Amos 7:4

Thus hath the Lord showed unto me,.... Another vision after this manner: and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire; gave out that he would have a controversy with his people Israel, and

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.

Thus hath the Lord God showed, in vision or hieroglyphic: see . And, behold: see . Called to contend by fire; declared he would judge as by fire: literally, say some, God would from heaven by fire punish. Others say metaphorically, by drought which should scorch up all fruits of the earth, and dry up fountains and rivers. Or else by very sore, wasting, and irresistible judgments, that like fire should consume all, hereby denoting the Assyrian rage. It devoured; eat up, i.e. visionally, or in the emblem. The great deep; not literally, but, as the other, , in hieroglyphic; so it appeared to Amos. And did eat up a part of the land too; it seemed to seize on the earth: now this in vision awakens the prophet, as before, to pray earnestly.

Amos 7:4 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.Ver. 4. And, behold, the Lord God] Whose asterisk, or starry note, this "behold" is, saith Tarnovius, stirring up to attention. Another compareth it to a hand in the margin of a book, pointing to some notable thing. Another, to the sounding of a trumpet before some proclamation; or to the ringing of a bell before the sermon of some famous preacher. The Lord God called to contend by fire] That is, by parching heat and drought, causing dearth, as Joe 1:19. For which purpose God called his angels, those ministering spirits, that execute his judgments upon the wicked (as they did once upon Sodom), to contend for him (a metaphor from civil courts), to plead for him by fire, to destroy the perverse Israelites by fire and brimstone, Isaiah 66:16 Ezekiel 38:22, as they had done Sodom and Gomorrah (so some interpret it according to the letter); or by the woe of war, compared to fire, Isaiah 26:11, as being a misery which all words (however wide) want compass to express; or, by immoderate heat and drought, as before; so great, that it devoured the great deep] as that fire of the Lord in Elijah’ s time licked up the water that was in the trench, 1 Kings 18:38. See Isaiah 51:10. And did eat up a part] Or, it devoured also the field: not only the waters in and under the earth, that serve to make it fruitful, but a part of the earth itself; which was altogether above and against the common course of nature. Some render it, and did eat up that part, or that field, sc. that mentioned Amos 7:1, the king’ s field; that as the king had chiefly offended, so he should be principally punished. Others interpret it by Amos 4:7, "One piece was rained upon, and the piece whereon it rained not withered."

(4) Fire.—The poetical description of a yet more terrible calamity. God announces His intention of judging, i.e., punishing by fire (the word in E.V., “contend,” is to be understood in this sense). For “a portion” read the portion. The image is that of a prairie fire, that should eat up the later grass spared by the locusts. The consuming of the “great deep” is a strong hyperbole, and can scarcely refer to the “heathen world,” as Keil maintains. The meaning rather appears to be that not only the solitary remnant of pasture, but the deepest springs of moisture, will be scorched up in the blaze. The same word for “deep” (tehôm) is used in Genesis 1:2; Genesis 7:11; Genesis 8:2. (Comp. the Assyrian tihamtu.)

Verse 4. The Lord God called to contend by fire] Permitted war, both civil and foreign, to harass the land, after the death of Jeroboam the second. These wars would have totally destroyed it, had not the prophet interceded. It devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.] We are here to understand the partially destructive wars which afterwards took place; for the Lord causes all these things to pass before the eyes of Amos in the vision of prophecy; and intimates that, at the intercession of his prophets, total ruin should be prevented.

4–6. The second vision. The devouring fire. called to contend by fire] Jehovah arraigns His people: and fire is the agent which he summons against them (cf. to dispute, or litigate, with fire, Isaiah 66:16). For the idea of Jehovah’s contending (in a forensic sense) with His people, comp. Isaiah 3:13; Jeremiah 2:9; Hosea 4:1; Micah 6:2 (where the corresponding substantive is rendered controversy); and for calleth, comp. on Amos 7:8. and it devoured the great deep, and would have devoured the portion] The imagery is suggested, no doubt, by the conflagrations which, in the East, break out in field and forest during the dry season (Joe 1:19-20), and spread with alarming rapidity (comp. Psalms 83:14, Isaiah 9:18; and see Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 291–293). So fierce was the flame thus kindled that it even dried up the ‘great deep’ (Genesis 7:11), the subterranean waters upon which the Hebrews imagined the earth to rest (Genesis 1:7; Exodus 20:4; Psalms 24:2), and whence they supposed all its springs and fountains to have their supply; when these were exhausted, “it seemed as if the solid framework of the land, described with very apt pathos as the Portion (i.e. the portion [Micah 2:3, &c.] assigned by God to His people), would be the next to disappear” (G. A. Smith, p. 111). The judgement is thus a more severe one than that of the locusts.

God called to contend by fire - that is, He “called” His people to maintain their cause with Him “by fire,” as He says, “I will plead” in judgment “with him” (Gog) “with” (that is,” by”) pestilence

4-6. The devouring fire — A second vision, presenting essentially the same truth as the first. Called to contend by fire — Called the fire to contend with it.