(14) From . . . unto.--The entire limits of the kingdom of Israel after the victories of Jeroboam II. were, according to 2 Kings 14:25, identical with the region which is here threatened with invasion, i.e., extending from the mouth of the Orontes valley (comp. Numbers 34:8; Joshua 13:5) to the Wady el Ahsa, the southern boundary of Moab. (Comp. Isaiah 15:7, where the Hebrew name appears under a slightly different form, implying "torrent of the poplars.")
Verse 14. - I will raise up (comp. 1 Kings 11:14, 23; Habakkuk 1:6, where see note). A nation. The Assyrians. From the entering in of Hamath. A district in the upper part of Coele-Syria, hod. El-Bukaa, the northern boundary of the kingdom of Israel (Numbers 34:8; see on ver. 2). The river of the wilderness; rather, the torrent of the Arabah, which is the curious depression in which the Jordan flows, and which continues. though now on a higher level, south of the Dead Sea, towards the Gulf of Akaba. The torrent is probably the Wady es Safieh, just south of the Dead Sea. The limits named define the territory which Jeroboam recovered (2 Kings 14:25). The LXX. gives, τοῦ χειμάῥῤου τῶν δυσμῶν, "the torrent of the west."
6:8-14 How dreadful, how miserable, is the case of those whose eternal ruin the Lord himself has sworn; for he can execute his purpose, and none can alter it! Those hearts are wretchedly hardened that will not be brought to mention God's name, and to worship him, when the hand of God is gone out against them, when sickness and death are in their families. Those that will not be tilled as fields, shall be abandoned as rocks. When our services of God are soured with sin, his providences will justly be made bitter to us. Men should take warning not to harden their hearts, for those who walk in pride, God will destroy.
But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord, the God of hosts,.... The Assyrian nation, under its king, Shalmaneser; who invaded Israel, came up to Samaria, and after a three years' siege took it, and carried Israel captive into foreign lands, 2 Kings 17:5;
and they shall afflict you; by battles, sieges, forages, plunders, and burning of cities and towns, and putting the inhabitants to the sword:
from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness; from Hamath the less, said by Josephus (q) and Jerom (r) to be called Epiphania, in their times, from Antiochus Epiphanes; it was at the entrance on the land of Israel, and at the northern border of it; so that "the river of the wilderness", whatever is meant by it, lay to the south; by which it appears that this affliction and distress would be very general, from one end of it to the other. Some, by this river, understand the river of Egypt, at the entrance of Egypt in the wilderness of Ethan; Sihor or Nile; which, Jarchi says, lay southwest of Israel, as Hamath lay northwest of it. And a late traveller (s) observes, that the south and southwest border of the tribe of Judah, containing within it the whole or the greatest part of what was called the "way of the spies", Numbers 21:1; and afterwards Idumea, extended itself from the Elenitic gulf of the Red sea, along by that of Hieropolis, quite to the Nile westward; the Nile consequently, in this view and situation, either with regard to the barrenness of the Philistines, or to the position of it with respect to the land of promise, or to the river Euphrates, may, with propriety enough, be called "the river of the wilderness", Amos 6:14; as this district, which lies beyond the eastern or Asiatic banks of the Nile, from the parallel of Memphis, even to Pelusium, (the land of Goshen only excepted,) is all of it dry, barren, and inhospitable; or if the situation be more regarded, it may be called, as it is rendered by the Septuagint, the western torrent or river. Though some (t) take this to be the river Bosor or Bezor, that parts the tribes, of Judah and Simeon, and discharges itself into the Mediterranean between Gaza, or rather Majuma, and Anthedon. Though Kimchi takes this river to be the sea of the plain, the same with the Salt or Dead sea, Deuteronomy 3:17; which may seem likely, since Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, under whom Amos prophesied, had restored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 2 Kings 14:25; with which they were elevated, and of which they boasted; but now they should have affliction and distress in the same places, and which should extend as far.
(q) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.((r) Comment in Isa. x. fol. 20. G. & in Zech. ix. fol. 116. L. De locis Heb. fol. 88. E. & Quaest. in Gen. fol. 67. B. (s) Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 287, 288. Ed. 2.((t) See the Universal History, vol. 2. p. 427, 428.
and they shall afflict you; by battles, sieges, forages, plunders, and burning of cities and towns, and putting the inhabitants to the sword:
from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness; from Hamath the less, said by Josephus (q) and Jerom (r) to be called Epiphania, in their times, from Antiochus Epiphanes; it was at the entrance on the land of Israel, and at the northern border of it; so that "the river of the wilderness", whatever is meant by it, lay to the south; by which it appears that this affliction and distress would be very general, from one end of it to the other. Some, by this river, understand the river of Egypt, at the entrance of Egypt in the wilderness of Ethan; Sihor or Nile; which, Jarchi says, lay southwest of Israel, as Hamath lay northwest of it. And a late traveller (s) observes, that the south and southwest border of the tribe of Judah, containing within it the whole or the greatest part of what was called the "way of the spies", Numbers 21:1; and afterwards Idumea, extended itself from the Elenitic gulf of the Red sea, along by that of Hieropolis, quite to the Nile westward; the Nile consequently, in this view and situation, either with regard to the barrenness of the Philistines, or to the position of it with respect to the land of promise, or to the river Euphrates, may, with propriety enough, be called "the river of the wilderness", Amos 6:14; as this district, which lies beyond the eastern or Asiatic banks of the Nile, from the parallel of Memphis, even to Pelusium, (the land of Goshen only excepted,) is all of it dry, barren, and inhospitable; or if the situation be more regarded, it may be called, as it is rendered by the Septuagint, the western torrent or river. Though some (t) take this to be the river Bosor or Bezor, that parts the tribes, of Judah and Simeon, and discharges itself into the Mediterranean between Gaza, or rather Majuma, and Anthedon. Though Kimchi takes this river to be the sea of the plain, the same with the Salt or Dead sea, Deuteronomy 3:17; which may seem likely, since Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, under whom Amos prophesied, had restored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 2 Kings 14:25; with which they were elevated, and of which they boasted; but now they should have affliction and distress in the same places, and which should extend as far.
(q) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.((r) Comment in Isa. x. fol. 20. G. & in Zech. ix. fol. 116. L. De locis Heb. fol. 88. E. & Quaest. in Gen. fol. 67. B. (s) Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 287, 288. Ed. 2.((t) See the Universal History, vol. 2. p. 427, 428.