(3) Temple.--The word thus rendered (hechal) also signifies "palace," and this is probably the meaning in this passage. The "songs" have been already spoken of in Amos 6:5. The construction of the following clauses in the original is somewhat doubtful. Some commentators would break up the sentence into abrupt ejaculations. Thus Keil:--"corpses in multitude; in every place he hath cast them forth: Hush!" For "he hath cast," some would read (with 2 Heb. MSS.) the imperative, "cast them forth." But it would be better, and more in consonance with the style of Amos, to connect the clauses together thus: There shall be many corpses in every place that one hath cast away in hushed silence. The words describe the reign of death and doom, with none to bury or make lamentation--a full end.

8:1-3 Amos saw a basket of summer fruit gathered, and ready to be eaten; which signified, that the people were ripe for destruction, that the year of God's patience was drawing towards a conclusion. Such summer fruits will not keep till winter, but must be used at once. Yet these judgments shall not draw from them any acknowledgement, either of God's righteousness or their own unrighteousness. Sinners put off repentance from day to day, because they think the Lord thus delays his judgments.And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day,

saith the Lord God,.... Not the songs sung by the Levites in the temple of Jerusalem, this prophecy respects the ten tribes only; but those in imitation of them, sung in the temple at Bethel, and other idol temples; or profane songs in the palaces of princes and nobles; that is, instead of these, there should be howlings for the calamities come upon them. So the Targum,

"they shall howl, instead of a song, in their houses then;''

particularly because of the slain in them, as follows; see Amos 5:23;

there shall be many dead bodies in every place; in all houses and palaces, in all towns and cities; and especially in Samaria, during the siege, and when taken, partly through the famine, and partly through the sword:

they shall cast them forth with silence; they that have the care of burying the dead bodies shall either cast them out of the houses upon the bier or cart in which they are carried to the grave, or into the pit or grave without any funeral lamentation: or, "they shall cast them forth", and say, "be silent"; that is, as Kimchi explains it,

"one of them that casts them forth shall say to his companion, be silent;''

say not one word against God and his providence, since this is righteously come upon us; or say nothing of the number of the dead, lest the hearts of those that hear should become tender, and be discouraged, as Aben Ezra; or the enemy should be encouraged to go on with the siege.