Amos 9:5-6

Amos 9:5-6. And Or, for, the Lord toucheth the land, and it shall melt The least token of God’s displeasure is sufficient to put the whole frame of nature out of order. See the margin. And when God’s hand is visibly stretched out against a people, they become altogether dispirited; the stoutest men lose their courage, their hearts failing them for fear, and out of a dreadful expectation of the miseries which are coming upon them. See the explanation of the next clause, Amos 8:8. He that buildeth his stories in the heavens This is an awful description of God’s power, discovering itself in the works of the creation, particularly in his making several regions of the air as so many apartments which lead to the highest heavens, the seat of his glory. Archbishop Newcome renders it, He buildeth his upper chambers in the heavens; alluding to the circumstance of the chief and most ornamented apartments in the East being upper rooms. And hath founded his troop in the earth Or, as the old English translation renders the clause, And hath laid the foundation of his globe of elements in the earth; the word rendered troop being taken to signify the collection of elements and other creatures, which furnish the earth, expressed by the word צבא , host, Genesis 2:1. Many learned interpreters, however, render the word his storehouses, supposing that there is an allusion to repositories in the lower parts of houses, or to such as were sometimes dug in the fields. Thus Capellus: The heaven is, as it were, God’s place of dwelling, his principal apartment; the earth is that to him which the cellars are in a large house. He that calleth for the waters, &c. See on chap. Amos 5:8. “The power and sure vengeance of the Deity,” says Bishop Newcome, “are very sublimely described in this and the four preceding verses.”