Amos 9:7
Are not you as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? did not I bring up Israel, out of the land of Egypt: and the Philistines out of Cappadocia, and the Syrians out of Cyrene?
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Numquid non ut filii Æthiopum vos estis mihi, filii Israël ? ait Dominus. Numquid non Israël ascendere feci de terra Ægypti, et Palæstinos de Cappadocia, et Syros de Cyrene ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὐχ ὡς υἱοὶ Αἰθιόπων ὑμεῖς ἐστε ἐμοῦ, υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ; λέγει Κύριος· οὐ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ ἀνήγαγον ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, καὶ τοὺς ἀλλοφύλους ἐκ Καππαδοκίας, καὶ τοὺς Σύρους ἐκ βόθρου;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הֲל֣וֹא כִבְנֵי֩ כֻשִׁיִּ֨ים אַתֶּ֥ם לִ֛י בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נְאֻם יְהוָ֑ה הֲל֣וֹא אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל הֶעֱלֵ֨יתִי֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם וּפְלִשְׁתִּיִּ֥ים מִכַּפְתּ֖וֹר וַאֲרָ֥ם מִקִּֽיר
Haydock's commentary
Ethiopians. That is, as black as they, by your iniquities. (Challoner) Chus was father of the Scythians, Arabs, &c. Yet none of these nations were under the peculiar protection of God. The Israelites depended too much on this prerogative, (Calmet) which they deserved to lose by their sins. (Haydock)
God brought them out of Egypt. But he also took the Philistines from Caphtor, (Calmet) and enabled them to settle in the country. (Haydock)
Cappadocia. Cyprus, (Genesis x. 14.) or rather Crete, 1 Kings. (Calmet)
Cyrene, (Symmachus) "wall," (Theodotion) or "pit." (Septuagint) Theglathphalassar took Aram or the people of Damascus into captivity. (Calmet)
Their future return is represented as already past. (Vatable; Mercer.)
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 John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew III. 7
What then shall we say? That he had not things present, and even now doing, in his view, but he knew the secrets of their mind, God having revealed this. Since then they were priding themselves on their forefathers, and this was like to prove the cause of their destruction, and was casting them into a state of carelessness, he cuts away the roots of their pride. For this cause Isaiah also calls them, “rulers of Sodom,” and “people of Gomorrah;”and another prophet saith, “Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians;”and all withdraw them from this way of thinking, bringing down their pride, which had caused them unnumbered evils.
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew XVII. 10
And whence did the disciples know this? He had already told them, “He is Elias, which was for to come;”but here, that he hath come; and again, that “Elias cometh and will restore all things.” But be not thou troubled, nor imagine that His statement wavers, though at one time He said, “he will come,” at another, “he hath come.” For all these things are true. Since when He saith, “Elias indeed cometh, and will restore all things,” He means Elias himself, and the conversion of the Jews which is then to take place; but when He saith, “Which was for to come,” He calls John, Elias, with regard to the manner of his administration. Yea, and so the prophets used to call every one of their approved kings, David;and the Jews, “rulers of Sodom,”and “sons of Ethiopians;”because of their ways. For as the other shall be forerunner of the second advent, so was this of the first.
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).