Amos 4:6

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Cleanness of teeth is, by the poetic parallelism, identified with the want of bread, the former phrase being a graphic representation of one of the ghastly aspects of famine; clean, sharp, prominent teeth projecting from the thin lips. Notwithstanding their chastisement, God says, “Ye have not returned even up to me.” Jehovah is here introduced as grieving over the failure of his disciplinary treatment of Israel.

Benson Commentary

Amos 4:6-8. And I also have given you — Or, for this cause I have given you, cleanness of teeth — An expression signifying a scarcity of food, or a famine. The famine which we read of 2 Kings 8:1, seems to be that which is here referred to. Yet have ye not returned unto me — Nevertheless ye have not been brought to a sense of your sins, to any sorrow for them, or to any sincere purpose of amendment. Also I have withholden the rain, when there were yet three months to the harvest — At a season when your country most needed it, and when it had been wont to fall most plentifully. And I caused it to rain upon one city, and not upon another — And, to make it more remarkable, I caused it to rain upon cities or places adjoining to yours, at the same time that the drought was so great on all your territories. This may import that God punished them with drought at the same time when he sent rain upon the cities of Judah; making a remarkable difference between Israel and Judah, like that which he formerly made between Egypt and the land of Goshen. One piece was rained upon, &c. — This seems to be spoken of those parts which lay quite contiguous to the lands of other nations, of which parts, though they touched each other, yet rain fell upon the one and not upon the other; the consequence of which was, that the one piece of land was withered, or scorched up for want of moisture, while the adjoining one was green and flourishing. So two or three cities wandered, &c. — So the inhabitants of several of your cities went to some city or other without your territories for the sake of getting water to quench their thirst. But they were not satisfied — They could not obtain a sufficient quantity.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:6-13 See the folly of carnal hearts; they wander from one creature to another, seeking for something to satisfy, and labour for that which satisfies not; yet, after all, they will not incline their ear to Him in whom they might find all they can want. Preaching the gospel is as rain, and every thing withers where this rain is wanting. It were well if people were as wise for their souls as they are for their bodies; and, when they have not this rain near, would go and seek it where it is to be had. As the Israelites persisted in rebellion and idolatry, the Lord was coming against them as an adversary. Ere long, we must meet our God in judgment; but we shall not be able to stand before him, if he tries us according to our doings. If we would prepare to meet our God with comfort, at the awful period of his coming, we must now meet him in Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father, who came to save lost sinners. We must seek him while he is to be found.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I, I too have given you - Such had been their gifts to God, worthless, because destitute of that which alone God requires of His creatures, a loving, simple, single-hearted, loyal obedience. So then God had but one gift which He could bestow, one only out of the rich storehouse of His mercies, since all besides were abused - chastisement. Yet this too is a great gift of God, a pledge of His love, who willed not that they should perish; an earnest of greater favors, had they used it. It is a great gift of God, that He should care for us, so as to chasten us. The chastisements too were no ordinary chastisements, but those which God forewarned in the law, that He would send, and, if they repented, He would, amid the chastisements, forgive. This famine God had sent everywhere, "in all their cities," and "in all their places," great and small. Israel thought that its calves, that is, nature, gave them these things. "She did not know," God saith, "that I gave her corn and wine and oil;" but said, "These are my rewards that my lovers have given me" Hosea 2:8, Hosea 2:12. In the powers and operations of "nature," they forgat the God and Author of nature. It was then the direct corrective of this delusion, that God withheld those powers and functions of nature. So might israel learn, if it would, the vanity of its worship, from its fruitlessness. Some such great famines in the time of Elijah and Elisha 1 Kings 17; 18; 2 Kings 8:1-6 Scripture records; but it relates them, only when God visibly interposed to bring, or to remove, or to mitigate them. Amos here speaks of other famines, which God sent, as He foretold in the law, but which produced no genuine fruits of repentance.

And ye returned not unto Me - He says not, that they "returned not at all," but that they "returned not wholly, quite back to God" . Nay the emphatic saying, "ye did not return quite to Me," so as to reach Me, implies that they did, after a fashion, return. Israel's worship was a half, halting 1 Kings 18:21, worship. But a half-worship is no worship; a half-repentance is no repentance; repentance for one sin or one set of sins is no repentance, unless the soul repent of all which it can recall wherein it displeased its God. God does not half-forgive; so neither must man half-repent. Yet of its one fundamental sin, the worship of nature for God, Israel would not repent. And so, whatever they did was not that entire repentance, upon which God, in the law, had promised forgiveness; repentance which stopped short of nothing but God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-11. Jehovah details His several chastisements inflicted with a view to reclaiming them: but adds to each the same sad result, "yet have ye not returned unto Me" (Isa 9:13; Jer 5:3; Ho 7:10); the monotonous repetition of the same burden marking their pitiable obstinacy.

cleanness of teeth—explained by the parallel, "want of bread." The famine alluded to is that mentioned in 2Ki 8:1 [Grotius]. Where there is no food to masticate, the teeth are free from uncleanness, but it is the cleanness of want. Compare Pr 14:4, "Where no oxen are, the crib is clean." So spiritually, where all is outwardly smooth and clean, it is often because there is no solid religion. Better fighting and fears with real piety, than peace and respectable decorum without spiritual life.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

And I, the Lord, who gave many blessings to win you to repentance, hath also tried what might be done by judgments.

Cleanness of teeth: this is a description of famine by one effect of it; where meat fails the teeth are not fouled, as where it is eaten.

In all your cities; it was a general famine, and probably it was that long famine, 2 Kings 8:1.

