TRV
Translation
King James Version
You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
Complete Jewish Bible
"Of all the families on earth, only you have I intimately known. This is why I will punish you for all your crimes."
Berean Standard Bible
“Only you have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”
American Standard Version
You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.
World English Bible Messianic
“You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.”
Geneva Bible (1599)
You onely haue I knowen of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visite you for all your iniquities.
Young's Literal Translation
Only you I have known of all families of the land, Therefore I charge on you all your iniquities.
See also
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In the KJVVerse 22,398 of 31,102
Study This Verse
Commentary on Amos 3 verses 1–8
1 ¶ Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying,
2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
4 Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
5 Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?
6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
8 The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
The scope of these verses is to convince the people of Israel that God had a controversy with them. That which the prophet has to say to them is to let them know that the Lord has something to say against them, Amo 3:1. They were his peculiar people above others, knew his name, and were called by it; nevertheless he had something against them, and they were called to hear what it was, that they might consider what answer they should make, as the prisoner at the bar is told to hearken to his indictment. The children of Israel would not regard the words of counsel and comfort that God had many a time spoken to them, and now they shall be made to hear the word of reproof and threatening that the Lord has spoken against them; for he will act as he has spoken.
I. Let them know that the gracious cognizance God has taken of them, and the favours he has bestowed upon them, should not exempt them from the punishment due to them for their sins. Israel is a family that God brought up out of the land of Egypt, (Amo 3:1), and it was no more than a family when it went down thither; thence God delivered it; thence he fetched it to be a family to himself. It is not only the ten tribes, the kingdom of Israel, that must take notice of this, but that of Judah also, for it is spoken against the whole family that God brought up out of Egypt. It is a family that God has bestowed distinguishing favours upon, has owned in a peculiar manner. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Note, God's church in the world is a family dignified above all the families of the earth. Those that know God are known of him. In Judah is God known, and therefore Judah is more than any people known of God. God has known them, that is, he has chosen them, covenanted with them, and conversed with them as his acquaintance. Now, one would think, it should follow, "Therefore I will spare you, will connive at your faults, and excuse you." No: Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Note, The distinguishing favours of God to us, if they do not serve to restrain us from sin, shall not serve to exempt us from punishment; nay, the nearer any are to God in profession, and the kinder notice he has taken of them, the more surely, the more quickly, and the more severely will he reckon with them, if they by a course of wilful sin profane their character, disgrace their relation to him, violate their engagements, and put a slight upon the favours and honours with which they have been distinguished. Therefore they shall be punished, because their sins dishonour him, affront him, and grieve him, more than the sins of others, and because it is necessary that God should vindicate his own honour by making it appear that he hates sin and hates it most in those that are nearest to him; if they be but as bad as others, they shall be punished worse than others, because it is justly expected that they should be so much better than others. Judgment begins at the house of God, begins at the sanctuary; for God will be sanctified either by or upon those that come nigh unto him, Lev 10:3.
II. Let them know that they could not expect any comfortable communion with God unless they first made their peace with him (Amo 3:3): Can two walk together except they be agreed? No; how should they? Where there is not friendship there can be no fellowship; if two persons be at variance, they must first accommodate the matters in difference between them before there can be any interchanging of good offices. Israel has affronted God, had broken their covenant with him, and ill-requited his favours to them; and yet they expected that he should continue to walk with them, should take their part, act for them, and give them assurances of his presence with them, though they took no care by repentance and reformation to agree with their adversary and to turn away his wrath. "But how can that be?" says God. "While you continue to walk contrary to God you can look for no other than that he should walk contrary to you," Lev 26:23, Lev 26:24. Note, We cannot expect that God should be present with us, or act for us, unless we be reconciled to him. God and man cannot walk together except they be agreed. Unless we agree with God in our end, which is his glory, we cannot walk with him by the way.
III. Let them know that the warnings God gave them of judgments approaching were not causeless and groundless, merely to amuse them, but certain declarations of the wrath of God against them, which (if they did not speedily repent) they would infallibly feel the effects of (Amo 3:4): "Will a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey in view? No: he roars upon his prey. Nor will a young lion cry out of his den if the old lion have taken nothing to bring home to him; nor would God thus give you warning both by the threatenings of his word, and by less judgments, if you had not by your sins made yourselves a prey to his wrath, nor if he were not really about to fall upon you with desolating destroying judgments." Note, The threatenings of the word and providence of God are not bugbears, to frighten children and fools, but are certain inferences from the sin of man and certain presages of the judgments of God.
