Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Amos 9:7
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel! - Their boast and confidence was that they were children of the patriarch, to whom God made the promises. But they, not following the faith nor doing the deeds of Israel, who was a “prince with God,” or of Abraham, the father of the faithful, had, for “Bene Israel,” children of Israel, become as “Bene Cushiim, children of the Ethiopians,” descendants of Ham, furthest off from the knowledge and grace of God, the unchangeableness of whose color was an emblem of unchangeableness in evil. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” Jeremiah 13:23. Have I not brought up - (Did I not bring up) Israel out of the land of Egypt? Amos blends in one their plea and God’s answer. God by bringing them up out of Egypt, pledged His truth to them to be their to protect and preserve them. True! so long as they. retained God as their God, and kept His laws. God chose them, that they might choose Him. By casting Him off, as their Lord and God, they cast themselves off and out of God’s protection. By estranging themselves from God, they became as strangers in His sight. His act in bringing them up from Egypt had lost its meaning for them. It became no more than any Other event in His Providence, by which He brought up “the Philistines from Caphtor,” who yet were aliens from Him, and “the Syrians from Kir,” who, He had foretold, should be carried back there. This immigration of the Philistines from Caphtor must have taken place before the return of Israel from Egypt. For Moses says, “The Caphtorim, who came forth from Caphtor” had at this time “destroyed the Avvim who dwelt in villages unto Gazah, and dwelt in their stead” Deuteronomy 2:23 An entire change in their affairs had also taken place in the four centuries and a half since the days of Isaac. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, Philistia was a kingdom; its capital, Gerar. Its king had a standing army, Phichol being “the captain of the host” Genesis 21:22; Genesis 26:26 : he had also a privy councillor, Ahuzzath Genesis 26:26. From the time after the Exodus, Philistia had ceased to be a kingdom, Gerar disappears from history; the power of Philistia is concentrated in five new towns, Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, Ekron, with five heads, who consult and act as one (see above, the note at Amos 1:6-8). The Caphtorim are in some sense also distinct from the old Philistines. They occupy a district not co-extensive with either the old or the new land of the Philistines. In the time of Saul, another Philistine clan is mentioned, the Cherethite. The Amalekites made a marauding inroad into the south country of the Cherethites; 1 Samuel 30:14; which immediately afterward is called “the land of the Philistines” 1 Samuel 30:16. Probably then, there were different immigrations of the same tribe into Palestine, as there were different immigrations of Danes or Saxons into England, or as there have been and are from the old world into the new, America and Australia. They, were then all merged in one common name, as English, Scotch, Irish, are in the United States. The first immigration may have been that from the Casluhim, “out of whom came Philistim” Genesis 10:14; a second, from the Caphtorim, a kindred people, since they are named next to the Casluhim Genesis 10:14, as descendants of Mizraim. Yet a third were doubtless the Cherethim. But all were united under the one na…
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