10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet pursues the same subject; but he omits the figurative mode which he had before adopted. He therefore denounces vengeance more openly, -- that God would turn their festal-days into mourning, and their songs into lamentation. This was designedly mentioned; for the Israelites, we know, flattered themselves on account of their ceremonies by which at the same time they more and more provoked God's displeasure: for the worship of God, which they pretended to perform, was mere superstition, and was therefore a profanation of true religion. Though then they thus brought on themselves God's judgment by their wicked ceremonies, they yet thought that they were sufficiently disguised; for as Jeremiah says, ceremonies are to hypocrites the dens of robbers, (Jeremiah 7:10,11.) So here the Prophet speaks expressly of festal-days and of songs, -- "Think ye that I am pacified on your feast-days, when ye offer sacrifices to me, or rather to idols under my name; and think ye that I am delighted with your songs? these things are so regarded by me, that they the more excite my wrath. Your festal-days then will I turn to mourning, and your songs to lamentation. At the same time, the Prophet threatens generally what we have before noticed, -- that there would be mourning among the whole people for having too long abused the forbearance of God; I will then turn your joy into mourning. This is the sum of the whole. We have already shown why he names feast-days and songs, and that is, because they thought them to be expiations to turn aside God's vengeance, when yet they were fans by which they kindled more and more the fire of his displeasure. He afterwards adds, I will make to come up on all backs the sackcloth, and on every head baldness. These are various modes of speaking, which refer to the same thing: for they were wont to put on sackcloth and they were wont to shave their heads when in grief and mourning. The Prophet then means, that there would be extreme sorrow among the people, that having cast away all delights, they would be constrained to give up themselves entirely to weeping, lamentation, and grief. I will then make to come up on all loins the sackcloth, that is, I will make each one to put off all valuable and soft clothing and to put on sackcloth; and also to shave their heads, and even to tear off their hair, as they were wont to do. We indeed know that the orientals were more disposed to adopt external tokens of sorrow than we are. It was in truth the levity of that country that accounts for their playing the part of actors in mourning; and from this practice of mourning our Prophet borrowed his mode of speaking. He afterwards subjoins, I will set her (he speaks of the Israelites under the name of land) in mourning as for an only begotten This similitude occurs also in another place, They shall mourn as for an only-begotten,' says Zechariah 12; so also in other places; so that there is no need of a long explanation. For when one has many children and one dies, he patiently bears his death; but when any one is bereaved of an only-begotten, there is no end nor moderation to his grief; for there is no comfort remaining. This is the reason why the Prophet says, that there would be grief, such as that which is felt for an only-begotten. And he shows that these calamities would not be for a short time only, Her posterity, he says, shall be as in the day of bitterness [1] For hypocrites drive away, or at least moderate, their fear of punishment by imagining that God will not be so severe and rigid but for a short time, -- "O! it cannot be God will for long punish our sins; but it will be like mist which soon passes away." Thus hypocrites felicitate themselves. Then the Prophet does not without reason subjoin this second clause, that their posterity shall be as in the day of bitterness. Hence when they shall think themselves freed from all evils, then new ones shall succeed, so that their posterity shall even doubly grieve; for they shall feel more bitterness than their fathers. It now follows --
1 - Both this and the former line are rendered differently by Newcome, more consistently with the words of the original -- And I will make it as a mourning for an only son, And the end thereof as a day of bitterness. The pronoun "it," and also "thereof," is the feminine h: Newcome refers it to hdvrh, this matter, or this event, understood: or in case 'rph, land, be the antecedent, he thinks that k'vl, "as a mourning," should be rendered participially, as "one who mourns." Either of these constructions may suit the original; but another seems preferable. The antecedent to "it appears to be 'vl, "mourning," in the first line of the verse. Our own version is no doubt the correct one, and not that which Calvin adopts; only the last line may be better rendered thus, as Junius and Tremelius do -- "And the end of it as that of the bitterest day." -- Ed.
I will turn your feasts into mourning - He recurs to the sentence which he had pronounced Amos 8:3, before he described the avarice and oppression which brought it down. Hosea too had foretold, "I will cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, etc" Hosea 2:11. So Jeremiah describes, "the joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning" Lamentations 5:15. The Book of Tobit bears witness how these sayings of Amos lived in the hearts of the captive Israelites. The word of God seems oftentimes to fail, yet it finds those who are His. "I remembered," he said, "that prophecy of Amos, your feasts shall be turned into mourning" (Tobit 2:6).