IV. Let them know that, as their own wickedness was the procuring cause of these judgments, so they shall not be removed till they have done their work, Amo 3:5. When God has come forth to contend with a sinful people it is necessary that they should understand, 1. That it is their own sin that has entangled them; for can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no gin is for him? No, nature does not lay snares for the creatures, but the art of men; a bird is not taken in a snare by chance, but with the fowler's design; so the providence of God prepares trouble for sinners, and it is in the work of their own hands that they are snared. Affliction does not spring out of the dust, but it is God's justice, and our own wickedness, that correct us. 2. It is nothing but their own repentance that can disentangle them; for shall one take up a snare from the earth, which he laid with design, except he have taken something as he designed? So neither will God remove the affliction he has sent till it have done its work and accomplished that for which he sent it. If our hearts be duly humbled, and we are brought by our afflictions to confess and forsake our sins, then the snare has taken something, then the point is gained, the end is answered, and then, and not till then, the snare is broken, is taken up from the earth, and we are delivered in love and mercy.
V. Let them know that all their troubles came from the hand of God's providence and from the counsel of his will (Amo 3:6): Shall there be evil in a city, in a family, in a nation, and the Lord has not done it, appointed it, and performed what he appointed? The evil of sin is from ourselves; it is our own doing. But the evil of trouble, personal or public, is from God, and is his doing; whoever are the instruments, God is the principal agent. Out of his mouth both evil and good proceed. This consideration, that, whatever evil is in the city, the Lord has done it, should engage us patiently to bear our share in public calamities and to study to answer God's intention in them.
VI. Let them know that their prophets, who give them warning of judgments approaching, deliver nothing to them but what they have received from the Lord to be delivered to his people. 1. God makes it known beforehand to the prophets (Amo 3:7): Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, none of that evil in the city spoken of (Amo 3:6), but he reveals it to his servants the prophets, though to others it is a secret. Therefore those know not what they do who make light of the warnings which the prophets give them, in God's name. Observe, God's prophets are his servants, whom he employs to go on his errands to the children of men. The secret of God is with them; it is in some sense with all the righteous (Pro 3:32), with all that fear God (Psa 25:14), but in a peculiar manner with the prophets, to whom the Spirit of prophecy is a Spirit of revelation. It would have put honour enough upon prophets if it had been only said that sometimes God is pleased to reveal to his prophets what he designs to do, but it speaks something very great to say that he does nothing but what he reveals to them, as if they were the men of his counsel. Shall I hide from Abraham, who is a prophet, the thing which I do? Gen 18:17. God will therefore be sure to reckon with those that put contempt on the prophets, whom he puts this honour upon. 2. The prophets cannot but make that known to the people which God has made known to them (Amo 3:8): The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy? His prophets, to whom he has spoken in secret by dreams and visions, cannot but speak in public to the people what they have heard from God. They are so full of those things themselves, so well assured concerning them, and so much affected with them, that they cannot but speak of them; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. I believed; therefore have I spoken, Act 4:20. Nay, and besides the prophetic impulse which went along with the inspiration, and made the word like a fire in their bones (Jer 20:9), they received a command from God to deliver what they had been charged with; and they would have been false to their trust if they had not done it. Necessity was laid upon them, as upon the preachers of the gospel, Co1 9:16.
