Verse 5
"And I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the valley of Aven, and him that holdeth the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith Jehovah.
"I will break the bar of Damascus ..." Ancient cities used a bar to lock their gates; and the breaking of the bar was the same as leaving a city defenseless. Keil summarized the meaning of this verse thus:
"The breaking of the bar (the bolt of the gate) denotes the conquest of the capital; cutting off the inhabitants of Aven indicates their slaughter ([~hikhrith] means to exterminate) and not their deportation; so that captivity in the last clause refers to the remnant of the population not slain in war."[23]
"Captivity unto Kir ..." The Kir has been identified with a river (now the Kar), tributary of the Araxes which flows into the Caspian sea on the southwest.[24] The Syrians were thought to have originally emigrated from that same area.
"Saith Jehovah ..." This is the prophet's solemn affirmation that he is delivering the words of Jehovah and not his own words. This attestation occurs throughout Amos in several variations:
Thus saith Jehovah
Saith Jehovah
Jehovah hath spoken
The Lord Jehovah hath spoken
The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by his holiness
Saith the Lord Jehovah
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah
The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by himself saith Jehovah the God of hosts
Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me
And Jehovah saith unto me
Then said the Lord
No less than fifty times within the brief compass of this little book, its author solemnly declared his message to be the true word of Almighty God, the very last word in the prophecy being, "saith Jehovah thy God."
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