[349] Literally in the day of light.
[350] That is, Samaria is used in the wider sense of the kingdom, not the capital, and there is no need for Wellhausen's substitution of Bethel for it.
[351] This in answer to Gunning (De Godspraken van Amos, 1885), Wellh. in loco, and König (Einleitung, p. 304, d), who reckon vv. 11 and 12 to be the insertion: the latter on the additional ground that the formula of ver. 13, in that day, points back to ver. 9; but not to the Lo, days are coming of ver. 11. But thus to miss out vv. 11 and 12 leaves us with greater difficulties than before. For without them how are we to explain the thirst of ver. 13. It is left unintroduced; there is no hint of a drought in 9 and 10. It seems to me then that, since we must omit some verse, it ought to be ver. 13; and this the rather that if omitted it is not missed. It is just the kind of general statement that would be added by an unthinking scribe; and it does not readily connect with ver. 14, while ver. 12 does do so. For why should youths and maids be specially singled out as swearing by Samaria, Dan and Beersheba? These were the oaths of the whole people, to whom vv. 11 and 12 refer. I see a very clear case, therefore, for omitting ver. 13.
[352] LXX. here gives a mere repetition of the preceding oath.
[353] Doughty: Arabia Deserta I. 269.
[354] Since it is the capital that has been struck, and the command is given to break the thresholds on the head of all of them, many translate lintels or architraves instead of thresholds (e.g. Hitzig, and Guthe in Kautzsch's Bibel). But the word סִפִּים always means thresholds and the blow here is fundamental.
[355] LXX. adds of Hosts: on the whole passage see next chapter.
[356] We should have expected a grain, but the word צְרֹור only means small stone: cf. 2 Sam. xvii. 13. The LXX. has here σύντριμμα, fracture, ruin. Cf. Z.A.T.W., III. 125.
[357] The text has been disturbed here; the verbs are in forms not possible to the sense. For תַּגִּישׁ read either תָּשׂיג with Hitzig or תִּגַּשׁ with Wellhausen. תַּקְדִּים, Hiph., is not impossible in an intransitive sense, but probably Wellhausen is right in reading Pi, תְּקַדֵּם. The reading עדינו which the Greek suggests and Hoffmann and Wellhausen adopt is not so appropriate to the preceding verb as בעדינו of the text.
[358] The text reads their breaches, and some accordingly point סֻכַּת hut, as if it were the plural huts (Hoffmann, Z.A.T.W., 1883, 125; Schwally, id., 1890, 226, n. 1; Guthe in Kautzsch's Bibel). The LXX. has the sing., and it is easy to see how the plur. fem. suffix may have risen from confusion with the following conjunction.