TRV
Translation
King James Version
But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
Complete Jewish Bible
I will send fire on Y'hudah, and it will consume the palaces of Yerushalayim.
American Standard Version
But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
World English Bible Messianic
But I will send a fire on Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”
Geneva Bible (1599)
Therefore will I send a fire vpon Iudah, and it shall deuoure the palaces of Ierusalem.
Young's Literal Translation
And I have sent a fire against Judah, And it hath consumed palaces of Jerusalem.
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In the KJVVerse 22,385 of 31,102
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Commentary on Amos 2 verses 1–8
1 ¶ Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
2 But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:
3 And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.
4 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
5 But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
8 And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.
Here is, I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three transgressions and for four, as those before. Now, 1. Moab's fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the bar, was cruelty. The instance given refers not to the people of God, but to a heathen like themselves: The king of Moab burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime. We find there was war between the Edomites and the Moabites, in which the king of Moab, in distress and rage, offered his own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity, Kg2 3:26, Kg2 3:27. And it should seem that afterwards he, or some of his successors, in revenge upon the Edomites for bringing him to that extremity, having an advantage against the king of Edom, seized him alive and burnt him to ashes, or slew him and burnt his body, or dug up the bones of their dead king, of that particularly who had so straitened him, and, in token of his rage and fury, burnt them to lime. and perhaps made use of the powder of his bones for the white-washing of the walls and ceilings of his palace, that he might please himself with the sight of that monument of his revenge. Est vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa - Revenge is sweeter than life itself. It is barbarous to abuse human bodies, for we ourselves also are in the body; it is senseless to abuse dead bodies, nay, it is impious, for we believe and look for their resurrection; and to abuse the dead bodies of kings (whose persons and names ought to be in a particular manner respected and had in veneration) is an affront to majesty; it is an argument of a base spirit for those to trample upon a dead lion who, were he alive, would tremble before him. 2. Moab's doom for this transgression is, (1.) A judgment of death. Those that deal cruelly shall be cruelly dealt with (Amo 2:2): Moab shall die; the Moabites shall be cut off with the sword of war, which kills with tumult, with shouting, and with sound of trumpet, circumstances that make it so much the more terrible, as the lion's roaring aggravates his tearing. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, Isa 9:5. (2.) It is a judgment upon their judge, who had passed the sentence upon the bones of the king of Edom that they should be burnt to lime: I will cut him off, says God (Amo 2:3); he shall know there is a judge that is higher than he. The king, the chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall not escape, Jer 48:47. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.
II. Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and therefore, now that justice is riding the circuit, that shall not be passed by; that nation has made itself like the heathen and mingled with them, and therefore the indictment here runs against them in the same form in which it had run against all the rest: For these transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; their sins are as many as the sins of other nations, and we find them huddled up with them in the same character, Jer 9:26, "As for Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, jumble them together; they are all alike;" the sentence here also is the same (Amo 2:5): "I will send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where God is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, though it is the holy city, and God has formerly been known in its palaces for a refuge," Psa 48:3. But the sin here charged upon Judah is different from all the rest. The other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men, but Judah is reckoned with for indignities done to God, Amo 2:4. 1. They put contempt upon his statutes and persisted in disobedience to them: They have despised the law of the Lord, as if it were not worth taking notice of, nor had any thing in it valuable; and herein they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as the authority and sovereignty, of the Lawmaker; this they did, in effect, when they kept not his commandments, made no conscience of them, took no care about them. 2. They put honour upon his rivals, their idols, here called their lies which caused them to err; for an image is a teacher of lies, Hab 2:18. And those that are led away into the error of idolatry are by that led into a multitude of other errors, Uno dato absurdo mille sequuntur - One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an infinite eternal Spirit; but, when the truth of God is by idolatry changed into a lie, all his other truths are in danger of being so changed likewise; thus their idols caused them to err, and God justly gave them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse for their sin that they were lies after which their father walked, for they should rather have taken warning than taken pattern by those that perished with these lies in their right hand.
