What does Amos 2:16 Mean?

Context Summary

First the prophet enumerates Israel's sins. They were unjust to the poor, carrying their extortions to such lengths as to goad the poor to desperation. They were unchaste. They held their idolatrous festivities in idol shrines while they unjustly detained and confiscated the pledges of the poor. They perpetrated shamelessly the enormous crimes for which the Amorites were dispossessed by Joshua and their fathers. But notice nothing is said of that great general and his valiant soldiers; our mind is carried beyond all human agency to the Eternal. I destroyed, etc. Amos 2:9.

The ripple of the ocean on the beach which you hear and see is due to the action of the sun or moon; so the changes that men attribute to political combinations must ultimately be traced back to the divine will in its permissive or decretive energy. One of the most graphic pictures is in Amos 2:13. We can almost see the heavily laden wagon dragged from the harvest field. The wheels creak and groan; the oxen advance with difficulty; the timbers threaten to succumb. So God bears up the world; and thus did Jesus stoop and sweat great drops of blood under the sins of the whole world. [source]

Chapter Summary: Amos 2

¹  God's judgments upon Moab,
⁴  upon Judah,
⁶  and upon Israel
⁹  God complains of their ingratitude