The correspondence of these words with the miracle at our Blessed Lord's Passion, in that "the earth was darkened in the clear day, at noon-day," was noticed by the earliest fathers , and that the more, since it took place at the Feast of the Passover, and, in punishment for that sin, their "feasts were turned into mourning," in the desolation of their country and the cessation of their worship.
I will bring up sackcloth - (that is, the rough coarse haircloth, which, being fastened with the girdle tight over the loins (see above Joel 1:8, Joel 1:13, pp. 107, 109), was wearing to the frame) "and baldness upon every head." The mourning of the Jews was no half-mourning, no painless change of one color of becoming dress for another. For the time, they were dead to the world or to enjoyment. As the clothing was coarse, uncomely, distressing, so they laid aside every ornament, the ornament of their hair also (as English widows used, on the same principle, to cover it). They shore it off; each sex, what was the pride of their sex; the men, their beards; the women, their long hair. The strong words, "baldness, is balded Jeremiah 16:6, shear Micah 1:16; Jeremiah 7:29, hew off, enlarge thy baldness" , are used to show the completeness of this expression of sorrow. None exempted themselves in the universal sorrow; "on every head" came up "baldness."
And I will make it - (probably, the whole state and condition of things, everything, as we use our "it") as the mourning of an only son As, when God delivered Israel from Egypt, "there was not," among the Egyptians: "a house where there was not one dead Exodus 12:30, and one universal cry arose from end to end of the land, so now too in apostate Israel. The whole mourning should be the one most grievous mourning of parents, over the one child in whom they themselves seemed anew to live.
And the end thereof as a bitter day - Most griefs have a rest or pause, or wear themselves out. "The end" of this should be like the beginning, nay, one concentrated grief, a whole day of bitter grief summed up in its close. It was to be no passing trouble, but one which should end in bitterness, an unending sorrow and destruction; image of the undying death in hell.
I will turn your feasts into mourning - See on Amos 8:3 (note).
A bitter day - A time of grievous calamity.
And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation,.... Either their religious feasts, the feasts of pentecost, tabernacles, and passover; at which three feasts there were eclipses of the sun, a few years after this prophecy of Amos, as Bishop Usher (q) observes: the first was an eclipse of the sun about ten digits, in the year 3213 A.M. or 791 B.C., June twenty fourth, at the feast of pentecost; the next was almost twelve digits, about eleven years after, on November eighth, 780 B.C., at the feast of the tabernacles; and the third was more than eleven digits in the following year, 779 B.C., on May fifth, at the feast of the passover; which the prophecy may literally refer to, and which might occasion great sorrow and concern, and especially at what they might be thought to forebode: but particularly this was fulfilled when these feasts could not be observed any longer, nor the songs used at them sung any more; or else their feasts, and songs at them, in their own houses, in which they indulged themselves in mirth and jollity; but now, instead thereof, there would be mourning and lamentation the loss of their friends, and being carried captive into a strange land;
and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins; of high and low, rich and poor; even those that used to be covered with silk and rich embroideries: sackcloth was a coarse cloth put on in times of mourning for the dead, or on account of public calamities:
and baldness upon every head: the hair being either shaved off or pulled off; both which were sometimes done, as a token of mourning:
and I will make it as the mourning of an only son; as when parents mourn for an only son, which is generally carried to the greatest height, and continued longest, as well as is most sincere and passionate; the case being exceeding cutting and afflictive, as this is hereby represented to be:
and the end thereof as a bitter day; a day of bitter calamity, and of bitter wailing and mourning, in the bitterness of their spirits; though the beginning of the day was bright and clear, a fine sunshine, yet the end of it dark and bitter, distressing and sorrowful, it being the end of the people of Israel, as in Amos 8:2.
(q) Annales Vet. Test. ad A. M. 3213.
baldness--a sign of mourning (Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37; Ezekiel 7:18).
I will make it as . . . mourning of an only son--"it," that is, "the earth" (Amos 8:9). I will reduce the land to such a state that there shall be the same occasion for mourning as when parents mourn for an only son (Jeremiah 6:26; Zac 12:10).
Upon all loins - All sorts of persons shall put on mourning. Baldness - Shaving the head and beard was a sign of the greatest sadness. A bitter day - A bitter day, which you shall wish you had never seen, shall succeed your dark night.
*More commentary available at chapter level.