to seven oneself · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
excellency
בִּגְא֣וֹןbig.'on
H1347
arrogance or majesty · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Jacob
יַעֲקֹ֑בya.'a.Ko
H3290
Jaakob · proper noun, a man's name
never
לָנֶ֖צַחla.Ne.tzach
H5331
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
forget
אֶשְׁכַּ֥ח'esh.Kach
H7911
to mislay · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
works
מַעֲשֵׂיהֶֽםma.'a.sei.Hem
H4639
an action (good or bad) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
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 6:8 The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I…
Hosea 9:9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.
Hosea 7:2 And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my f…
Hosea 8:13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity,…
Psalms 10:11 He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
Psalms 47:4 He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
Deuteronomy 33:26-29 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.
Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 8:4-10
God is here contending with proud oppressors, and showing them,
I. The heinousness of the sin they were guilty of; in short, they had the character of the unjust judge (Luk 18:2) that neither feared God nor regarded man.
1. Observe them in their devotions, and you will say, "They had no reverence for God." Bad as they are, they do indeed keep up a show and form of godliness; they observe the sabbath and the new moon; they put some difference between those days and other days, but they were soon weary of them, and had no affection at all to them, for their hearts were wholly set upon the world and the things of it. It is a sad character which this gives of them, that they said, When will the…
Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob--that is by Himself, in whom Jacob's seed glory [MAURER]. Rather, by the spiritual privileges of Israel, the adoption as His peculiar people [CALVIN], the temple, and its Shekinah symbol of His presence. Compare Amo 6:8, where it means Jehovah's temple (compare Amo 4:2).
never forget--not pass by without punishing (Amo 8:2; Hos 8:13; Hos 9:9).
Adam Clarke on Amos 8:7
By the excellency of Jacob - By the state of eminence to which he had raised the descendants of Jacob; or, by the excellent One of Jacob, that is, Himself. The meaning is: "As surely as I have raised you to such a state of eminence, so surely will I punish you in proportion to your advantages and your crimes."
John Gill on Amos 8:7
The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob,.... Not by the ark, as R. Japhet; nor by the temple, as Kimchi; but by himself; which sense Kimchi also mentions, and Aben Ezra; the God of Jacob and his glory, the most excellent of all Jacob's enjoyments, and of whom he had reason to boast and glory; see Amos 6:8;
surely I will never forget any of their works; their wicked works, especially those now mentioned; God forgets when he forgives them, or suffers them to go unpunished; but though he had done so long, he would do so no more; on which they might depend, since he had not only said it, but swore to it.
The Church Fathers
(Verse 7, 8.) The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble concerning this, and every inhabitant mourn? And it shall rise up wholly like the River, and it shall be driven out and fall like the River of Egypt. Septuagint: The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will not forget all your works forever. And the land shall not be shaken because of this, and every inhabitant shall mourn, and it shall rise up like a consuming River, and it shall fall like the River of Egypt. The Scripture describes God swearing repeatedly. First in Genesis: the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven, saying: 'By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord: because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore' (Genesis 22:16-17). And in the 109th Psalm: The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek' (Psalm 110:4). Now, whoever it is that wrote the letter to the Hebrews, discussing it says: Since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself (Heb. 6:13). And in this same prophet above we read: The Lord swore in his sanctuary, or by his sanctuary: because behold days shall come upon you and they will take you away in arms, or spears, and the rest. Therefore, he who had sworn previously in his sanctuary, or by his sanctuary, now swears against the pride of Jacob: so that if they do not believe the one threatening, they may believe the one swearing in human likeness: who assumes an oath at that time when trust is not placed in their simple words. It is not surprising, therefore, if God is said to swear, when he sleeps with those who sleep, and watches over those who are awake: and it is said that he is angry with those who have stored up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath (Rom. II) . He swears that he will not forget their works until the end; for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jacob. IV) ; but let them remember all the sins they have committed, and bring them to the end and the time of judgment. Hence, those who repent ((or endure patiently)) pray: Do not remember our old iniquities (Psal. LXXVIII, 8) , especially when the earth itself is moved and…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Amos 8:7
Amos 8:7
7. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
7. Juravit Jehova per excellentiam Jacob, Si obliviscar unquam omnia opera eorum.
God, having made known the vices of the rich, now shows that he would be their judge and avenger: for were they only reproved, they would not have cared much, like the usurer mentioned by Horace, who said, "The people may hiss me, but I felicitate myself." So also these robbers were wont to do, when they were filled: though the whole people exclaimed against them, though God thundered from heaven, they laughed everything to scorn; for they were utterly destitute of every shame; and they were also become…
Such wickedness as this would be severely punished by the Lord. Amo 8:7. "Jehovah hath sworn by the pride of Jacob, Verily I will not forget all their deeds for ever. Amo 8:8. Shall the earth not tremble for this, and every inhabitants upon it mourn? and all of it rises like the Nile, and heaves and sinks like the Nile of Egypt." The pride of Jacob is Jehovah, as in Hos 5:5 and Hos 7:10. Jehovah swears by the pride of Jacob, as He does by His holiness in Amo 4:2, or by His soul in Amo 6:8, i.e., as He who is the pride and glory of Israel: i.e., as truly as He is so, will He and must He punish such acts as these. By overlooking such sins, or leaving them unpunished, He would deny His glory in…
the Pride of Israel: The same Hebrew phrase alludes in 6:8 to Israel’s arrogance. Here, the phrase is probably a name for God, who is the legitimate object of Israel’s pride. Elsewhere (Ps 47:4; Nah 2:2), this phrase refers to the Promised Land under a king from David’s line (cp. Jer 13:9; Ezek 32:12). If the phrase here means the land, it would spotlight Israel’s perverse pride in its national and geographic identity.
Rashi on Amos 8:6
in order to inherit them Heb. בַּעֲבוּר נַעֲלָיִם. [from Jonathan]
and the refuse of the corn we will sell—[Jonathan renders:] And the sweepings of the grains we will sell. The refuse that fell from the wheat into the sieve, to sell at high prices to the poor.
