ancient or modern, the worship or reverence of images is found, it has been and is customary to carry about some principal idols on solemn festival occasions, under a canopy, in cars or chariots, or upon the shoulders of men. How magnificently such affairs are managed by the Hindoos is known to all; and we have introduced a representation of one of their idols cars, or movable temples, as a suitable illustration of the general practice, but not certainly of the particular form in which that practice may have been followed by the Hebrews. We may also refer to the curious specimens of a Phœnician car of this kind, for the goddess Astarte, afforded by the ancient coin which we have engraved under 2 Chron. xv. We also know that not only were the images of idols thus carried about in procession on festival occasions, but that they were sometimes conveyed about in armies with much state and ceremony. That the idolatrous Hebrews had the custom of carrying their idols about, is clear from other passages; and it is possible they may have taken it from the Egyptians, among whom it existed in remote time, as attested not only by ancient writers, but from the evidence of existing paintings and sculptures. And this derivation of the practice may seem the more obvious, if we conceive that the circumstance to which the prophet refers occurred during the forty years' wanderings in the desert, when the Hebrews were deeply imbued with the idolatries of Egypt. That it did then occur seems to be very obviously intimated; and is generally allowed, though disputed by some on the ground, chiefly, that so conspicuous an act of idolatry could not have been concealed from Moses, or have been allowed by him. But it is not necessary to contend that they constantly did this during the years of their sojourning: it is enough to suppose that they did so-that they got up idolatrous processions during one or more of those occasions when, in the wilderness, the people turned aside to idols-when, abandoning themselves to the worship of the golden calf, or when drawn into the idolatries of Moab and Midian. Another conjecture has been made, which would allow the act in question to have been continuous and secret. This supposes that the tabernacle" which was borne by the Hebrews was a smail and portable idolatrous symbol, worn about the person, and analogous to the "silver shrines" of Diana, the manufacture of which brought small gain to the silversmiths of Ephesus.

"

CHAPTER VI.

1 The wantonness of Israel, 7 shall be plagued with desolation, 12 and their incorrigibleness.

'WOE to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named 'chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

2 Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

3 Ye that 'put far away the evil day, and cause the 'seat of violence to come

near;

4 That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

5 That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

6 That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the "affliction of Joseph.

7 Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

1 Luke 6. 24.

Or are secure. 8 Exod. 19. 5.

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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 deliver up the city with all that is therein.

9 And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall

die.

10 And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, "Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.

11 For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with "breaches, and the little house with clefts.

12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with axen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock :

13 Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

14 But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the "river of the wilderness.

Chap. 5. 18. 7 Or, habitation. 19 Jer. 51. 14. 18 Heb. the fuiness thereof.

Or. first fruits. Ezek. 12. 27. 8 Or, abound with superfluities. 9 Or, quaver. 10 Or, in bowls of wine. 11 Heb. breach. 14 Chap. 5. 13. 15 Or, they will not, or, have not. 16 Or, droppings. 17 Or, valley.

Verse 4. "That he upon beds of ivory." - From the description, given in this and the following verses, of the feasts of the Hebrews, it would seem that they had arrived at a somewhat luxurious condition of life in the time of Amos. Such of the usages to which it refers, as have not already been illustrated, we shall hereafter have occasion to notice separately. At present it may suffice to sum up the information it contains: - That the Hebrews reclined at their entertainments upon splendid couches or beds; the guests were anointed with rich ointments or oils; they indulged freely in wire; and were entertained with vocal and instrumental music. All these usages were common in most ancient

274

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men. Era nations; and nearly all these, and others which may be collected from different passages of Scripture, are still retained in the East. One important exception is the drinking of wine, which is forbidden by the law of Mohammed, and which r of the gives a peculiar character of sobriety, but not dulness, to the most luxurious entertainments of Western Asia, in which the law is not transgressed.

5. "Chant to the sound of the viol." The word here rendered "viol" is the same as the נבל nebel, which has

festiras already been noticed under Ps. xcii. and eviii.

dolats 10, "He that burneth him." This remarkable passage has been incidentally illustrated under Jer. xxxv. 5; and since then, the illustration of this text has been further anticipated by some intimations which have been given in the note on Ezek. xxxii. 22. It will be seen from these notes that we are disposed to contend that the custom of burning the dead was at one time in use among the Hebrews, though perhaps not commonly in use. We are willing to allow, however, that even at this time, when burning appears to have been regarded as an honourable mode of disposing of the remains even of kings, the practice was more generally resorted to when deaths occurred in great numbers, from plague, war, or other circumstances. The prophet is here describing the effects of pestilence. And it appears-from the admission of the Rabbins, that fires were kept burning in the valley of Tophet to consume dead carcases, for fear of pestilence that the Hebrews were not ignorant that the mephitic vapours arising from putrescent bodies were favourable to the trise and spread of pestilence. On the subject of this connection an interesting paper was read by Mr. Urquhart at the mes recent meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, on which occasion Colonel Briggs observed, that the plague was

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essay

unknown in India, and attributed it to the custom of burning the dead. (Report in Athenæum,' Sept. 30, 1837.) If rathe Hebrews burned their dead, when deaths were numerous, as a measure of precaution for preventing the spread of which pestilence, they knew more than is known to the present inhabitants of Syria.

