Amos 3:2

You only have I known of all the families of the earth,.... All the families or nations of the earth, and all the inhabitants of it, are known by the Lord, as he is the omniscient God; but none had

You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

You only have I known; chosen, made near to myself adopted to be my peculiar ones, to be sons and daughters to me; to you only have I revealed my whole will, and given you my law for your rule and direction, and my promises for your encouragement, and required you to have no other gods before me. Of all the families of the earth: this possibly may intimate God’ s choosing them when they were but a small family, as in Abraham’ s day, and when other families were as considerable as that of Abraham was; the growth of which into a mighty nation was from the favour and blessing of God, performing his promises to their forefathers; and this will aggravate their apostacy from God, which in the next words he threatens to punish. Therefore: here is an elliptic speech, for God doth not punish his peculiar people because they are so near and dear to him, but for that, being so, they had forgotten their duty and obligations to God, and had abused all these his mercies. I will punish you; my hand shall punish certainly, whoever are the means, and whatever is the manner, of which you shall hear more, but I will certainly visit for it. For all your iniquities; all your idolatries, and sins against the precepts of the first table, and all your injustices, and sins against the second table; all your desertings of the law of piety and justice; none of their works shall ever be forgotten, .

Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.Ver. 2. You only have I known] That is, owned and honoured, called and culled, chosen and accepted to be my people, when I had all the world before me to choose in, Deuteronomy 10:14-15, and nothing to move me thereto but mine own mere grace, even the good pleasure of my will (ευδοκια). Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities] Not passing by the least without a sensible check: the least, I say, that is allowed and wallowed in; and that because of the disloyalty and treachery that is therein. Other mens’ sins are rebellions against God; but the saints’ sins are treacheries, because against the covenant. Let such, therefore, look to themselves, and walk accurately, or they shall be sure to rue it, ακριβως, Ephesians 5:15. God will be sure to plough his own ground, whatsoever becomes of the waste; and to weed his own garden, though the rest of the world should be let alone to grow wild. His own he will not fail to punish. 1. In case of scandal, as David. 2. For sins unrepented of, though not scandalous. Oh the bloody welts that God hath left upon the backs of his own dear children for such sins! Bastards may escape scot-free, but sons shall pay for it. Ingentia beneficia, fiagitia, supplicia. The punishing angel is bidden begin at God’ s sanctuary, Ezekiel 9:6. He will be sanctified in all that draw near unto him, Leviticus 10:3. Sanctified I say, either actively or passively; either in the sincerity of men’ s conversation or in the severity of their visitation; at which time his articles of inquiry will be very strict and critical against his own professed people, who are therefore worse than others (and shall therefore speed worse), because they ought to be better.

(2) Known.—The knowledge of God is love. There was special knowledge and intimacy between God and Israel. Upon such knowledge followed advantages and privileges innumerable. Therefore I will . . .—This may mean, in proportion to your privileges will be your doom—but more probably that this intimacy of knowledge is the ground of gracious chastisement. For nation or man to be allowed to go on in sin without rebuke is the greatest curse that can befall it or him.

Verse 2. You only have I known] I have taken no other people to be my own people. I have approved of you, loved you, fed, sustained, and defended you; but because you have forsaken me, have become idolatrous and polluted, therefore will I punish you. And the punishment shall be in proportion to the privileges you have enjoyed, and the grace you have abused.

2. You only &c.] The pron. is emphatic by its position, in the Heb., as in the English. known] i.e. known favourably, noticed, regarded: so Genesis 18:19, “I have known him to the end that he may command his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of Jehovah,” &c.; Hosea 13:5, “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought”; Psalms 1:6; Psalms 37:18, and elsewhere. Israel was the only nation whom Jehovah ‘knew’ in this special sense, and visited with the tokens of His friendship. families of the earth] Genesis 12:3; Genesis 28:14. therefore I will punish you &c.] The Israelites argued, from the privileges bestowed upon them, that they were the recipients of God’s favour, irrespectively of their deeds: Amos retorts that, so far from this being the case, their privileges augment their responsibilities: instead of proving Himself their saviour, whether they are obedient to His will or not, He will, if they are disobedient, visit their iniquities upon them. So in Jeremiah 7 the men of Judah point to the material Temple in their midst as the palladium of their security; but the prophet retorts in a similar strain, that, if they desire to merit Jehovah’s protection, and wish Jerusalem to escape the fate of Shiloh, they must ‘amend their ways,’ and practise more consistently than they have done hitherto the ordinances of civil righteousness (Jeremiah 7:3-15). punish you for] R.V. more lit., visit upon you, as the same phrase is often rendered, Amos 3:14; Exodus 20:5; Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 5:29; Jeremiah 23:2 (but punish, Jeremiah 11:22, Jeremiah 25:12, Jeremiah 29:32, &c.). The expression is particularly frequent in Jeremiah. iniquities] the conventional, and sufficient rendering of ‘âwôn. Etymologically, however, as Arabic shews (where the corresponding verb ghawâ means to err, or go astray), the idea expressed by it is that of deviation from the right track, error: so the corresponding verb, 2 Samuel 7:14; 2 Samuel 24:17; 1 Kings 8:47 al. Comp. the writer’s Notes on the Hebrew Text of Samuel, on 1 Samuel 20:30.

You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities - Such is the one law of God.

1, 2. Failure to recognize responsibilities brings judgment. If Amos 2:6-16, is called the thesis of the Book of Amos, Amos 3:1-2, may properly be called the thesis of Amos 3-6, for the four chapters