Amos 4:11 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Amos 4:11
I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
cremation · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
returned
שַׁבְתֶּ֥םshav.Tem
H7725
to turn back (hence · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
saith
נְאֻםne.'um-
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
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
Isaiah 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
Zechariah 3:2 And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand pluck…
Genesis 19:24-25 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
Jeremiah 23:14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of e…
Amos 4:6 And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, sai…
2 Peter 2:6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after shou…
Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 4:6–end
Here, I. God complains of his people's incorrigibleness under the judgments which he had brought upon them in order to their humiliation and reformation. He had by several tokens intimated to them his displeasure, with this design, that they might by repentance make their peace with him; but it had not that effect.
1. It is five times repeated in these verses, as the burden of the charge, "Yet have you not returned unto me, saith the Lord; you have been several times corrected, but in vain; you are not reclaimed, there is no sign of amendment. You have been sent for by one messenger after another, but you have not come back, you have not come home." (1.) This intimates that that which God de…
some of you--some parts of your territory.
as God overthrew Sodom-- (Deu 29:23; Isa 13:19; Jer 49:18; Jer 50:40; Pe2 2:6; Jde 1:7). "God" is often repeated in Hebrew instead of "I." The earthquake here apparently alluded to is not that in the reign of Uzziah, which occurred "two years" later (Amo 1:1). Traces of earthquakes and volcanic agency abound in Palestine. The allusion here is to some of the effects of these in previous times. Compare the prophecy, Deu. 28:15-68, with Amo 4:6-11 here.
as a firebrand plucked out of . . . burning--(Compare Isa 7:4; Zac 3:2). The phrase is proverbial for a narrow escape from utter extinction. Though Israel revived as a nation under Jeroboam II, it w…
I have overthrown some of you - In the destruction of your cities I have shown my judgments as signally as I did in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and those of you that did escape were as "brands plucked out of the fire;" if not consumed, yet much scorched. And as the judgment was evidently from my hand, so was the deliverance; "and yet ye have not returned unto me, saith the Lord."
John Gill on Amos 4:11
The Church Fathers
See how God, through His love of goodness, seeks repentance; and by means of the plan He pursues of threatening silently, shows His own love for man. "I will avert," He says, "My face from them, and show what shall happen to them." For where the face of the Lord looks, there is peace and rejoicing; but where it is averted, there is the introduction of evil.
In this he was probably suggesting to us the eventual sacking that happened in the time of Jeremiah by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, who took the whole of Judea, set fire even to Jerusalem itself and its neighboring cities and towns, pulled down the divine Temple, took captive the survivors from the fighting, and as a glorious conqueror went back home with the captives, who finally returned to Judea at the completion of the period of 70 years.
They [who refuse to repent] do not deserve to be saved by the Lord's visitation or to be healed by temporal afflictions. They are like those "who in despair have handed themselves over to lasciviousness in the working of every error, unto uncleanness." In their hardness of heart and with their frequent habit of sinning, they are beyond the purgation of this very brief age and the punishment of the present life. The divine Word reproves them too through the prophet: "I have destroyed you as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and you have become like a firebrand snatched from the fire, and not even thus have you returned to me, says the Lord."
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
Firebrand — Isa. 7:4, Amos 4:11, Zech. 3:2, denotes the burnt end of a stick (Heb. ‘ud); in Judg. 15:4, a lamp or torch, a flambeau (Heb. lappid); in Prov. 26:18 (comp. Eph. 6:16), burning darts or arrows (Heb.…
Afflictions Of The Wicked, The · Impenitence is a cause of — Impenitence is a cause of
Firebrand · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Gomorrah · General references — General references
Sodom · General references — General references
War · 28:25-68;32:30; — 28:25-68;32:30;
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).
I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,.... Either their houses were burnt, or their bodies consumed by fire from heaven, with lightning; not whole cities, but the habitations of some particular persons, or they themselves:
and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning; some escaped such an awful calamity, their houses were not consumed, while others were; and their persons were safe, while others, just by them, were struck dead at once:
yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord; neither the judgments of God on themselves and others had any effect upon them to humble and reclaim them: such dispensations, without the grace of God is exerted, rather…
Amos 4:11
11. I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord
11. Subverti vos secundum subversionem Dei contra (vel, in) Sodomam et Gomorrham; et fuistis quasi torris ereptus ab incendio: et non reversi estis ad me, dicit Jehova.
Amos proceeds further, and says, that God had used a severity towards his chosen people similar to that which formerly he showed towards Sodom and Gomorrah. That, we know, was a memorable evidence of God's wrath, which ought to have filled all ages with dread, as it ought also at this day: and Scripture, whenever it graphically paints the w…
But as Israel would not desist from its idolatrous worship, Jehovah would also continue to visit the people with judgments, as He had already done, though without effecting any conversion to their God. This last thought is explained in Amo 4:6-11 in a series of instances, in which the expression ולא שׁבתּם עדי (and ye have not returned to me), which is repeated five times, depicts in the most thorough manner the unwearied love of the Lord to His rebellious children.
Amo 4:6
"And I have also given you cleanness of teeth in all your towns, and want of bread in all your places: and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah." The strongly adversative וגם אני forms the antithesis to כן…
As with the plagues on Egypt (4:10), the plagues on Israel increased in magnitude and intensity (cp. 4:12). • as I destroyed: The thought that God would treat his own people in the same way as he had treated Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24-25) was shocking to their theology.
Rashi on Amos 4:11
like a brand Heb. כְּאוּד, tison in French, an ember; i.e, black and dark and burnt black.