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CHAPTER VII.

sts 1 The judgments of the grasshoppers, 4 and of the fire, are diverted by the prayer of Amos. 7 By the wall of a plumbline is signified the rejection apt of Israel. 10 Amaziah complaineth of Amos. 14 Amos sheweth his calling, 16 and Amaziah's judgment.

the THUS hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed 'grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

2 And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: "by whom shall Jacob arise ? for he is small.

3 The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.

#4 Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

5 Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

6 The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GoD.

7 Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

8 And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the LORD, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

9 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

10 Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

11 For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there :

13 But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the 'king's court.

14 Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of 'sycomore fruit:

15 And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16 Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and 'drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth

of his land.

Heb. house of the kingdom. 5 Or, wild figs.

Or, green worms. Or, whe of (or, for) Jacob shall stand? Heb. from behind. Verse 1. "Grasshoppers." See the note on Nahum iii. 17. "The latter growth after the king's mowings." It is difficult to understand this, without supposing that the first growth

Heb. perverting the balances of deceit. 6 Chap. 2, 6. Verse 5. "Making the ephah small, and the shekel great." That is, the sellers gave less than the due measure, but took care that the metal with which they were paid should be of full weight. Or, if we suppose that the payment they received was weighed by themselves, and in their own scales, it is easy to conclude that they falsified the balance to make their payment too great, as they did the ephah to make the measure of corn too small.

CHAPTER IX.

1 The certainty of the desolation. 11 The restoring
of the tabernacle of David.

I Saw the Lord standing upon the altar:
and he said, Smite the lintel of the door,
that the posts may shake: and cut them in
the head, all of them; and I will slay the
last of them with the sword: he that fleeth
of them shall not flee away, and he that
escapeth of them shall not be delivered

2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:

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:

4 And though they go into captivity bedfore their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.

5 And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

6 It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.

the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.

9 For, lo, I will command, and I will "sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

11 In that day will I raise up the 13tabernacle of David that is fallen, and "close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:

12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this.

15 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that "soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop 17 18 sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.

7 Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of 1 Or, chapiter, or knop. Or. wound them. * Psal. 139. 8, &c. Chap. 5. 8. 10 Jer. 47. 4. 11 Heb. cause to move. 15 Heb. upon whom my name is called. 18 Heb. draweth forth.

8 Or, bundle.

Jer. 44. 11. 5 Or, spheres. Heb. ascensions. 7 Psal. 104. 3.
Heb. stone. 13 Acts 15. 16.
14 Heb. hedge, or wall,
17 Or, new wine. 18 Joel 3. 18.

Verse 5. "The flood of Egypt." This is an interesting allusion to the annual overflowing of the Nile, by which the land is poetically represented as being "drowned." This inundation has been noticed under Exod. vii. 15.

6. "Buildeth his stories in the heaven," &c. -Harmer collects from Jer. xxii. 13, 14, that the chief and most ornamented apartments in the palace which Jehoiakim set himself to build were upper chambers. He adds. from Russell, "The chief rooms of the houses of Aleppo at this day are those above; the ground floor being there chiefly made use of for their horses and servants. Perhaps the prophet Amos referred to this circumstance when he spoke of the heavens as God's chambers, the most noble and splendid apartments of the palace of God, and where his presence is chiefly manifested: and the bundle or collection of its offices, its numerous little mean apartments, the divisions of this earth." ("Observations,' vol. i. p. 344.) What is here said of the houses in Aleppo is equally true in other Oriental towns, all the state rooms and apartments occupied by the family being above ground, while the ground floor is occupied by store-rooms, kitchens, and servants' offices and apartments.

13. "The plowman shall overtake the reaper," &c.- Similar expressions occur in Lev. xxvi. 5, and appear to be used as poetical terms to denote the copiousness and long continuance of the harvest and vintage. Harmer thinks that the expressions involve the intimation that the vintage and harvest should not be gathered in an immature condition, as is now, and probably was then, often necessary from fear of the Arabs and others who are in the habit of committing ruinous depredations upon the ripened fruits and corn fields. Thus understood, the words of the prophet would express not only abundance but peace and safety.

"The mountains shall drop sweet wine." This is a fine poetical expression, denoting the abundance of the vintagesFineyards being usually planted on the declivities of the hills.

OBADIAH.

HE vision
9 And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall
of Obadiah. be dismayed, to the end that every one of
Thus saith the mount of Esau may be cut off by
the Lord
GOD con-