Amos 1:3
Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four I will not convert it: because they have thrashed Galaad with iron wains.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Hæc dicit Dominus : Super tribus sceleribus Damasci, et super quatuor non convertam eum, eo quod trituraverint in plaustris ferreis Galaad.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ εἶπεν Κύριος Ἐπὶ ταῖς τρισὶν ἀσεβείαις Δαμασκοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ ταῖς τέσσαρσιν οὐκ ἀποστραφήσομαι αὐτόν, ἀνθ᾽ ὧν ἔπριζον πρίοσιν σιδηροῖς τὰς ἐν γαστρὶ ⸂⸆⸃ ἐχούσας τῶν ἐν Γαλαάδ·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר יְהוָ֔ה עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה֙ פִּשְׁעֵ֣י דַמֶּ֔שֶׂק וְעַל אַרְבָּעָ֖ה לֹ֣א אֲשִׁיבֶ֑נּוּ עַל דּוּשָׁ֛ם בַּחֲרֻצ֥וֹת הַבַּרְזֶ֖ל אֶת הַגִּלְעָֽד
Haydock's commentary
Three
four. That is, for their many unrepented of crimes. (Challoner)
Three is the first number of which we can say "many or all." Four denotes excess. Thus God forgives many sins, yet punishes when they become excessive. (Worthington)
Thus profane authors say, (Calmet)
Terque quaterque pectus percussa decorum. (Virgil, Æneid iv.)
Convert it. That is, I will not spare them, nor turn away the punishments I design to inflict upon them. (Challoner)
My decree is absolute.
Wains, designed to make the corn come out, (Calmet) or to cut the straw. (St. Jerome)
Such instruments were sometimes trailed over men. Septuagint, "they have sawed the pregnant women," &c. This circumstance is borrowed from 4 Kings viii. Damascus was often at war with Israel. But Jeroboam punished it as Theglathphalassar did afterwards, ver. 5., and 4 Kings xvi. 9. Amos might witness the ravages of the former. (Calmet)
Azael, or Hazael, who slew his master, Benadad. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Demetrius
But let us turn back to the passage first quoted, “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place,” a sentence which is followed by these words: “for yielding pacifieth great offences.” The meaning is, that if the serpent finds his way into your thoughts you must “keep your heart with all diligence” and sing with David, “cleanse thou me from secret faults: keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins,” and come not to “the great transgression” which is sin in act. Rather slay the allurements to vice while they are still only thoughts; and dash the little ones of the daughter of Babylon against the stones where the serpent can leave no trail. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Sabinianus
3. All this may perhaps seem to you matter for jesting, seeing that you take so much pleasure in comedies and lyrics and mimes like those of Lentulus; although so blunted is your wit that I am not disposed to allow that you can understand even language so simple. You may treat the words of prophets with contempt, but Amos will still make answer to you: “Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions and for four shall I not turn away from him?” For inasmuch as Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites and the Moabites, the Jews also and the children of Israel, although God had often prophesied to them to turn and to repent, had refused to hear His voice, the Lord wishing to shew that He had most just cause for the wrath that he was going to bring upon them used the words already quoted, “For three transgressions and for four shall I not turn away from them?” It is wicked, God says, to har …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).