Matthew Henry on Amos 5:4-15
This is a message from God to the house of Israel, in which,
I. They are told of their faults, that they might see what occasion there was for them to repent and reform, and that, when they were called to return, they might not need to ask, Wherein shall we return?
1. God tells them, in general (Amo 5:12), "I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins; and you shall be made to know them too." In our penitent reflections upon our sins we must consider, as God does in his judicial remarks upon them, and will do in the great day, (1.) That they are very numerous; they are our manifold transgressions, sins of various kinds and often repeated. Oh what a multitude of vain and vile tho…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Amos 5:9
strengtheneth the spoiled--literally, "spoil" or "devastation": hence the "person spoiled." WINER, MAURER, and the best modern critics translate, "maketh devastation (or destruction) suddenly to arise," literally, "maketh it to gleam forth like the dawn." Ancient versions support English Version. The Hebrew is elsewhere used, to make, to shine, to make glad: and as English Version here (Psa 39:13), "recover strength."
the spoiled shall come--"devastation," or "destruction shall come upon" [MAURER]. English Version expresses that, strong as Israel fancies herself after the successes of Jeroboam II (Kg2 14:25), even the weakest can be made by God to prevail against the strong.
Adam Clarke on Amos 5:9
That strengtheneth the spoiled - Who takes the part of the poor and oppressed against the oppressor; and, in the course of his providence, sets up the former, and depresses the latter.
John Gill on Amos 5:9
That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong,.... Such as have been taken by an enemy, who have been stripped of their armour, and spoiled of all their goods and substance, and have no friends nor allies, nor anything to help themselves with; the Lord can supply them with strength, furnish them with weapons, and send them helpers, so that they shall rise up against their conquerors and spoilers, and in their turn subdue them. The Targum is,
"that strengthens the weak against the strong;''
or causes the weak to prevail over the strong. A learned man, from the use of the word in the Arabic language, chooses to render it, "who intends", or "designs, destruction to the strong" (d); that i…
