a horse (as leaping) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
run
הַיְרֻצ֤וּןhay.ru.Tzun
H7323
to run (for whatever reason · interrogative particle + verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + paragogic nun
rock
בַּסֶּ֙לַע֙ba.Se.la'
H5553
a craggy rock · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
plow
יַחֲר֖וֹשׁya.cha.Ro.osh
H2790
to scratch · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
oxen
בַּבְּקָרִ֑יםba.be.ka.Rim
H1241
beef cattle or an animal of the ox family of either gen… · preposition with the article + noun, common both genders plural absolute
turned
הֲפַכְתֶּ֤םha.fakh.Tem
H2015
to turn about or over · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
judgment
מִשְׁפָּ֔טmish.Pat
H4941
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
gall
לְרֹאשׁ֙le.roSh
H7219
a poisonous plant · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
fruit
וּפְרִ֥יu.fe.Ri
H6529
fruit (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
righteousness
צְדָקָ֖הtze.da.Kah
H6666
rightness (abstractly) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
hemlock
לְלַעֲנָֽהle.la.'a.Nah
H3939
wormwood (regarded as poisonous · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
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
Amos 5:7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,
Hosea 10:4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.
Isaiah 59:13-14 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from t…
Amos 5:11-12 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye sha…
1 Kings 21:7-13 And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will g…
Psalms 94:20-21 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
Isaiah 48:4 Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;
Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refuse…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 6:8–end
In the former part of the chapter we had these secure Israelites loading themselves with pleasures, as if they could never be made merry enough; here we have God loading them with punishments, as if they could never be made miserable enough. And observe,
I. How strongly this burden is bound on, not to be shaken off by their presumption and security; for it is bound by the Lord the God of hosts, by his mighty, his almighty, hand, which none can resist; it is bound with an oath, which puts the sentence past revocation: The Lord God has sworn, and he will not repent, and, since he could swear by no greater, he has sworn by himself. How dreadful, how miserable, is the case of those whose ruin, w…
In turning "judgment (justice) into gall (poison), and . . . righteousness into hemlock" (or wormwood, bitter and noxious), ye act as perversely as if one were to make "horses run upon the rock" or to "plough with oxen there" [MAURER]. As horses and oxen are useless on a rock, so ye are incapable of fulfilling justice [GROTIUS]. Ye impede the course of God's benefits, because ye are as it were a hard rock on which His favor cannot run. "Those that will not be tilled as fields, shall be abandoned as rocks" [CALVIN].
Adam Clarke on Amos 6:12
Shall horses run upon the rock - First, they could not do it, because they were unshod; for the shoeing of horses with iron was not then known. Secondly, If they did run on the rock, it would be useless to their owner, and hurtful to themselves. Thirdly, And it would be as useless to plough on the rock with oxen; for there it would be impossible to sow with any advantage. Fourthly, Just as useless and injurious would it be to put gall in the place of judgment, and hemlock in the place of righteousness. You have not only been laboring in vain for yourselves, but you have also been oppressive to others; and for both ye shall suffer.