Want of bread in all your places; if there were some bread, yet it was very scarce every where: this passage explains the former.

Yet have ye not returned unto me; yet this starving people repented not of their idolatries, nor cast off their idols; left not their sins of oppression and cruelty, &c.; see Joel 2:12,13; what you did like returning was partial and hypocritical, and not lasting.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,.... Meaning a famine, having no food to foul them with, or to stick in them. This was not the famine in Samaria, 2 Kings 6:25; for that was only in that city, and for a short time, while besieged; whereas this was in all the cities in Israel; rather therefore it designs the famine predicted by Elisha, which should be upon the land for seven years, 2 Kings 8:1;

and want of bread in all your places: this is the same with the former clause, and explains it, and still makes the famine more general, not only in their cities, but in all their places of abode, their towns and villages:

yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord; this judgment had no influence upon them, to bring them to a sense of their evils, particularly their idolatry, and to repentance them, and to reclaim them from them, and return them to the Lord, and to his worship, as the Targum paraphrases it.

Geneva Study Bible

And I also have given you {h} cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

(h) That is, lack of bread and meat.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. Famine.

And I also] i.e. And I on my part[153]—in return for your zeal in the observance of a merely external formalism.

[153] For this use of also comp. Genesis 20:6; Jdg 2:3; Jdg 2:21; 2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 52:5. &c.; and see the Heb. Lexicon published by the Clarendon Press, s.v. נם, 4.

cleanness of teeth] An expressive description of a famine. Famines are often mentioned as a dreaded occurrence, or contingency, in Palestine: Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1; 2 Samuel 21:1; 2 Samuel 24:13; 1 Kings 8:37; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38; 2 Kings 8:1; Ruth 1:1.

in all your cities] The famine had been felt in every part of the land.

returned unto me] The idea of ‘returning to God’ is very common in the Old Testament. Man has alienated himself from God: and the aim of God’s visitations, whether of mercy or judgement, as well as of the exhortations and admonitions of His prophets, is to effect his return to Him who is the source of his true good. See e.g. Hosea 6:1; Hosea 14:1-2; Isaiah 10:21; Isaiah 31:6; Deuteronomy 4:30; Deuteronomy 30:2; Isaiah 55:7. In the N.T. ἐπιστρέφειν, Acts 3:19; Acts 9:35; Acts 11:21; Acts 14:15; Acts 15:19; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; and elsewhere. These and similar passages, in a later stage of theological thought, gave rise to the idea of “conversion.”

6–11. The five unheeded chastisements which have passed over Israel. The description of each ends with the pathetic refrain, indicating its failure to produce the desired effect, “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah” (cf. the refrain of Isaiah 9:12; Isaiah 9:17; Isaiah 9:21; Isaiah 10:4).

“In the ancient world it was a settled belief that natural calamities like those here alluded to were the effects of the deity’s wrath. When Israel suffers from them the prophets take for granted that they are for the people’s punishment … And although some, perhaps rightly, have scoffed at the exaggerated form of the belief, that God is angry with the sons of men every time drought or floods happen, yet the instinct is sound which in all ages has led religious people to feel that such things are inflicted for moral purposes. In the economy of the universe there may be ends of a purely physical kind served by such disasters apart altogether from their meaning to man. But man at least learns from them that nature does not exist solely for feeding, clothing, and keeping him wealthy … Amos had the more need to explain those disasters as the work of God and His righteousness, because his contemporaries, while willing to grant Jehovah leadership in war, were tempted to attribute to the Canaanite gods of the land all power over the seasons [Hosea 2:5; Hosea 2:8]” (G. A. Smith, p. 162 f.; cf. Geogr. pp. 73–76).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - In this and the five following verses God sets forth instances of the judgments which he had sent at various times to correct Israel; viz. famine, drought, blight, pestilence, earthquake; but all had been in vain. Five times recurs the sad refrain, "Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord." God's unwearied love had not conquered their rebellion. Cleanness of teeth; Septuagint, γομφιασμὸν ὀδόντων, "dulness of teeth;" Vulgate, stuporem dentium. It is not "toothache" that is meant, but famine, as is seen by the parallel term, want of bread; as Corn. a Lapide says, "Cum enim in fame et penuria dentes non habent quod mordeant et mandant, innocentes sunt et mundi." This is the first chastisement mentioned. It was threatened in the Law as a consequence of backsliding (see Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28:48, 57). The famines to which Amos alludes are not recorded. Plainly they were not fortuitous, but were providential inflictions, in accordance with previous warnings Yet have ye not returned unto me. Pusey notes that the words imply, not that they returned not at all, but that they did after a fashion return, but not so as to reach God, their repentance being a half-repentance and their worship a half-worship, and therefore unacceptable. Amos 4:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But as Israel would not desist from its idolatrous worship, Jehovah would also continue to visit the people with judgments, as He had already done, though without effecting any conversion to their God. This last thought is explained in Amos 4:6-11 in a series of instances, in which the expression ולא שׁבתּם עדי (and ye have not returned to me), which is repeated five times, depicts in the most thorough manner the unwearied love of the Lord to His rebellious children.

Amos 4:6

"And I have also given you cleanness of teeth in all your towns, and want of bread in all your places: and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah." The strongly adversative וגם אני forms the antithesis to כן אהבתּם: Ye love to persist in your idolatry, and yet I have tried all means of turning you to me. Cleanness of teeth is explained by the parallel "want of bread." The first chastisement, therefore, consisted in famine, with which God visited the nation, as He had threatened the transgressors that He would do in the law (Deuteronomy 28:48, Deuteronomy 28:57). For שׁוּב עד, compare Hosea 14:2.