*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The verb yq, oik, in Hebrew is often transitive, and it is also a neuter. This place then may admit of two interpretations. The first is, that God was pressed under the Israelites, as a wagon groans under too much weight; and so God expostulates by Isaiah, that he was weighed down by the Israelites, Ye constrain me,' he says, to labor under your sins' (Isaiah 1:14) The sense then, that God was pressed down under them, may be viewed as not unsuitable: and yet the more received interpretation is this, "Behold, I will bind you fast as a wagon is bound." I am, however, more inclined to take the first meaning, -- that God here reprehends the Israelites, because he had been pressed down by them: for tchtykm, tacheticam, properly signifies, "Under you," which some render, but strainedly, "Is your place:" for when the verb is transitive, they say, that tchtykm, tacheticam, must be rendered "In your place:" but this is frigid and forced; and the whole passage will run better, if we say, "I am bound fast under you, as though ye were a wagon full of sheaves; [1] " that is, "Ye are to me intolerable." For God carried that people on his shoulders; and when they loaded him with the burden of iniquities, it is no wonder that he said that they were like a wagon -- a wagon filled with many sheaves: "Ye are light as wind, but ye are also to me very burdensome, and I am forced at length to shake you off:" and this he afterwards shows.
1 - This verse has caused great labor to commentators; and many have been the views given. The first difficulty is in the words rendered in our version, "under you." tcht and with the Iod commonly added when there is a suffix, often occurs, and means on doubt, an place, a spot, a standing, as in the following passages: Exodus 10:23; 16:29; 1 Samuel 14:9; Habakkuk 3:16; and this seems to be its meaning here. Then the second difficulty is about "the cart" or wagon. Some consider it to be the vehicle to carry corn; and others, the machine to thresh it as Newcome and others do: but this view is not consistent with the other expressions used in this clause. A critic, quoted by Poole, evidently gives the meaning in these words, Sensus est, q.d. Ego vos in eas angustas adducam, unde vos ipsos mimime expedire valeatis -- "The sense is, as though he said, I will bring you to those straits, from which ye will by no means be able to deliver yourselves." I would then translate the verse thus: -- Behold, I will confine you in your place, As a wagon confines its load--the sheaves; or word for word, As a wagon confines the filling of it -- the sheaf. The rendering of the last line by Newcome is certainly not what the original will bear; his translation of the whole verse is this: -- Therefore, behold I will press your place, As a loaded corn-wain presseth its sheaves. It is not pressing or crushing that corresponds with the contents of the following verses, but confining and reducing to straits from which they could not escape. -- Ed.
Behold, I am pressed under you - God bore His people, as the wain bears the sheaves. "Ye yourselves have seen," He said to them by Moses, "how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto Myself" Exodus 19:4. "Thou hast seen how the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place" Deuteronomy 1:31. And by Isaiah, "He bare them and carried them all the days of old" Isaiah 63:9; and, "which are born" by Me "from the belly, which are carried from the womb" Isaiah 46:3. Now, He speaks of Himself as wearied by them, as by Isaiah, "thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities" Isaiah 43:24; and by Malachi, "ye have wearied the Lord: yet ye say, where with have we wearied Him?" Malachi 2:17. His long-suffering was, as it were, worn out by them. He was straitened under them, as the wain groans under the sheaves with which it is over-full. The words are literally, "Behold I, I" (emphatic I, your God, of whom it would seem impossible) "straiten myself" (that is, of My own Will allow Myself to be straitened"under you" ,
"As the wain full for itself," that is, as full as ever it can contain, is "straitened, groans," as we say. God says, (the word in Hebrew is half active) that He allows Himself to be straitened, as in Isaiah, He says, "I am weary to bear," literally, "I let Myself be wearied." We are simply passive under weariness or oppressiveness: God endures us, out of His own free condescension in enduring us. But it follows, that when He shall cease to endure our many and grievous sins, He will cast them and the sinner forth from Him.
Behold, I am pressed under you - The marginal reading is better: "Behold, I will press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth." I will bring over you the wheel of destruction; and it shall grind your place - your city and temple, as the wheel of a cart laden with sheaves presses down the ground, gravel, and stones over which it rolls.