III. We now at length come to the words which Amos saw concerning Israel. The reproofs and threatenings having walked the round, here they centre, here they settle. He begins with them as with the rest: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; it all these nations must be punished for their iniquities, shall Israel go unpunished? Observe here what their sins were, for which God would reckon with them. 1. Perverting justice. This was the sin of those who were entrusted with the administration of justice, the judges and magistrates, and all parties concerned. They made nothing of selling a righteous man, and his righteous cause when it came to be tried before them, for a piece of silver; sentence was passed, not according to the merits of the cause, but the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment was set to sale by auction to the highest bidder. They would sell the life and livelihood of a poor man for a pair of shoes, for the least advantage to themselves that could be proposed to them; give them but a pair of shoes, and the cause of a poor man, who could not give them as much as that, should be betrayed, and left at the mercy of those that will have no mercy. They will rather play at small game that sit out. For a piece of bread such a man will transgress. Note, Those who will wrong their consciences for any thing will come at length to do it for next to nothing; those who begin to sell justice for silver will in time be so sordid as to see it for a pair of shoes, for a pair of old shoes. 2. Oppressing the poor, and seeking to benefit themselves by doing them a mischief: They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor; they swallow up the poor with the utmost greediness, and make a prey of those that are in sorrow with dust on their heads, poor orphans that are in mourning for their parents; they catch at them to get their estates into their hands; they never rest till they have got the heads of the poor in the dust, to be trodden on. Or, They pant after the dust of the earth, that is, silver and gold, white and yellow dust; they covet it earnestly, and levy it upon the head of the poor by their unjust exactions. Note, Men's seeking to enrich themselves by the impoverishing of others is a transgression which God will not long turn away the punishment of. This is turning aside the way of the meek, contriving to do injury to those who, they know, are mild and patient and will bear injury. They invade their rights, break their measures, and obstruct the course of justice in favour of them, not suffering them to go on with their righteous cause; this is turning aside their way. Note, The more patiently men bear injuries that are done them the greater is the sin of those that injure them, and the more occasion they have to expect that God will give them redress, and take vengeance for them. I, as a deaf man, heard not, and then thou wilt hear. 3. Abominable uncleanness, even incest itself, such as it not named among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father's wife (Co1 5:1), his father's concubine: A man and his father will go in unto the same young woman, as black an instance as any other of an unbounded promiscuous lust; and yet where the former iniquities of oppression and extortion are this also is found; for laws of modesty seldom hold those that have broken the bands of justice and cast away its cords from them. This wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the profession of it, that those who are guilty of it are looked upon as designing thereby to profane God's holy name, and to render it odious among the heathen, as if he countenanced the villainies which those who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and were altogether such a one as they. 4. Regaling themselves and yet pretending to honour their God with that which they had got by oppression and extortion, Amo 2:8. They add idolatry to their injustice, and then think to atone for their injustice with their idolatry. (1.) They make merry with that which they have unjustly squeezed from the poor. They lay themselves down at ease, and in state, and stretch themselves upon clothes laid to pledge, which they ought to have restored the same night, according to the law, Deu 24:12, Deu 24:13. And they drink the wine of the condemned, of such as they have fined and laid heavy mulcts upon, spending that in sensuality which they have got by injustice. (2.) They think to make atonement for this by feasting on the gains of oppression before their altars, and drinking this wine in the house of their God, in the temples where they worshipped their calves, as if they would make God a partner in their crimes by making him a partner of the profits of them - service good enough for false gods; but the true God will not thus be mocked; he has declared that he hates robbery for burnt-offerings, and cannot be served acceptably but with that which is got honestly.
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 1–8. Public domain.