John Gill on Amos 6:12
Shall horses run upon the rocks? or will one plough there with oxen?.... Will any man be so weak and foolish, to propose or attempt a race for horses upon rocks, where they and their riders would be in danger of breaking their necks? or would any man act so unwise a part, as to take a yoke of oxen to plough with them upon a rock, where no impression can be made? as vain and fruitless a thing it would be to attempt to bring such persons under a conviction of their sins, and to repentance for them, and reformation from them, who are given up to a judicial hardness of heart, like that of a rock, as are the persons described in the next clause; or as such methods with horses and oxen would be co…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 12 onwards) For behold, the Lord will command and strike down the great house with ruins, and the small house with breaches. Can horses run on rocks, or can it be plowed with oxen? For you have turned justice into bitterness, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. You who rejoice in nothingness, who say: Have we not taken horns for ourselves in our strength? Behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God of hosts, a nation, and they will oppress you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the wilderness. LXX: Therefore, behold, the Lord will command and will strike the great house with ruins and the small house with breaches. Will horses run on rocks? Will men be silent at women? For you have turned justice into bitterness and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. You who rejoice in nothing good, who say, 'Have we not relied on our own strength?' For behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God of hosts, a nation, and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the brook of Egypt. Because you have sprung into such rage that, even in the time of death and impending evils, you were unwilling to utter the name of the Lord, therefore the Lord will command and strike the greater house with ruins, and the lesser house with divisions. If He commands, how does He strike? If He strikes, how does He command? But in that which He commands and orders to His ministers, He Himself seems to strike. Just as in commanding the Father and acting through the Son, He Himself who commanded does the work, the verse being fulfilled: He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created (Ps. 148:5). For all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made (John 1). And in Egypt, where the firstborn who were killed by the destroyer are reported to be referred to, the Lord testifies that he himself killed them (Exodus 12). So also in the present place the Lord commands, and he himself strikes through his ministers the greater house with ruins, that is, the ten tribes, who were called Israel, and the lesser house with divisions, the two tribes, who were governed by the lineage of the house of David. And note the properties of each. Israel, because it had sinned more, is struck by ruins and is handed over to eternal captivity. But the house of Judah, in which the…
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
Hemlock — (1.) Heb. rosh (Hos. 10:4; rendered “gall” in Deut. 29:18; 32:32; Ps. 69:21; Jer. 9:15; 23:15; “poison,” Job 20:16; “venom,” Deut. 32:33). “Rosh is the name of some poisonous plant which grows…
Poison — (1.) Heb. hemah, “heat,” the poison of certain venomous reptiles (Deut. 32:24, 33; Job 6:4; Ps. 58:4), causing inflammation. (2.) Heb. rosh, “a head,” a poisonous plant (Deut. 29:18), growing…
Wormwood — Heb. la’anah, the Artemisia absinthium of botanists. It is noted for its intense bitterness (Deut. 29:18; Prov. 5:4; Jer. 9:15; Amos 5:7). It is a type of bitterness, affliction, remorse, punitive…
Hemlock · A poi — A poi
Ox, The · Used for: Ploughing — Used for: Ploughing
Ploughing · Difficulty of, on rocky ground — Difficulty of, on rocky ground
Rocks · Described as: Barren — Described as: Barren
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 6:12
12. Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:
12. An current in rupe equi? An arabitur bobus (est, an arabit quispiam in bobus; sed quia est verbum indefinitum, ideo verto impersonaliter, an ergo aratio fiet bobus, nempe in rupe?) quia vertistis in fel judicium et fructum justitiae in absynthium.
This verse interpreters misrepresent; for some think that the Prophet, by these figurative expressions, means, that the people were wholly unprofitable as to any thing good; as some one says, "The slothful ox wishes for the saddle, the horse wishes to plough." They therefore suppose…
This judgment also, they, with their perversion of all right, will be unable to avert by their foolish trust in their own power. Amo 6:12. "Do horses indeed run upon the rock, or do men plough (there) with oxen, that ye turn justice into poison, and the fruit of the righteousness into wormwood? Amo 6:13. They who rejoice over what is worthless, who say: with our strength we make ourselves horns! Amo 6:14. For, behold, I raise over you, O house of Israel, is the saying of Jehovah, the God of hosts, a nation; and they will oppress you from the territory of Hamath to the brook of the desert." To explain the threat in Amo 6:11, Amos now calls attention in Amo 6:12, under two different similes, t…
It would be foolish to run horses . . . over boulders, because unshod horses cannot run on rocks without serious damage to their hooves. It is also obvious that oxen cannot plow rocks. A slight adjustment to the word division of the Hebrew text yields plow the sea with oxen, an equally absurd suggestion. • that’s how foolish you are: The point of the comparisons now becomes obvious, as Israel’s own absurdity surfaces in the moral realm. • you turn justice into poison: The people perverted what is just and right, turning it into something toxic and bitter (see also 5:7).
Rashi on Amos 6:12
Will horses run on the rock—I.e, will they maintain their running when they change the order of the world?
or will one plow—[I.e.] will a man [plow] with oxen on the rock, that you think to pervert the good way and survive and prosper?
