Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Amos 1:5
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
I will also break the bar of Damascus - In the East, every city was fortified; the gates of the stronger cities were cased in iron, that they might not be set on fire by the enemy; they were fastened within with bars of brass 1 Kings 4:13 or iron (Psalms 107:16; Isaiah 45:2; compare Isaiah 48:14; Jeremiah 51:3 O). They were flanked with towers, and built over, so that what was naturally the weakest point and the readiest access to an enemy became the strongest defense. In Hauran the huge doors and gates of a single stone 9 and 10 feet high , and 1 12 foot thick , are still extant, and “the place for the ponderous bars,” proportioned to such gates, “may yet be seen.” The walls were loosened with the battering-ram, or scaled by mounds: the strong gate was seldom attacked; but, when a breach was made, was thrown open from within. The “breaking of the bar” laid open the city to the enemy, to go in and come out at his will. The whole strength of the kingdom of Damascus lay in the capital. It was itself the seat of the empire and was the empire itself. God says then, that He Himself would shiver all their means of resistance, whatever could hinder the inroad of the enemy. And cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven - Literally, “from the vale of vanity,” the “Bik’ah” being a broad vale between hills . Here it is doubtless the rich and beautiful valley, still called el-bukaa by the Arabs, La Boquea by William of Tyre , lying between Lebanon and Anti-libanus, the old Coele-Syria in its narrowest sense. It is, on high ground, the continuation of that long deep valley which, along the Jordan, the Dead sea, and the Arabah, reaches to the Red Sea. lts extreme length, from its southern close at Kal’at-esh-shakif to Hums (Emesa) has been counted at 7 days journey ; it narrows toward its southern extremity, expands at its northern, yet it cannot any how be said to lose its character of a valley until 10 miles north of Riblah . Midway, on its ,” was Baalbek, or Heliopolis, where the Egyptian worship is said to have been brought of old times from their “city of the sun .” Baalbek, as the ruins still attest, was full of the worship of the sun. But the whole of that beautiful range, “a magnificent vista” , it has been said, “carpeted with verdure and beauty” , “a gem lying deep in its valley of mountains,” was a citadel of idolatry. The name Baal-Hermon connects Mount Hermon itself, the snow-capped height which so towers over its southeast extremity, with the worship of Baal or the sun, and that, from the time of the Judges Judges 3:3. The name Baal-gad connects “the valley of Lebanon,” that is, most probably the south end of the great valley, with the same worship, anterior to Joshua Joshua 11:17; Joshua 12:7; Joshua 13:5. The name Baalbek is probably an abbreviation of the old name, Baal-bik’ah , “Baal of the valley,” in contrast with the neighboring Baalhermon. : “The whole of Hermon was girded with temples.” : “Some eight or ten of them cluster round it,” and, which is more remarkable, one is built” to catch the first beams of the sun rising over Hermon;” and temples on its opposite sides face toward it, as a sort of center . In Jerome’s time, the pagan still reverenced a celebrated temple on its summit . On the crest of its central peak, 3,000 feet above the glen below, in winter inaccessible, beholding far asunder the rising and the setting sun on the eastern desert and in the western sea, are still seen the foundations of a circular wall o…
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