, that is, the people of Damascus, or Aram, that is, Syria, can have this meaning according to the history: If they had persecuted my people once, or even twice, I would have forgiven them. But now, since they have become cruel for a third and fourth time, to the point of driving captive multitudes with iron chariots, should I not punish them with blows? Doesn't the mercy of my mother turn away from him? But according to tropology, we can say this: the first sin is to think of evil things. The second is to find rest in perverse thoughts. The third is to carry out what you have decided in your mind. The fourth is not to repent after the sin and to take pleasure in your own wrongdoing. All heretics do this, who not only think and do evil things, but deceive the innocent with their teachings, and, following the example of the Damascenes, who interpret that they drink blood, they also drink the blood of those they have deceived. The Lord says of such great sins: is it not fitting that I punish them with blows and turn my face away from them? For those who do not see the truth of my teachings, let them be overwhelmed with darkness by the turning away of my countenance. Indeed, they have contrived and dissected in iron chariots the pregnant women of Gilead. These are the pregnant ones of whom the Lord speaks in the Gospel: Woe to the pregnant and nursing women in those days (Luke 21:23). The souls of believers are pregnant, who at the beginning of faith can say: We have conceived and given birth from your fear, O Lord (Is. XXVI, 17, 18); and if they are not equipped with iron and toothed wagons (of which the Psalmist says: The teeth of men are their weapons and arrows (Ps. LVI, 5), cut and ironed, they can also say what follows: We have given…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aven — Nothingness; vanity. (1.) Hosea speaks of the “high places of Aven” (10:8), by which he means Bethel. He also calls it Beth-aven, i.e., “the house of vanity” (4:15), on account of the golden calves…
Bar — Used to denote the means by which a door is bolted (Neh. 3:3); a rock in the sea (Jonah 2:6); the shore of the sea (Job 38:10); strong fortifications and powerful impediments, etc. (Isa. 45:2; Amos…
Coelesyria — (hollow Syria), the remarkable valley or hollow which intervenes between Libanus and Anti-Libanus, stretching a distance of nearly a hundred miles. The only mention of the region as a separate tract…
Damascus — Activity, the most ancient of Oriental cities; the capital of Syria (Isa. 7:8; 17:3); situated about 133 miles to the north of Jerusalem. Its modern name is Esh-Sham; i.e., “the East.” The situation…
Eden — Delight. (1.) The garden in which our first parents dewlt (Gen. 2:8-17). No geographical question has been so much discussed as that bearing on its site. It has been placed in Armenia, in the region…
Kir — A wall or fortress, a place to which Tiglath-pileser carried the Syrians captive after he had taken the city of Damascus (2 Kings 16:9; Amos 1:5; 9:7). Isaiah (22:6), who also was contemporary with…
Plain — (1.) Heb. ‘abel (Judg. 11:33), a “grassy plain” or “meadow.” Instead of “plains of the vineyards,” as in the Authorized Version, the Revised Version has “Abel-cheramim” (q.v.), comp. Judg. 11:22; 2…
Aven · 1. “The plain of the Sun,” — 1. “The plain of the Sun,”
I will break also the bar of Damascus,.... Or bars, the singular for the plural, by which the gates of the city were barred; and, being broken, the gates would be easily opened, and way made for the enemy to pass into the city and spoil it; or it may signify the whole strength and all the fortifications of it. So the Targum,
"I will break the strength of Damascus:''
and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven; or, "of an idol", as the Vulgate Latin version. It is thought to be some place where idols were worshipped by the Syrians; their gods were the gods of the valleys, which they denied the God of Israel to be, 1 Kings 20:23. Mr. Maundrell (g) says, that near Damascus there is a pl…
Amos 1:3-5
3. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:
3. Sic dixit Jehova, Super tribus sceleribus Damasci et super quatuor non ero propitius ei; quia trituraverunt serris (vel, tribulis ferreis) Gilead.
4. But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad.
4. Et mittam ignem in domum Chasael, et vorabit palatia Ben-Adad.
5. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall g…
Aram-Damascus. - Amo 1:3. "Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have threshed Gilead with iron rollers, Amo 1:4. I send fire into the house of Hazael, and it will eat the palaces of Ben-hadad, Amo 1:5. And break in pieces the bolt of Damascus, and root out the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and the sceptre-holder out of Beth-eden: and the people of Aram will wander into captivity to Kir, saith Jehovah." In the formula, which is repeated in the case of every people, "for three transgressions, and for four," the numbers merely serve to denote the multiplicity of the sins, the exact number of which has no bearing upon…
Aven and Beth-eden were both connected with Aram and Damascus. Aven (meaning evil, wickedness) refers to the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains or the plain of Damascus. The city-state Beth-eden was north of Aram, elsewhere simply called Eden (2 Kgs 19:12; Ezek 27:23). • The Arameans originally came from Kir (Amos 9:7), probably in southern Babylonia; Kir was where Assyria deported them when Damascus fell (2 Kgs 16:9). Just as Egypt was a symbol of captivity for Israel (see Deut 28:68), Kir represented captivity for Aram.
Rashi on Amos 1:5
from Bik’ath-Aven—That is a place in Aram.
and one who holds the scepter—[Jonathan renders:] and one who exercises sovereignty. Cf. (Gen. 49:10) “The scepter shall not turn away from Judah,” since the ruler castigates the people with sticks.
from Beth-Eden—A place name.
to Kir—A place name, where Sennacherib exiled them during the time of Ahaz, as it is stated: “And he went up to Damascus and seized it, and exiled Aram to Kir.” [see II Kings 16:9, where the wording differs.] All the retribution that the prophets of Israel prophesied concerning the nations - the prophets who preceded Sennacherib, e.g. Isaiah and Amos, prophesied concerning the sword of Sennacherib, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
