Go to Calneh, and see; And from there go to Hamath the great; Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or is their border greater than your border?
The writers who insist upon the other interpretation, which is manifestly false, are evidently doing so in order to use the passage as an assault upon the integrity of the verse.  McKeating said, "If this interpretation is correct (the false one), the verse must have been inserted after Amos' time."[8]  This is an excellent example of one of the favorite devices of destructive critics, namely, that of giving a verse a false interpretation, and then using it as an argument against the validity of Biblical texts.  The true interpretation of this place was accurately discerned by Motyer, thus: