Amos 1:5
oI will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from 3the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from 4the house of Eden: and pthe people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.
I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.
o:
Isaiah 8:4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
Jeremiah 49:23 ¶Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.
Jeremiah 51:30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
Zechariah 9:1 The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD.
3:
Or, Bikath-aven.
4:
Or, Beth-eden.
p:
Amos 9:7 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 the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
2 Kings 16:9 And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin.
Isaiah 17:1-17:3 1. The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.
Jeremiah 49:23-49:27 23. ¶Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet. 24. Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail. 25. How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy! 26. Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts. 27. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Ben-hadad.
the mighty God, as Amo 1:4,
weaken and shake into pieces,
literally, the bar with which the city gates were shut, and both fastened and strengthened, Jud 16:3 Neh 7:3 Psa 107:16. Metaphorically it contains all the munitions, fortresses, and strength of a place or people: so here. Damascus: see Amo 1:3. It is put here, as before, for the whole kingdom, of which it was the metropolis.
by the judgments of war, pestilence, famine, or diseases, all commissioned to do this. The inhabitant, for inhabitants, the singular used for the plural; and may possibly denote the universal excision and destruction of the Syrians, who shall perish as one man: see the like use of the singular number, Exo 8:6 Jer 8:7.
it is possible this may refer to, some peculiar manner which the Syrians observed in their choosing the valley or champaign for the place of worship to their idols; Israel chose high places, the Syrians chose valleys it is likely, and therefore though beaten in the hills, where they thought the gods which Israel worshipped were strongest, yet are confident that in the valleys, where Syrians worshipped their gods, the Syrians would find their gods the stronger, 1Ki 20:23 for this reason the valley or plain hath its name the plain of liven, of iniquity and vanity, because in it they worshipped vain gods, and their religion was highest idolatry; or it may be that Bikath-aven was the name of some city of Syria well known then, but whose memory is perished with it a great while ago.
a description of the king of Syria. whose royal dignity shall be no security to him.
some royal seat, where the kings of Syria did think good to build them a house or palace, for pleasure and delights, and therefore gave it this name, Beth-eden, or the house of pleasure; all their pleasant seats, the king’s summer-houses, shall be laid waste.
the main body of the subjects and people of Syria; this explains Damascus, Amo 1:3, and in this verse.
Cyrene of Egypt, say some, but without any probability in this place: there was also Kir of Moab, Isa 15:1; but this was not the Kir in the text: this was Kir of Media, Isa 22:6, now under the Assyrian yoke; and thither did Tiglath-pileser carry the conquered Syrians, 2Ki 16:9, and placed them captives in that barren, mountainous country about fifty years after it was foretold by Amos.
this gives us an assurance that all here threatened should at last be executed.