Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_500.lzh/6_509.TXT

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opolis, quite to !the Nile westward; the Nile conse-
quently, in this view and situation, either with regard
to the barrenness of the Philistines, or to the position
of it with respect to the land of promise, or to the river
Euphrates, may, with propriety enough, be called
the river of the wilderness, Amos vi 14. as this district,
which lies beyond the eastern or Asiatic banks of the
Nile, from the parallel of Memphis, even to Pelusium,
the land of Goshen only excepted,) is all of it dry,
barren, and inhospitable; or if the situation be more
regarded, it may be called, as it is rendered by the
Septuagint, the western torrent or river. Though
some t take this to be the river Bosor or Bezor, that
parts the' tribes ,of Judah and Simeon,. and discharges
itself into the Mediterranean between Gaza, or rather
Majuma, and Anthedon. Though Kimchi' takes this
river to be the sea of the plain, the same with the. Salt
or Dead sea, Dent.. iii. 17. which may seem likely,
since Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, under
whom Amos prophesied, had restored the' coast of
Israel, from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the'
plain, 2 Kings xiv. 25. with. which they were elevated,
and of which they boasted; but now they ahould have
affliction and distress in the same places, and which
should extend as far.

C H A P. VII.

In this and the two following chapters are the visions
of Amos, in number five; three of which are contained
in this chapter, and with which it begins. The first is
of the grashoppers or locusts eating up the after-grass
of the land, which are stopped at the intercession of
the prophet, vet. 1, 2, 3. the second is of fire the
Lord called for to contend by, whose devouring flames
are made to cease by the same interposition, ver.. 4,
5, 6. and the other is of the plumbdine, signifying the
utter destruction of the people of Israel, according to
the righteous judgment of GOd, vet. 7, 8, 9. upon the
delivery of which prophecies and visions, the priest of
Beth-el forms a charge against the prophet to the king;
and advises Amos to flee into Judea, and prophesy
there, and not at Beth-el, being willing to be rid of
him at any rate, ver. 10, 11, 12, 13. next follows the
prophet's vindication of himself showing his divine
call to the prophetic office, and his mission and express
order he had from the Lord to prophesy unto Israel,
yet. 14, 15. and concludes with a denunciation of divine
judgments on the priest's family, and upon the whole
land of Israel, ver. 16, 17.
Ver. 1. Thus hath the Lord shewed unto me,
What follows in this and the two chapters, before the
prophet delivered what he heard from the Lord; now
what he saw, the same thing, the ruin of the ten tribes,
is here expressed as before, but in a different form;
before in prophecy, here in vision, the more to affect
and work upon the hearts of the people: and, behold, he
formed grashoppers; or locusts ", as the word is ren-
dered, Isa. xxxiii. 4. and so the Septuagint here, and
other versions. Kimchi interprets it, and, behold, a
collection or swarm of locusts; and the Targum, a
creation of them. Though Aben Ezra takes the word
to be a verb, and not a noun, and the sense to be,
agreeably to our version, he showed me the blessed
God, who was forming locusts; it appeared to Amos,
in the vision of prophecy, as if the Lord was making
locusts, large and great ones, and many of them; not
that this was really done, only visionally, and was an
emblem of the Assyrian army, preparedand ready to
devour the land of Israel; see Joel i. 4. Nah. iii. 17.
And this was in the beginning of the shooting up of the
latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the
king's toowings; when the first grass was mowed
down, and the first cropgathered in, for the use of the
king's cattle; as the after-grass was just springing up,
and promised a second crop, these grashoppers or lo-
custs were forming, which threatened the destruction
of it. This must be towards the close of the summer,
and when autumn was coming on, at which time natu-
ralists tell us that locusts breed. So Aristotle" says,
they bring forth at the going out of the summer; and
of one sort Of them he says, ,their eggs perish in the
waters of autumn, or when it is a wet autumn; but in
a dry autumn there is a large increase of them: and
so Pliny says {x}, they breed in the autumn-season and
lie under the earth all the winter, and appear in the
spring: and Colamelia observes {y}, that locusts are
most suitably and commodiously fed.with grass in au-
tumn; which is called cordurn, or the latter grass, that
comes or springs late in the year; such as this now
was. The Mahometans speak = much of God being the
Maker of locusts; they say he made them of the clay
which was left at the formation of Adam; and repre-
sent him saying, I am God, nor is there any Lord .of lo-
custs besides me, who feed them, and send them for
food to the people, or as a punishment to them, as I
please: they call them the army of the most high GOd,
and will not suffer any to kill them; see the note on
Rev. ix. 3. whether all this is rounded on this passage
of Scripture, I cannot say; however, there is no rea-
son from thence to make the locusts so peculiarly the
wo.rk.-manship of God as they do, since this was only in
a visionary way; though it may be observed, that it
is with great propriety, agreeable to the nature of
these creatures, that God is represented as forming
them at sucha season of the year. Some, bythe king's
mowings, understand the carrying captive the ten
tribes by Salmaneser king of Assyria; so Ribera; after
which things were in a flourishing state, or at least
began to be so, in the two tribes under Hezekiah,when
they were threatened with ruin by the army of Senna-
cherib, from which. there was a deliverance: but as
this vision, and the rest, only respect the ten tribes of
Israel,, the king's mowings of the first crop may signify

{t} See the Universal History, vol. 2. p. 427, 428.
{u} \^ybg\^ "ecce fictor locustarum", Pagninus, Montanus; so Muuster,
Vatablus, Cocceius, Burkius.
{w} Hist. Animal. I. 5. c. 28, 29.
{x} Nat. Hist. I. 11. c. 29.
{y} Apud Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 2. 1. 4. c. 6. col. 484.
{z} Vid. Bochart. ib. col. 486.