Amos 3:15

And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Houses.—It is uncertain whether by “winter and summer houses” are meant two classes of royal abodes, or different chambers of the same house (Judges 3:20; Jeremiah 36:22, are compatible with either). “Ivory houses” mean mansions adorned with ivory. For “great houses” should be read many houses.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:9-15 That power which is an instrument of unrighteousness, will justly be brought down and broken. What is got and kept wrongfully, will not be kept long. Some are at ease, but there will come a day of visitation, and in that day, all they are proud of, and put confidence in, shall fail them. God will inquire into the sins of which they have been guilty in their houses, the robbery they have stored up, and the luxury in which they lived. The pomp and pleasantness of men's houses, do not fortify against God's judgments, but make sufferings the more grievous and vexatious. Yet a remnant, according to the election of grace, will be secured by our great and good Shepherd, as from the jaws of destruction, in the worst times.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I will smite the winter house with the summer house - Upon idolatry, there follow luxury and pride. "So wealthy were they," says Jerome, "as to possess two sorts of houses, "the winter house" being turned to the south, the "summer house" to the north, so that, according to the variety of the seasons, they might temper to them the heat and cold." Yet of these luxuries, (so much more natural in the East where summer-heat is so intense, and there is so little provision against cold) the only instance expressly recorded, besides this place, is "the winter house" of Jehoiakim. In Greece and Rome , the end was attained, as with us, by north and south rooms in the same house. These, which Amos rebukes, were like our town and country houses, separate residences, since they were to be destroyed, one on the other. "Ivory houses" were houses, paneled, or inlaid, with ivory. Such a palace Ahab built 1 Kings 22:39. Even Solomon "in all his glory" had but an ivory throne 1 Kings 10:18. Else "ivory palaces" Psalm 45:8 are only mentioned, as part of the symbolic glory of the King of glory, the Christ. He adds, "and the great (or many) houses shall have an end, saith the Lord." So prosperous were they in outward show, when Amos foretold their destruction. The desolation should be wide as well as mighty. All besides should pass away, and the Lord alone abide in that Day. : "What then shall we, if we would be right-minded, learn hence? How utterly nothing will all earthly brightness avail, all wealth, glory, or ought besides of luxury, if the love of God is lacking, and righteousness be not prized by us! For "treasures of wickedness profit nothing; but righteousness delivereth from death" Proverbs 10:2.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. winter … summer house—(Jud 3:20; Jer 36:22). Winter houses of the great were in sheltered positions facing the south to get all possible sunshine, summer houses in forests and on hills, facing the east and north.

houses of ivory—having their walls, doors, and ceilings inlaid with ivory. So Ahab's house (1Ki 22:39; Ps 45:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will smite; by the greatness of the desolation it shall appear that God did smite, though by the Assyrian; or perhaps it may refer to the earthquake foretold two years before it came, Amos 1:1.

The winter house; which probably was in the chief city, where the rich and great men retired in the winter time, as more for their delight than the country, horrid and cold, and stripped of its glory.

The summer house; the houses of pleasure, where the nobles and rich men of Israel spent the summer time.

The houses of ivory; not built with, but beautified with ivory, or the elephant’s tooth, called here and elsewhere, by way of eminency, the tooth.

Shall perish; by the violence of the enemies, these stately houses shall be ransacked first, and pulled down next, and left in rubbish.

The great houses; or many, for the word includes both. The magnificent palaces of princes and the nobles of Israel

shall have an end; shall cease for ever, either be utterly wasted, or cease to be theirs whose once they were.

Saith the Lord; all this shall infallibly come to pass and be fulfilled in due time.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I will smite the winter house with the summer house,.... Both the one and, the other shall fall to the ground, being beat down by the enemy, or shook and made to fall by the earthquake predicted, Amos 1:1; as Kimchi thinks: kings and great personages had houses in the city in the winter season, in which they lived for warmth; and others in the country in the summertime, to which they retired for the benefit of the air; or they had, in one and the same house, a summer and a winter parlour; see Judges 3:20; it signifies that the destruction should reach city and country, and deprive them of what was for their comfort and pleasure:

and the houses of ivory shall perish; or "of the tooth" (l); the elephant's tooth, of which ivory is made. Ahab made a house of ivory; and perhaps more were made by others afterwards, following his example, 1 Kings 22:39; not that these houses were made wholly of ivory, only "covered" with it, as the Targum here paraphrases it; or they were cieled or wainscotted with it, or were inlaid and covered with it, and were reckoned very curious work; but should be demolished, and perish in the general ruin:

and the great houses shall have an end, saith the Lord; the houses of princes, nobles, and other persons of figure and distinction; houses great in building, or many in number, as Kimchi observes, and as the word (m) will bear to be rendered; these, which the builders and owners of them thought would have continued many ages, and have perpetuated their names to posterity, should now be thrown down, and be no more; of which they might assure themselves, since the Lord had said it.

