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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Amos 8:9 - 8:9
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“And it will come to pass on that day, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, I cause the sun to set at noon, and make it dark to the earth in clear day. Amo 8:10. And turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and bring mourning clothes upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and make it like mourning for an only one, and the end thereof like a bitter day.” The effect of the divine judgment upon the Israelites is depicted here. Just as the wicked overturn the moral order of the universe, so will the Lord, with His judgment, break through the order of nature, cause the sun to go down at noon, and envelope the earth in darkness in clear day. The words of the ninth verse are not founded upon the idea of an eclipse of the sun, though Michaelis and Hitzig not only assume that they are, but actually attempt to determine the time of its occurrence. An eclipse of the sun is not the setting of the sun (כּוֹא). But to any man the sun sets at noon, when he is suddenly snatched away by death, in the very midst of his life. And this also applies to a nation when it is suddenly destroyed in the midst of its earthly prosperity. But it has a still wider application. When the Lord shall come to judgment, at a time when the world, in its self-security, looketh not for Him (cf. Mat 24:37.), this earth's sun will set at noon, and the earth be covered with darkness in bright daylight. And every judgment that falls upon an ungodly people or kingdom, as the ages roll away, is a harbinger of the approach of the final judgment. Amo 8:10. When the judgment shall burst upon Israel, then will all the joyous feasts give way to mourning and lamentation (compare Amo 8:3 and Amo 5:16; Hos 2:13). On the shaving of a bald place as a sign of mourning, see Isa 3:24. This mourning will be very deep, like the mourning for the death of an only son (cf. Jer 6:26 and Zec 12:10). The suffix in שַׂמְתִּיהָ (I make it) does not refer to אֵבֶל (mourning), but to all that has been previously mentioned as done upon that day, to their weeping and lamenting (Hitzig). אַחֲרִיתָהּ, the end thereof, namely, of this mourning and lamentation, will be a bitter day (כְ is caph verit.; see at Joe 1:15). This implies that the judgment will not be a passing one, but will continue.