Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, Whose height was like the height of the cedars, And he was strong as the oaks; Yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
Whose height was like the height of cedars - Giant height is sometimes a cause of weakness. Amos, in a degree like Hosea combines distinct images to make up the idea of stateliness and strength. The cedar is the ideal of eastern trees for height Isaiah 2:13; Ezekiel 17:22; Ezekiel 31:3; 1Ki 4:33; 2 Kings 14:9, stretching forth its arms as for protection , “It groweth to an exceeding height, and with increasing time ever riseth higher.” The oak has its Hebrew name from strength. The more majestic the tall strength of the Amorite, the more manifest that Israel “got not the land in possession by their own sword” Psalms 44:3, who had counted themselves, in sight of the Amorite, “as grasshoppers” Numbers 13:33. God, who gave him that strength, took it away, as we say, “root and branch,” leaving him no show above, no hope of recovered life below (see Hosea 9:16; Job 18:16; Ezekiel 17:9). Having compared each Amorite to a majestic tree, he compares the excision of the whole nation to the cutting down of that one tree , so swift, so entire, so irrecoverable. Yet the destruction of the Amorite, a mercy to Israel in the purpose of God, was a warning to israel when it became as they. God’s terrors are mercies to the repentant; God’s mercies are terrors to the impenitent. “Ye shall keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations,” was the tenure upon which they held the Lord’s land, “that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you” Leviticus 18:26, 38.