Amos 5:27

Matthew Henry on Amos 5:21–end

The scope of these verses is to show how little God valued their shows of devotion, nay, how much he detested them, while they went on in their sins. Observe, I. How unpleasing, nay, how displeasing, their hypocritical services were to God. They had their feast-days at Bethel, in imitation of those at Jerusalem, in which they pretended to rejoice before God. They had their solemn assemblies for religious worship, in which they put on the gravity of those who come before God as his people come, and sit before him as his people sit. They offered to God burnt-offerings, to the honour of God, together with the meat-offerings which by the law were to be offered with them; they offered the peace-o…

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Amos 5:27

beyond Damascus--In Act 7:43 it is "beyond Babylon," which includes beyond Damascus. In Amos time, Damascus was the object of Israel's fear because of the Syrian wars. Babylon was not yet named as the place of their captivity. Stephen supplies this name. Their place of exile was in fact, as he states, "beyond Babylon," in Halah and Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes (Kg2 17:6; compare here Amo 1:5; Amo 4:3; Amo 6:14). The road to Assyria lay through "Damascus." It is therefore specified, that not merely shall they be carried captives to Damascus, as they had been by Syrian kings (Kg2 10:32-33; Kg2 13:7), but, beyond that, to a region whence a return was not so possible…

Adam Clarke on Amos 5:27

Will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus - That is, into Assyria, the way to which, from Judea, was by Damascus. But St. Stephen says, Act 7:43, beyond Babylon; because the Holy Spirit that was in him chose to extend the meaning of the original text to that great and final captivity of the Jews in general, when Zedekiah, their last king, and the people of Judea, were carried into Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Media; see Kg2 17:7, Kg2 17:24. This captivity happened after the time of Amos.

John Gill