Amos 2:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Amos 2:9
Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
an oak or other strong tree · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
destroyed
וָאַשְׁמִ֤ידva.'ash.Mid
H8045
to desolate · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular
fruit
פִּרְיוֹ֙pir.Yo
H6529
fruit (literally or figuratively) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
above
מִמַּ֔עַלmi.Ma.'al
H4605
properly · preposition + cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
roots
וְשָׁרָשָׁ֖יוve.sha.ra.Shav
H8328
a root (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
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
Job 18:16 His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.
Malachi 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day tha…
Genesis 15:16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
Exodus 34:11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Pe…
Numbers 13:28-29 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Ana…
Numbers 13:32-33 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have…
Numbers 21:23-25 And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into t…
Deuteronomy 2:24-33 Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and h…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 2:9–end
Here, I. God puts his people Israel in mind of the great things he has done for them, in putting them into possession of the land of Canaan, the greatest part of which these ten tribes now enjoyed, Amo 2:9, Amo 2:10. Note, We need often to be reminded of the mercies we have received, which are the heaviest aggravations of the sins we have committed. God gives liberally, and upbraids us not with our meanness and unworthiness, and the disproportion between his gifts and our merits; but he justly upbraids us with our ingratitude, and ill requital of his favours, and tells us what he has done for us, to shame us for not rendering again according to the benefit done to us. "Son, remember; Israel,…
Yet--My former benefits to you heighten your ingratitude.
the Amorite--the most powerful of all the Canaanite nations, and therefore put for them all (Gen 15:16; Gen 48:22; Deu 1:20; Jos 7:7).
height . . . like . . . cedars-- (Num 13:32-33).
destroyed his fruit . . . above . . . roots . . . beneath--that is, destroyed him utterly (Job 18:16; Eze 17:9; Mal 4:1).
Adam Clarke on Amos 2:9
Yet destroyed I the Amorite - Here follow general heads of God's mercies to them, and the great things he had done for them.
1. Bringing them out of Egypt.
2. Miraculously sustaining them in the wilderness forty years.
3. Driving out the Canaanites before them, and giving them possession of the promised land.
4. Raising up prophets among them to declare the Divine will.
5. And forming the holy institution of the Nazarites among them, to show the spiritual nature of his holy religion, Amo 2:9-11.
John Gill on Amos 2:9
Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them,.... Here the Lord by the prophet reckons up the many favours and blessings he had bestowed upon Israel, which was an aggravation of their sins, and showed them to be guilty of great ingratitude, and a justification of him in his punishment of them he drove out the seven nations of Canaanites from before them, to make way for them, and destroyed them, of which the Amorite was a principal, and is here put for all the rest:
whose height was like the height of the cedars; being both tall of stature, and in great honour and dignity with the other nations, and in very opulent and flourishing circumstances:
and he was strong as the oaks: not only like the…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 9 and following) But I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedar trees, and he was strong like an oak tree. And I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from below. I am the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you into the wilderness for forty years, so that you could possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up prophets from among your sons and Nazirites from among your young men. LXX: But I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots beneath. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, that you might possess the land of the Amorites. And I took your sons as prophets and your young men as consecrated ones. Is it not true that you have sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals? You have struck the heads of the poor, crushing them to the ground, and you have turned aside from the way of the humble. So much so that both father and son go to the same girl, defiling my holy name. Your garments are stained with the blood of the innocent and your clothes are polluted with adultery. You have bound yourselves with the chains of sin, committing adultery even in the sanctuary and joining injustice with drunkenness. You drink wine bought with foreign money in the house of your God. But on the contrary, I bestowed good things upon you in return for the evils you inflicted on me, so that I might destroy, before your presence, Seon, the king of the Amorites, who was so lofty and strong like a cedar and an oak, and I broke his fruit from above and his roots from below. I led you out of Egypt (Deut. 29), and for forty years I made you go around in circles to reach the holy land, so that you might possess the land of the Amorites, of which we have spoken before: which Moses divided to the sons of Reuben and Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh (Num. 32); and after so many benefits, I also added this, that I would take prophets for myself from your sons, and from your young men or chosen ones, I would make Nazarites, who the Seventy have interpreted as sanctified. And indeed, when it comes to praising God, the order of history must be preserved; but it often happens that what happened first is told last, and what is most…
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
Cedar — (Heb. e’rez, Gr. kedros, Lat. cedrus), a tree very frequently mentioned in Scripture. It was stately (Ezek. 31:3-5), long-branched (Ps. 80:10; 92:12; Ezek. 31:6-9), odoriferous (Cant. 4:11; Hos.…
Amorites · Were giants — Were giants
Amorites, The · Of gigantic strength and stature — Of gigantic strength and stature
Cedar, The · Described as: High — Described as: High
Israel, Prophecies Concerning · .Of — .Of
Oak · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Oak Tree, The · Described as: Strong — Described as: Strong
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).
Amos 2:9-12
9. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
9. Et ego exterminavi Amorrhaeum a facie ipsorum, cujus proceritas erat sicut proceritas cedrorum, et qui fortis erat sicut quercus; et perdidi fructum ejus superne et radicem ejus subtus.
10. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
10. Et ego eduxi vos e terra Egypti, et deduxi vos (ambulare feci vos ad verbum) in deserto per quadraginta annos ad possidendam terram Amorrhaei.
11. And I raised up of y…
And if this daring contempt of the commandments of God was highly reprehensible even in itself, it became perfectly inexcusable if we bear in mind that Israel was indebted to the Lord its God for its elevation into an independent nation, and also for its sacred calling. For this reason, the prophet reminds the people of the manifestations of grace which it had received from its God (Amo 2:9-11). Amo 2:9. "And yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was strong as the oaks; and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. Amo 2:10. And yet I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the desert, to…
Amorites is used here as a general term to denote the inhabitants of Canaan (see Gen 15:16; Judg 6:10).
Rashi on Amos 2:9
as oaks Heb. אַלוֹנִים, kesnes (chenes) in French.
his fruit from above—I.e, the celestial princes. [from Midrash Tanchuma, Devarim 4; Tanchuma Buber, Addendum to Devarim 8]
and his roots from below—I. e, the earthly princes. Another explanation: the wasp would blind their eyes from above and castrate them from below. [from Sotah 36a]