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JeromeAD 420
Commentary on Amos
(Verse 4, 5.) Thus says the Lord: On account of three crimes of Judah, and on account of four, I will not turn them aside, because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his commandments. They have been deceived by their idols, after which their fathers walked, and I will send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem. LXX: Thus says the Lord: On account of three impieties of the sons of Judah, and on account of four, I will not turn away from them, because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his precepts, and they have been deceived by their vanities, which their fathers followed, and I will send fire into Judah, and it will devour the foundations of Jerusalem. Regarding the other aforementioned cities and peoples, such as Damascus and Gaza, Ashkelon and Gaza, Ashkelon and Azotus, Tyre and Idumea, and the sons of Ammon and Moab, it does not reproach them for rejecting the law of God and despising His commandments; for they did not have the written law, but the natural law. Hence, it says that they violated their own bowels and the bowels of mercy, and crushed pregnant women in iron chariots, and carried away the captivity of Solomon, whether it was perfect or incomplete, and confined it in Idumea, and did not remember the covenant of their fathers, and pursued their brother with the sword. And they burst forth not only with cruelty, but with fury, to the extent that they burned the bones of the king of Idumea, and did not allow death to be the final evil for everyone. But Judas, at that time, in which these things were being said, had the religion of God and the temple and the ceremonies, who had received the law, and the precepts, and the judgments, and the testimonies, and the commandments (concerning the difference of which is more fully debated in the eighteenth psalm, and in the one hundred and eighteenth), is reproached by the Lord and convicted, and will receive worthy punishments, because he has rejected His law, and has not kept His commandments. Because he rejected and despised them, his idols deceived him in order and way. For he could not be deceived by idols before he rejected the law of the Lord and did not keep His commandments. These are the idols after which their fathers went in Egypt, fabricating the images of the Egyptian bull, and worshiping Beelphegor, and honoring Astaroth and Baalim. Therefore, the Lord threatens even Judah that he will send fire, which will devour the houses and foundations of Jerusalem: not the one in which the vision of peace dwells, but those that have risen under the name Jerusalem in different cities. Whatever we have said about Judah, it pertains to the Church, in which there is true confession, and the peace of the Lord, and the vision of truth. And therefore it is argued against him, that he has despised the law of God and has not kept his commandments, and each one, worshipping his own vices and sins, has begun to have God from whom he has been conquered, as the apostle Peter says: For by whom a person is overcome, to him he is a slave (2 Peter 2:19). The covetous worships gold, the glutton worships his belly, the lustful worships his genitals and Beelphegor: the lascivious woman, although she may live in luxury, is dead, and she worships the pleasures of Venus. Where will the Lord send fire upon Judah, and it will devour the most wicked and sinful houses, which have lost the glory of Jerusalem; at the same time, we learn that the Creator of all things does not only care for the Jews and Israel, but also for all the nations, and according to the Apostle, those who sin without the law will perish without the law, and those who commit sins under the law will be judged by the law of the Lord (Rom. II).
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.
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SUMMARY
Amos 2:5 pronounces God's impending judgment upon the southern kingdom of Judah, declaring that a divine "fire" will be sent to "devour the palaces of Jerusalem." This verse is a stark prophetic warning, concluding Amos's series of oracles against surrounding nations and setting the stage for the more extensive condemnations against Israel. It underscores God's unwavering commitment to justice, even against His covenant people, highlighting the severe consequences of their persistent rebellion and rejection of His law.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Amos 2:5 employs several potent Literary Devices to convey its message of impending judgment. The most prominent is Metaphor, where "fire" serves as a powerful symbol for God's consuming wrath and destructive judgment. This is not a literal fire from the sky but a figurative representation of the devastating consequences of divine retribution. The phrase "it shall devour" also incorporates Personification, attributing the human action of "devouring" to the fire, thereby intensifying the image of its destructive power and active role in the judgment. Furthermore, the "palaces of Jerusalem" function as Symbolism, representing not just physical structures but the pride, wealth, security, and political/religious authority of the nation. Their destruction symbolizes the complete dismantling of Judah's perceived invulnerability and the downfall of its ruling class. Finally, the declarative "I will send" exemplifies Divine Fiat, emphasizing God's absolute sovereignty and His direct, intentional action in bringing about the prophesied events, asserting His ultimate control over history and the destiny of nations.