For three sins of Damascus1: The nation soonest to be struck he mentions first. And even though Judah and Israel were struck before Tyre, Moab, Ammon and Edom, he leaves them for last, since he treats them at great length and the essence of his prophecy is about them.2 Damascus will be struck first with her,3 by Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, as is related in Kings.4 Some of (Amos’s) prophecy concerns the destruction by Assyria, and some of it concerns the destruction of Nebuchnezzar, King of Babylonia.
For three sins of Damascus, and even for5 four I will not punish it: its explanation6: they have greatly transgressed against me, and many times the kings of Aram did evilly to my people, all throughout the days of the kings of Israel. And with regard to all of those instances,7 I suffered (their sins), and I did not return their just recompense on their heads, i.e., to decree destruction against them. But on account of their threshing my people, the inhabitants of Gilead8 with threshing-boards of iron9, to cut their bodies with terrible tortures, I will not remain silent, but I will pay them their recompense.
1. This first comment on 1:3 serves as Rabbi Eliezer’s introduction to the prophecy that follows, in that he refers to the entire passage (1:3–2:6ff).
2. Of course, Amos doesn’t really relate to Judah to any significant degree; even discounting the modern scholarship that views the Judah oracle (2:4–5) or references to Judah (e.g., 6:1) as spurious, the main thrust of Amos’ prophecy is surely about Israel (see 7:15). However, Rabbi Eliezer doesn’t appear to make that distinction here.
3. I.e., with Israel.
4. 2 Kings 16:9.
5. My translation of the prefixed vav in this manner (“and even for”) instead of other conjectured meanings (the conjunctive “and” or the adversative “but” are usually proposed) is based on Rabbi Eliezer’s subsequent comment. Thus, Rabbi Eliezer parses the verse (and would presumably do so for all of the subsequent verses with the same formula [1:6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6]) as if reading “for three sins of (the specific nation) I will forgive, and even for the fourth I shall not punish. But for (all of the subsequent enumerated sins in each case)…, i.e., I will punish the nation.” See Rabbi Eliezer’s comment on 1:6, below. For a full discussion about the proper exegesis of the phrase “for three, for four,” see Paul (1991), 27–30 (however, I disagree with his judgment about Rabbi Eliezer’s interpretation, 29, n. 188).
6. Rabbi Eliezer employs the term פתרון, pitaron (the MS actually contains an abbreviation), which is one of the standard twelfth century rabbinic terms for “context.” I have addressed this term and principle of exegesis in a number of places; see Robert A. Harris, “Structure and Composition in Isaiah 1–12: A Twelfth-Century Northern French Rabbinic Perspective,” in “As Those Who Are Taught”: The Interpretation of Isaiah From the LXX to the SBL (Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull, eds., Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 171–87 (176–77).
7. I.e., for the three and four sins that are not enumerated.
8. Again, Rabbi Eliezer intersperses his own words into the Biblical text. In this case, he indicates that it is Aram’s cruelty specifically to Israel that has finally incurred God’s wrath.
9. Rabbi Eliezer has interpolated a synonym for “threshing boards,” מורג, morag, from Isaiah 41:15, to help clarify his sense of the figurative language.