Ver. 1. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me] viz. in this fourth vision, whereby (for better assurance, and to shake them out of their desperate security) Israel’s utter ruin is again foretold by a lively type, which is here, 1. propounded; 2. expounded, Amos 8:3,5, that he may run that readeth it, and none may fall, but with open eyes, Habakkuk 2:2. And behold a basket] Made up haply in the form of a dog, as the word Calub seemeth to import. Of summer fruit] Heb. of summer; that is, of that which the summer affordeth; toward the end of it especially, when fruits ripen, and even fall into the hand of the gatherer. The summer itself hath its denomination from a root that signifieth to awaken; because then the fruits and flowers, that seemed to be asleep all winter long, do awake, as it were, and show themselves.
Ver. 2. Amos, what seest thou?] This the Lord asketh, to stir up attention and affection in the prophet; who might haply need as much to be aroused, as Zechariah in like case did, Amos 4:1, with whom it fared as with a drowsy person, who though awaked and set to work, is ready to sleep at it. And I said, A basket of summer fruit] Apples, saith Jerome; figs, say others; and why not as well grapes ripened in the summer sunshine? Whereby the Holy Ghost in the Revelation, Revelation 14:20 19:15, describeth such as are ready ripe for the wine-press of God’s wrath? Nahum compareth them to stubble, laid out in the sun drying, that it may burn the better, Nahum 1:10. The end is come upon my people] An elegance in the original beyond translation into English: ץיק ץק, the Latin interpreters have (some of them) assayed the like, but they fall far short of it. The Old Testament is full of such surnames; and God seemeth delighted with them. See Jeremiah 1:11,12 48:2 49:23,24 La 3:47 Am 5:5 Mic 1:10,14 Zep 2:5 Ex 2:10 Ge 3:20 4:1,25 5:29 17:5 21:5,6, &c. There is a pedantic style and a majestic; an effeminate eloquence and a manly. This latter is lawful, and may very well become the man of God; who yet must not wit-wanton it in weightiest matters; but shun those more gay and lighter flashes and flourishes, wherewith the emptiest cells affect to be most fraught; as they, who for want of wares in their shops, set up painted blocks to fill up vacant shelves, as one well expresseth it. The end is come upon my people] Exitus et exitium. As the summer is the end of the year and the time of ripening fruits; so, now that this people are ripe for ruin, “An end is come, is come, is come: it watcheth for them; behold, it is come,” Ezekiel 7:6,7, even the precise time and term of their final overthrow. I will not again pass by them any more] See Amos 7 Am 8. God can pass by, that is, pardon, his people better than any other, Micah 7:18 (like as they that are born of God, and partake of the Divine nature, can bear wrongs best of any; compel them to go a mile they will be content, if it may do good, to go two; yea, as far as the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace will carry them). But as the saints of God may not be therefore injured (which was Julian’s jeering cruelty) because they are meek: so must not God be presumed upon and provoked because he is merciful. “There is mercy with him, that he may be feared,” saith the Psalmist; for abused mercy turneth into fury, and opportunities of grace are often so headlong, that if once past they are irrecoverable. Woe be to that people or person to whom God shall say, “I will not again pass by you any more.”
Ver. 3. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings] Heb. shall howl, shall be turned into the black santis, as they call it (cantus in planctum laetitia in lachrymas), such as I hate, Amos 5:23, and feel it grating mine ears, as an harmonia discors. There shall be many dead bodies in every place] Either through pestilence or sword. Others read it thus, In every place it shall be said, Proiece, sile, Out with them, make no words; an earnest aposiopesis (Amos 6:10) [See Trapp on “Am 6:10”] q.d. Patiently acquiesce in the just judgment of so mighty a God. Or, throw these dead bodies into pits, and say nothing; lest we be sequestered as unclean by the law. It is no small misery to be under hard and heavy crosses, and yet to be forced to dissemble and suppress them; to bite in pain, and to digest grief, as horses do their choler by biting on the bridle. “I was dumb with silence,” saith David, “I held my peace, even from good”; that is, from just defense; “but my sorrow was stirred thereby”; my sore was exulcerate, renewed (as the Greek there saith) and increased, Psalms 39:2. Give sorrow a vent, and it will wear away. A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed. ŒD
Ver. 4. Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy] That seep them up as drink (our word seep seems to come of the Hebrew Shaaph), that would make but a breakfast, nay, but a bit of them; that would swallow them at once down their wide gullets, and do, for that purpose, pant and even faint, as well nigh windless, after them, to devour them. Hence they are called man eaters, cannibals, Psalms 14:4. See Amos 2:7. [See Trapp on “Am 2:7”] Even to make the poor of the land to fail] Heb. the meek of the, land. Poverty should meeken and tame men’s spirits; howbeit, some are humbled but not humble, low but not lowly. Those that are both are often oppressed by the great ones of the earth; and even devoured, as the lesser fish are by the bigger. “Ye have condemned and killed the just,” saith St James to the wicked rich men of his time, “and he doth not resist you,” James 5:6. He only committeth his cause to him that judgeth righteously, 1 Peter 2:23, and indeed he need do no more than so; for God is the poor man’s king, as James V of Scotland was termed for his charity; yea, he is the world’s refuge, Awlen Penaugh, as the Great Turk vain gloriously styleth himself, and would have the world to take notice, that such poor people as lament to him shall be relieved by him, although his ministers fail them or abuse them, through their injustice, to make the poor of the land fail. “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him,” Psalms 12:5. Neither doth God say it only (though that were sufficient), but swear it too in this chapter, yea, in this text (the two next following verses are put in as by a parenthesis), and these cormorants are called upon to hear it, and not to pass it by with a deaf ear, tanquam monstra marina, as such kind of creatures used to do.