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Amos 2:5 powerfully articulates the theological principle of divine justice and accountability, asserting that God's covenant relationship with Judah did not exempt them from judgment when they willfully rebelled against His revealed law. This verse underscores that God's holiness demands a response to sin, and His justice is impartial, extending even to His chosen people. The "fire" signifies a purifying and consuming wrath, demonstrating that God is not indifferent to disobedience, idolatry, and the rejection of His commandments. The judgment on the "palaces of Jerusalem" highlights that privilege and earthly power offer no immunity from divine reckoning, challenging any false sense of security derived from national status or material prosperity. This serves as a timeless reminder that true security lies in faithful obedience and adherence to God's covenant.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Amos 2:5 serves as a profound and sobering reminder of God's unwavering justice and the seriousness with which He views sin, particularly the rejection of His revealed truth. For Judah, their privileged status as God's chosen people did not exempt them from the consequences of their deliberate rebellion against His law, as detailed in Amos 2:4. This prophecy found its historical fulfillment centuries later with the devastating Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, when the city, including its magnificent palaces and the revered Temple, was burned to the ground (as recorded in 2 Kings 25:9). For believers today, this verse underscores that God remains just and holy, and His standards do not diminish. It calls us to a deep introspection, urging us to examine our own lives for areas of disobedience or spiritual complacency. True security and blessing are found not in worldly achievements, material possessions, or even religious affiliation, but in humble, faithful obedience to God's Word. This ancient warning serves as a perpetual call to repentance, reminding us that God's patience is an invitation to turn back to Him before His righteous judgment is poured out.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Why did God send fire upon Judah, His own people?
Answer: God sent fire upon Judah, His covenant people, because they had persistently rejected His law and commandments, choosing to follow "their lies" and the ways of their fathers, as explicitly stated in Amos 2:4. Their sin was not merely moral failure but a deliberate despising of God's revealed truth and covenant obligations. God's justice is impartial; while He is merciful and patient, He is also holy and righteous, and He holds all, including His chosen people, accountable for their actions and spiritual rebellion. The "fire" symbolizes His consuming wrath and judgment against their unfaithfulness.
What do "fire" and "palaces of Jerusalem" specifically symbolize in this verse?
Answer: In Amos 2:5, "fire" (Hebrew: 'êsh') is a powerful biblical metaphor for God's divine judgment, wrath, and destructive power. It signifies a complete and devastating consumption, leaving nothing behind. It is not necessarily a literal fire but represents the full force of God's punitive action. The "palaces of Jerusalem" (Hebrew: 'armôwn') symbolize the centers of power, wealth, pride, and perceived security of the nation. Their destruction signifies the comprehensive downfall of Judah's leadership, its social structures, and its political and economic strength. It underscores that no earthly stronghold, no matter how grand or fortified, can withstand God's righteous judgment when a people persist in sin.
How was this prophecy against Judah fulfilled historically?
Answer: This prophecy found its most significant historical fulfillment with the Babylonian conquest of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Under King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, broke down its walls, plundered the Temple and the royal palace, and then set fire to the city, including its "palaces" and the Temple itself. This devastating event, vividly recounted in books like 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52, marked the end of the Kingdom of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian exile, serving as a stark testament to the fulfillment of Amos's prophetic warning.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Amos 2:5, with its declaration of divine fire and judgment upon Judah's palaces, foreshadows the ultimate outworking of God's justice, which finds its most profound expression and resolution in Jesus Christ. While this verse speaks of temporal judgment on an unfaithful nation, it points to the universal reality of humanity's sin and the righteous wrath of God against it. The "fire" of God's judgment, which threatened to consume Jerusalem, ultimately fell upon Christ on the cross. He, the perfect Lamb of God, bore the full weight of divine wrath for the sins of humanity, becoming the propitiation for our unrighteousness (as seen in Romans 3:25). Through His sacrifice, those who believe are spared from the consuming fire of eternal judgment, finding refuge and peace in Him (see Romans 8:1). Thus, while Amos warns of judgment beginning with God's house (a principle echoed in 1 Peter 4:17), Christ's work ensures that for those in Him, the "consuming fire" of God's holiness (as described in Hebrews 12:29) is satisfied, transforming judgment into grace and condemnation into eternal life (see John 3:16).