VII. Let them know that they ought to tremble before God upon the fair warning he had given them, as they would, 1. Upon the sounding of a trumpet, to give notice of the approach of the enemy, that all may stand upon their guard and stand to their arms: Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people be not afraid, or run together? so some read it, Amo 3:6. Will they not immediately come together in a fright, to consider what is best to be done for the common safety? Yet when God by his prophets gives them notice of their danger, and summons them to come and enlist themselves under his banner, it makes no impression; they will sooner give credit to a watchman on their walls than to a prophet sent of God, will sooner obey the summons of the governor of their city than the orders given them by the Governor of the world. God says, Hearken to the voice of the trumpet; but they will not hearken, nay, and they tell him plainly that they will not, Jer 6:17. 2. Upon the roaring of a lion. God is sometimes as a lion, and a young lion, to the house of Judah, Hos 5:14. The lion roars before he tears; thus God warns before he wounds. If therefore the lion roars upon a poor traveller (as he did against Samson, Jdg 14:5), he cannot but be put into great consternation; yet the Lord roars out of Zion (Amo 1:2), and none are afraid, but they go on securely as if they were in no danger. Note, The fair warning given to a careless world, if it be not taken, will aggravate its condemnation another day. The lion roared, and they were not moved with fear to prepare an ark. O the amazing stupidity of an unbelieving world, that will not be wrought upon, no, not by the terrors of the Lord!
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 1–8. Public domain.
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Origen of AlexandriaAD 253
HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 20:3
And each of us thinks, since he has not been an idolater, since he has not been immoral—would that we were pure in such areas—that after he has been set free from this life, he will be saved. We do not see that “all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive either good or evil according to what he has done in the body.” We do not hear what has been said: “You especially have I known out of all the tribes on the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all”—not just some and not others—“of your iniquities.”
John ChrysostomAD 407
For this very cause God accuses the Israelites more vehemently, and shows that they were worthy of greater chastisement, because they sinned after so many honors had come to them from Him.
JeromeAD 420
Commentary on Amos
(Chapter 3, verses 1-2) Listen to the word that the Lord spoke against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family that I brought out of the land of Egypt, saying: You alone have I known out of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. LXX: Listen to this word that the Lord spoke against you, O house of Israel, and against all the tribe that I brought out of the land of Egypt, saying: However, I have known you among all the tribes of the earth; therefore I will avenge all your evils upon you. He addresses the sons of Israel, and in the following verse, he shows who these sons of Israel are: Above all, he says, the kindred that I brought out of the land of Egypt, which we must not only consider in the ten tribes, but in all twelve, including Judah and Benjamin. For he brought all out of the land of Egypt, and he says: Only, or as Symmachus interpreted: Only you have I known of all the kindreds of the earth. And because I have known only you, who are the Creator of all, and I have considered you my peculiar people, for this reason I will restore all your sins only upon you: For the mighty will powerfully endure torments (Wis. VI); but he who is the least, is worthy of mercy. And in Ezekiel we read: Begin from my sanctified ones (Ezek. IX, 6). And the judgment of God is said to begin from his house (I Pet. IV). Let this be said for now according to the history. Moreover, because hearing is understood in the Holy Scriptures, not only in the sense of perceiving with the ears of the flesh, but also in the sense of understanding, as the Lord says: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8:8). Therefore, when the whole people saw the voice of God (Exodus 20), it was a direct message from the Lord to those who perceived God with their senses, namely those whom He brought out of the land of Egypt and from the power of Pharaoh (so that they would no longer serve mud and straw by building Egyptian cities), and those whom He knew from all the tribes of the earth, as the Apostle says: But now, having come to know God, or rather, having been known by God (Galatians 4:9). And in another place: He who is ignorant, will be ignored (I Cor. XIV, 38). Therefore, not all know God, but those who are worthy of His knowledge, as it is said in the Gospel: Depart from me, workers of iniquity, I do not know you (Luc. XIII, 27). For in being workers of iniquity, they are ignorant of God: therefore He says: Because I knew only you, and I had mine, I will visit upon you all your iniquities. Whom the Lord loves, He chastises, and He corrects every son whom He receives (Hebr. XII). And he said beautifully: I will visit, and I will not strike; for the plague of God is a visitation, and a healing. And he said, I will visit all your iniquities or sins, so that nothing may remain unstruck, so that nothing may not receive healing.
JeromeAD 420
COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 7
The most merciful physician, cutting away the cancerous flesh, spares not in order to spare; he pities not in order to pity the more. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and he scourges every son whom he receives.
Richard ChallonerAD 1781
Visit upon: That is, punish.
