to force a passage · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
hell
בִשְׁא֔וֹלvish.'ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
hand
יָדִ֣יya.Di
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix
take
תִקָּחֵ֑םti.ka.Chem
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
up
יַעֲלוּ֙ya.'a.Lu
H5927
to ascend · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
heaven
הַשָּׁמַ֔יִםha.sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
down
אוֹרִידֵֽם'o.ri.Dem
H3381
to descend (literally · verb, hiphil imperfect, 1st person common singular + 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
Psalms 139:7-10 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Jeremiah 51:53 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her…
Obadiah 1:4 Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.
Job 20:6 Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;
Job 26:6 Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.
Isaiah 2:19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when…
Isaiah 14:13-16 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount…
Jeremiah 49:16 Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height o…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Amos 9:1-10
We have here the justice of God passing sentence upon a provoking people; and observe,
I. With what solemnity the sentence is passed. The prophet saw in vision the Lord standing upon the altar (Amo 9:1), the altar of burnt-offerings; for the Lord has a sacrifice, and multitudes must fall as victims to his justice. He is removed from the mercy-seat between the cherubim, and stands upon the altar, the judgment-seat, on which the fire of God used to fall, to devour the sacrifices. He stands upon the altar, to show that the ground of his controversy with this people was their profanation of his holy things; here he stands to avenge the quarrel of his altar, as also to signify that the sin of the…
Though they dig into hell--though they hide ever so deeply in the earth (Psa 139:8).
though they climb up to heaven--though they ascend the greatest heights (Job 20:6-7; Jer 51:53; Oba 1:4).
Adam Clarke on Amos 9:2
Though they dig into hell - Though they should get into the deepest caverns; though they climb up to heaven - get to the most inaccessible heights; I will drag them up from the one, and pull them down from the other.
John Gill on Amos 9:2
Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them,.... That is, they that endeavour to make their escape from their enemies, though they seek for places of the greatest secrecy and privacy; not hell, the place of the damned; nor the grave, the repository of the dead; neither of which they chose to he in, but rather sought to escape them; but the deepest and darkest caverns, the utmost recesses of the earth, the very centre of it; which, could they get into, would not secure them from the power and providence of God, and from their enemies in pursuit of them, by his permission:
though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; the summit of the highest mountains, and g…
(Vers. 2 seqq.) If they descend to the depths, my hand will bring them up from there. And if they ascend to heaven, I will bring them down from there. And if they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them from there. And if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, I will command the serpent to bite them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword to kill them. I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And the Lord, the God of hosts, who touches the earth and it withers, and all who dwell in it mourn, and it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the river of Egypt. Seventy: If they are buried in Sheol, from there my hand will pluck them up; and if they ascend to heaven, from there I will bring them down. If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them; and if they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And the Lord God Almighty, who touches the earth and shakes it, and all its inhabitants will mourn, and their end will come like a flood, and their downfall like the river of Egypt. He who said before, there will be no escape for them, now cuts off their escape into separate parts, and hyperbolically testifies that even if they do this and that, they will not be able to escape. If they descend to the depths, he says, my hand will bring them out from there: not because anyone is able to be pulled back from the depths before the day of resurrection, but because even those in the depths are under His power. We learn that what was foretold about Dathan and Abiron has come to pass, whom the gaping earth swallowed up while they were still alive (Numbers 16). And if they were to ascend, it is said, even to the heavens, I will bring them down from there; for Enoch and Elijah, taken up with their bodies into heaven (Genesis 5; 2 Kings 4), are governed by the will of God. Consider the different realms: we descend to hell, we ascend to heaven; we are brought forth from hell, we are brought down from heaven. In the former, there is extreme despair; in the latter, there is the greatness of pride. If they…
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
Hell · In the R. V. of O. T. it appears only in — In the R. V. of O. T. it appears only in
Sin · .No es — .No es
Suicide · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
John Calvin on Amos 9:2-4
Amos 9:2-4
2. Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:
2. Si foderint ad sepulchrum (vel, ad infernum,) inde manus mea educet vos; et si ascenderint in coelos, inde detraham eos;
3. And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
3. Et si occultaverint se in fastigio (vel, culmine) Carmeli, inde scrutabor et extraham eos; et si absconditi fuerint ab oculis meis (ad verbum, e regione oculorum meorum) in profundo (vel, pavimento, in fundo ipso…
The thought is still further expanded in Amo 9:2-6. Amo 9:2. "If they break through into hell, my hand will take them thence; and if they climb up to heaven, thence will I fetch them down. Amo 9:3. And if they hide themselves upon the top of Carmel, I will trace them, and fetch them thence; and if they conceal themselves from before mine eyes in the bottom of the sea, thence do I command the serpent, and it biteth them. Amo 9:4. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword thence, and it slayeth them; and I direct my eye upon them for evil, and not for good." The imperfects, with אם, are to be taken as futures. They do not assume what is impossible as merely h…
God is inescapable (cp. Ps 139:7-12). When people trust, believe, and obey God, his inescapability is a great blessing. But because Israel rejected God’s revelation, his presence would mean judgment, not comfort.
9:2 to the place of the dead (literally to Sheol): In the Old Testament, Sheol is a place beneath the earth where the dead have their abode.
Rashi on Amos 9:2
If they dig down into the grave—If they think to hide in Sheol.
My hand shall take them—Their enemies shall take them with My word. -[from Jonathan]
and if they ascend to the heavens—And if they ascend to the lofty mountains up to the heavens, from there they shall bring them down with My word.