(l) "domus dentis", Montanus, Mercerus, Vatablus. (m) "aedes multi", V. L. "domus multae", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Burkius.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. the winter house] See Jeremiah 36:22.

with the summer house] Eglon (Jdg 3:20) had a “cool upper story,” i.e. an additional apartment, built on the flat roof of the house, with latticed windows, allowing free circulation for the air (cf. Moore, Judges, pp. 96, 97 f.); but here separate buildings, such as the wealthy might be able to indulge in, appear to be intended. Both terms are to be understood collectively, and not confined to the royal palaces alone. An interesting illustration of the passage has been supplied recently by an almost contemporary inscription from Zinjirli, near Aleppo, in which Bar-rekûb, king of Sham’al, vassal (lit. servant, 2 Kings 16:7) of Tiglath-pileser (תגלתפליסר), says he has beautified his father’s house in honour of his ancestors, the kings of Sham’al (i.e. as a mausoleum), “and it is for them a summer-house and a winter-house[149]” (i.e. for perpetual use).

[149] פהא בית שתוא להם והא בית כיצא (Sachau in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy, 22 Oct. 1896, p.1052).

houses of ivory] i.e. houses of which the walls were panelled or inlaid with ivory (cf. Psalm 45:8; also ch. Amos 6:4). Ahab (1 Kings 22:39), it seems, had found imitators.

the great houses] rather many houses (R.V. marg.): cf. Isaiah 5:9. “The desolation should be wide as well as mighty” (Pusey).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The winter house. The luxurious habits of kings and princes had led them to have different houses for the various seasons of the year, facing north or south as the case might be (comp. Judges 3:20; Jeremiah 36:22). Septuagint, τὸν οϊκον τὸν περίπτερον, "the turreted house," which Jerome explains, Domum pinnatam, eo quod ostiola habeat per fenestras, et quasi pinnas, ad magnitudinem frigoris depellendam. Houses of ivory; panelled or inlaid with ivory, such as Ahab had (1 Kings 22:39). Solomon's throne was thus decorated (1 Kings 10:18; comp. Psalm 45:8). (For the Assyrian practice of veneering in ivory, see Rawlinson, 'Ancient Monarchies,' 1:463; comp. also Homer, 'Od.,' 4:73; Virgil, 'AEneid,' 6:895.) The great houses; better, many houses; Septuagint, ἕτεροι οϊκοι πολλοί, "many other houses." Not only palaces, but many private houses, shall be destroyed (comp. Isaiah 5:9, where the same words are used).



Amos 3:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This feature in the threat is brought out into peculiar prominence by a fresh introduction. Amos 3:13. "Hear ye, and testify it to the house of Jacob, is the utterance of the Lord, Jehovah, the God of hosts: Amos 3:14. That in the day when I visit the transgressions of the house of Israel upon it, I shall visit it upon the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground. Amos 3:15. And I smite the winter-house over the summer-house, and the houses of ivory perish, and many houses vanish, is the saying of Jehovah." The words "Hear ye" cannot be addressed to the Israelites, fore they could not bear witness against the house of Israel, but must either refer to the prophets, as in Amos 3:9 ("publish ye"), or to the heathen, in which case they correspond to "assemble yourselves and behold" in Amos 3:9. The latter assumption is the only correct one, for the context does not assign a sufficient motive for an address to the prophets. On the other hand, as the heathen have been summoned to convince themselves by actual observation of the sins that prevail in Samaria, it is perfectly in keeping that they should now hear what is the punishment that God is about to inflict upon Israel in consequence, and that they should bear witness against Israel from what they have heard. העיד ב, to bear witness towards or against (not "in," as Baur supposes). The house of Jacob is the whole of Israel, of the twelve tribes, as in Amos 3:1; for Judah was also to learn a lesson from the destruction of Samaria. As the appeal to the heathen to bear witness against Israel indicates the greatness of the sins of the Israelites, so, on the other hand, does the accumulation of the names of God in Amos 3:13 serve to strengthen the declaration made by the Lord, who possesses as God of hosts the power to execute His threats. כּי introduces the substance of what is to be heard. The punishment of the sins of Israel is to extend even to the altars of Bethel, the seat of the idolatrous image-worship, the hearth and home of the religious and moral corruption of the ten tribes. The smiting off of the horns of the altar is the destruction of the altars themselves, the significance of which culminated in the horns (see at Exodus 27:2). The singular hammizbēăch (the altar) preceded by a plural is the singular of species (cf. Ges. 108, 1), and does not refer to any particular one - say, for example, to the principal altar. The destruction of the palaces and houses (Amos 3:15) takes place in the capital. In the reference to the winter-house and summer-house, we have to think primarily of the royal palace (cf. Jeremiah 36:22); at the same time, wealthy noblemen may also have had them. על, lit., over, so that the ruins of one house fall upon the top of another; then "together with," as in Genesis 32:12. בּתּי שׁן, ivory houses, houses the rooms of which are decorated by inlaid ivory. Ahab had a palace of this kind (1 Kings 22:39, compare Psalm 45:9). בּתּים רבּים, not the large houses, but many houses; for the description is rounded off with these words. Along with the palaces, many houses will also fall to the ground. The fulfilment took place when Samaria was taken by Shalmanezer (2 Kings 17:5-6).