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 3:2 encapsulates the profound theological truth that divine privilege entails heightened responsibility and accountability. God declares His unique and intimate covenantal relationship with Israel, distinguishing them from all other nations. This unparalleled election, however, does not exempt them from judgment; rather, it intensifies the consequences of their persistent rebellion and iniquity, underscoring God's unwavering justice and the principle that greater revelation demands greater obedience.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Amos 3:2 employs several potent literary devices to convey its message. The opening statement, "You only have I known," utilizes Exclusivity and Emphasis, highlighting Israel's singular position among nations. This is a form of Hyperbole in its emphasis, not that God was unaware of other nations, but that His covenantal knowing was reserved for Israel. The entire verse functions as a powerful example of Cause and Effect, where Israel's unique relationship with God (the cause) directly leads to their heightened accountability and subsequent punishment (the effect). The use of Covenant Language is implicit in the term "known," which evokes the intimate, binding relationship established between God and Israel at Sinai, making their "iniquities" a direct violation of that sacred bond.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Amos 3:2 is a foundational text for understanding the biblical principle that divine privilege brings increased responsibility. Israel's unique election by God was a demonstration of His sovereign grace, but it also placed them under a higher standard of obedience and faithfulness. Their failure to uphold the covenant, despite receiving God's law and witnessing His mighty acts, made their sin particularly grievous. This verse underscores God's unwavering justice, demonstrating that His character demands that sin be met with consequences, even for those He has chosen. It serves as a stark reminder that a special relationship with God does not grant immunity from judgment, but rather intensifies the gravity of disobedience.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Amos 3:2 holds profound implications for believers today. Just as ancient Israel was God's chosen people, Christians are now part of God's new covenant people, chosen in Christ and called out of darkness into His marvelous light. This unique relationship brings immense privilege—access to God, His Spirit, His Word, and the promise of eternal life. However, it also brings significant responsibility. We are called to live lives that reflect God's character, to obey His commands, and to be faithful stewards of the truth we have received. This verse serves as a sober reminder that those who have received more revelation and blessing from God are held to a higher standard of accountability. It challenges us to examine our lives, ensuring that our conduct aligns with our confession, and to pursue holiness in light of our intimate relationship with the Creator of the universe. Our spiritual privileges are not for our self-indulgence but for God's glory and the advancement of His kingdom.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does God "know" other nations in the same way He knew Israel?
Answer: No. While God is omniscient and aware of all nations and peoples, the "knowing" (Hebrew, yâdaʻ) in Amos 3:2 refers to a unique, intimate, and covenantal relationship. It signifies God's sovereign election and special commitment to Israel, distinguishing them from all other "families of the earth." This was a relationship of chosenness, revelation, and covenant, unlike His general providence over all humanity (Acts 14:17). Israel was set apart to be His peculiar treasure and the vehicle through which His redemptive plan would unfold.
Why would God punish His chosen people if He "knew" them so intimately?
Answer: The intimacy of the relationship is precisely why God would punish them. The "therefore" in the verse is critical. God's unique covenant with Israel meant they had received unparalleled revelation of His character, laws, and expectations. Their "iniquities" were not merely general human sin but a direct betrayal of a sacred, intimate bond. This principle, "to whom much is given, much will be required" (Luke 12:48), demonstrates God's perfect justice. He holds His chosen people to a higher standard because they have a greater knowledge of His will and a deeper covenant obligation. His punishment was not arbitrary but a righteous consequence of their persistent unfaithfulness and rebellion against the very God who had chosen and blessed them.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Amos 3:2, with its stark declaration of Israel's unique election and subsequent judgment for sin, finds profound Christ-centered fulfillment in several ways. While Israel failed to uphold their covenant responsibilities, Jesus Christ, the true Israel and the perfect Son, perfectly fulfilled all righteousness and bore the full weight of the "iniquities" of God's people. The principle that "judgment begins at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17) is ultimately satisfied in Christ, who, though innocent, was "punished" for the sins of those whom God "knew" and chose in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Through His atoning sacrifice on the cross, Jesus became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), bearing the divine wrath that Israel, and indeed all humanity, deserved. Thus, the new covenant people of God, the Church, are "known" by God not through their own merit or obedience, but solely through their union with Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the covenant and absorbed its penalties, offering a path to forgiveness and reconciliation that Israel's own efforts could never achieve. In Christ, God's justice is satisfied, and His covenant love is perfectly demonstrated, establishing a new and better covenant based on grace, not works (Hebrews 8:6).