He said: "Yahweh will roar from Zion, And utter his voice from Jerusalem; And the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, And the top of Carmel will wither."
      V. The introduction to these prophecies, containing the general scope of them (Amos 1:2; Amos 1:2): The Lord will roar from Zion. His threatenings by his prophets, and the executions of those threatenings in his providence, will be as terrible as the roaring of a lion is to the shepherds and their flocks. Amos here speaks the same language with his contemporaries, Hosea (Hosea 11:10; Hosea 11:10) and Joel, Joel 3:16; Joel 3:16. The lion roars before he tears; God gives warning before he strikes. Observe, 1. Whence this warning comes--from Zion and Jerusalem, from the oracles of God there delivered; for by them is they servant warned,Psalms 19:11. Our God, whose special residence is there, will issue out warrants, given at that court, as it were, for the executing of judgments on the land. See Jeremiah 25:30. In Zion was the mercy-seat; thence the Lord roars, intimating that God's acts of justice are consistent with mercy, allayed and mitigated by mercy, nay, as they are warnings, they are really acts of mercy. We are chastened, that we may be not be condemned. 2. What effect the warning has: The habitations of the shepherds mourn, either because they fear the roaring lion or because they feel what is signified by that comparison, the consequences of a great drought (Amos 4:7; Amos 4:7), which made the top of Carmel (of the most fruitful fields) to wither and become a desert, Joel 1:12-17.