Amos chapters 4-6 Star Chart: From 745 B.C. when Tiglath-Pileser (called "Pul" in the Bible -- 2 Kings 15:19; 1 Chr.5:26), the king of ASSYRIA, began the first invasion against Israel in the reign of Menahem (2 Ki.15:19-20) till 721 to 718 B.C. when Shalmaneser, whose commander-in-chief was Sargon, beseiged Samaria three years in the reign of Hoshea (2 Ki.17:3-5) and "In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of ASSYRIA took Samaria, and carried Israel away into ASSYRIA, and placed them in Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes" (2 Ki.17:6) till 677 B.C. when Esar-Haddon, son of Sennacherib, invaded Judah (2 Chr.33:11) and the remnant of Israel when they were ruled by an Assyrian governor and replaced them with Samaritans (2 Ki.17:24; Ezra 4:2) is 68° years total. From when "every (Taurus) cow" (4:3) goes out at the breaches to captivity in 745 B.C. till "your young (Orion, Auriga and Perseus) men have I slain with the sword" (4:10) from 721-718 B.C. till "a man did flee from a (Leo) lion, and a (Ursa Major) bear met him; or went into the (red radius) house, and leaned his hand on the (red radius) wall, and a (Hydra) serpent bit him" (5:19) in 677 B.C. is 68° years total. Those "That drink (red radius) wine in (lunar) bowls" (6:6) "shall ... go captive with the first that go captive" (6:7).

Let Justice Run Down As Waters,
and Righteousness as a Mighty Stream

4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan (Taurus), that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

2 The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with (lunar crescent) hooks, and your posterity with (lunar crescent) fishhooks.

3 And ye shall go out at the breaches, every (Taurus) cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord.

Amos pictures Samaria as captured, and the self-indulgent ladies forced to leave the city, as captives, through the breaches made in the walls by the foe.

4 Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:

5 And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye (Orion, Perseus and Auriga) children of Israel, saith the Lord God.

"No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made with leaven, for ye shall burn no leaven in an offering of the Lord made by fire" (Leviticus 2:11; add. Leviticus 6:17).

6 And I also have given you cleanness of (lunar white) teeth in all your cities, and want of (solar golden) bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

7 And also I have withholden the (red radius line) rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered (part of the zodiac has red radius rain, part does not).

8 So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your (greenMilky Way) gardens and your (red radius) vineyards and your (Canis Minor -- Mulberry Tree) fig trees and your olive trees increased, the (Hydra) palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young (Orion, Auriga and Perseus) men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the (red radius) stink of your (red radius) camps to come up unto your (two lunar) nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

11 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew (Gemini) Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a (red radius) firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

12 Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

13 For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of hosts, is his name.

5:1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise (721 B.C.-718 B.C.): she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

for Israel never recovered the fall by Shalmaneser.

she shall no more rise; and become a kingdom again, as it never has as yet, since the ten tribes were carried away captive by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, to which calamity this prophecy refers,

3 For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

to be sure it is fulfilled in the wars of Shalmaneser and the taking Samaria.

The city that went out by a thousand - The city that could easily have furnished, on any emergency, a thousand fighting men, can now produce scarcely one hundred - one in ten of the former number; and now of the hundred scarcely ten remain: so reduced was Israel when Shalmaneser besieged and took Samaria, and carried the residue into captivity.

4 For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5 But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

But seek not Beth-el - There was one of Jeroboam's golden calves, and at Gilgal were carved images; both were places in which idolatry was triumphant. The prophet shows them that all hope from those quarters is utterly vain; for Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Beth-el be brought to naught. There is a play or paronomasia on the letters and words in this clause: haggilgal galoh yigleh, ubeith el yiheyeh leaven. "This Gilgal shall go captive into captivity; and Beth-el (the house of God) shall be for Beth-aven," (the house of iniquity.)

for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity] into exile (on Amos 1:5). In the Hebrew there is a play on the name Gilgal (gâlôh yigleh): it suggested to the ear (though not, of course, etymologically) the word gâlâh, to ‘go into exile,’ and the prophet declares, so to say, that its fate will fulfil the omen of its name, its end will be exile. There is another play of the same kind in Hosea 12:11 Gilead and Gilgal will become gallim, ruined heaps, on the furrows of the field: see also, with other place-names, Isaiah 10:30; Isaiah 15:9; Jeremiah 6:1; Micah 1:10-11; Micah 1:13-14; Zephaniah 2:4.

and Beth-el shall come to nought] shall come to trouble. Here also there is a play on the name, though one of a different kind. “Beth-el,” ‘House of God,’ as a seat of unspiritual worship, was called in mockery (see Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 10:5; cf. Hosea 10:8) “Beth-aven,” ‘House of trouble (or idols’); and Amos, playing on the double application of the word, says that it shall become a trouble,—no source of strength or support to its frequenters, but a cause of trouble; it will be ruined itself, and will bring them to ruin likewise. The play may have been suggested by the fact that there was actually, a little E. of Bethel, a place called Beth-aven (Joshua 7:2; Joshua 18:12; 1 Samuel 13:5; 1 Samuel 14:23). (The rend. ‘come to nought’ is too strong, though ‘come to vanity’ would be permissible (see Isaiah 41:29, Zechariah 10:2): âven seems to have included the ideas of what is wearisome, troubling, disappointing, valueless; and hence it may denote, according to the context, trouble, worthless conduct (iniquity), a worthless state (vanity, ruin), and also worthless things, i.e. idols, 1 Samuel 15:23, Isaiah 66:3; cf. the passages of Hosea just quoted; also Amos 1:5 with the note.)

6 Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and (lunar bucket) poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

10 They hate him (Orion) that rebuketh in the (solar) gate, and they abhor him (Orion) that speaketh uprightly.

11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built (red radius line) houses of (lunar white) hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant (red radius) vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the (Gemini) poor in the (solar golden) gate from their right (3rd tithe).

13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19 As if a man did flee from a (Leo) lion, and a (Ursa Major) bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the red radius) wall, and a (Hydra) serpent bit him.

20 Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark (black zodiac), and no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts (721-718).

Compare 2Ki 15:29; 16:9; Isa 8:4, whence it appears Tiglath-pileser attacked Israel and Damascus at the same time at Ahaz' request (Am 3:11).

Stephen says, "beyond Babylon"; as they were, for they were carried into Media, to Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan, to the cities of the Medes; their way to which lay through Syria and Babylon; See Gill on Acts 7:43;

The king of Assyria carried the ten tribes captive as far as Media, 2 Kings 17:6. Therefore St. Stephen, in the passage above quoted, expressing rather the sense than the words, reads, I will carry you away beyond Babylon, Media being at a much greater distance than Babylon. Both readings imply, that the captivity of the ten tribes would be far worse than that of the two remaining, and likely to be of much longer duration.

6:1 Woe to them (Gemini and Auriga) that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

"The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land and went up to Samaria, and besieged it 2 Kings 17:5.

2 Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

3 Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

4 That lie upon beds of (lunar crescent) ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the (lunar white) lambs out of the flock, and the (Taurus) calves out of the midst of the stall;

5 That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

6 That drink (red radius) wine in (lunar) bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

7 Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive (745 B.C.), and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

8 The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.

9 And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

10 And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord.

11 For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with (Taurus) oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:

13 Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

14 But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.

The Assyrian nation, under its king, Shalmaneser; who invaded Israel, came up to Samaria, and after a three years' siege took it (721-718), and carried Israel captive into foreign lands, 2 Kings 17:5;

The Assyrians under Pul, Tiglath-pileser (745 B.C.), and Shalmaneser (721-718), who subdued the Israelites at various times, and at last carried them away captive in the days of Hosea, the last king of Israel in Samaria.
From the entering in of Hamath (on the north) unto the river of the wilderness - Besor, which empties itself into the sea, not far from Gaza, and was in the southern part of the tribe of Simeon.

This was fulfilled after some 45 years, at the invasion of Tiglath-pileser.