Behold, I am (k) pressed under you, as a cart is pressed [that is] full of sheaves.
(k) You have wearied me with your sins; (Isaiah 1:14).
Behold, I are pressed under you,.... With the weight of their sins, with which they had made him to serve, and had wearied him; his patience was quite wore out, he could bear them no longer:
as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves; as a cart in harvest time, in which the sheaves of corn are carried home; when one sheaf is laid upon another, till they can lay no more, and the cart is loaded and overloaded with them, and ready to break, or be pressed into the earth with them: thus. Jehovah represents himself as loaded and burdened with the sins of these people, and therefore would visit for them, and inflict deserved punishment. Some render it actively, "behold, I press" (z), or "am about to press your place, as a cart full of sheaves presseth" (a); the horse or horses which draw it, especially the last; or the ground it goes upon; or as a cart stuck with iron spikes, and loaded with stones, being drawn over a corn floor, presses the full sheaves, and beats out the grain, which was their way of pressing it: so the Lord signifies he would afflict and distress this people, bring them into strait circumstances, by a close siege, and other judgments, which should ruin and destroy them; and which was first begun by Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and finished by Shalmaneser, who carried away the ten tribes captive. So the Targum,
"behold, I bring distress upon you, and it shall straiten you in your place, as a cart is straitened which is loaded with sheaves.''
(z) "angustabo", Vatablus; "coarctans", Montanus; "arcto", Mercerus; "premo, coarctabo, angustiis afficiam", Drusius; "pressurus sum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius; "arctaturus sum", Liveleus. (a) "coarctares", Montanus; "premit", Junius & Tremellius; Piscator, Tarnovius.
I am pressed under you--so CALVIN (Compare Isaiah 1:14). The Margin translates actively, "I will depress your place," that is, "I will make it narrow," a metaphor for afflicting a people; the opposite of enlarging, that is, relieving (Psalm 4:1; Proverbs 4:12). MAURER translates, "I will press you down" (not as Margin, "your place"; so the Hebrew, Job 40:12; or Amos 2:7 in Hebrew text). Amos, as a shepherd, appropriately draws his similes from rustic scenes.
This base contempt of their covenant mercies the Lord would visit with a severe punishment. Amos 2:13. "Behold, I will press you down, as the cart presses that is filled with sheaves. Amos 2:14. And the flight will be lost to the swift, and the strong one will not fortify his strength, and the hero will not deliver his soul. Amos 2:15. And the carrier of the bow will not stand, and the swift-footed will not deliver, and the rider of the horse will not save his soul. Amos 2:16. And the courageous one among the heroes will flee away naked in that day, is the saying of Jehovah." The Lord threatens as a punishment a severe oppression, which no one will be able to escape. The allusion is to the force of war, under which even the bravest and most able heroes will succumb. העיק, from עוּק, Aramaean for צוּק, to press, construed with tachath, in the sense of κατὰ, downwards, to press down upon a person, i.e., to press him down (Winer, Ges., Ewald). This meaning is established by עקה in Psalm 55:4, and by מוּעקה in Psalm 66:11; so that there is no necessity to resort to the Arabic, as Hitzig does, or to alterations of the text, or to follow Baur, who gives the word the meaning, "to feel one's self pressed under another," for which there is no foundation in the language, and which does not even yield a suitable sense. The comparison instituted here to the pressure of a cart filled with sheaves, does not warrant the conclusion that Jehovah must answer to the cart; the simile is not to be carried out to this extent. The object to תּעיק is wanting, but may easily be supplied from the thought, namely, the ground over which the cart is driven. The להּ attached to המלאה belongs to the latitude allowed in ordinary speech, and gives to מלאה the reflective meaning, which is full in itself, has quite filled itself (cf. Ewald, 315, a). In Amos 2:14-16 the effects of this pressure are individualized. No one will escape from it. אבד מנוס, flight is lost to the swift, i.e., the swift will not find time enough to flee. The allusion to heroes and bearers of the bow shows that the pressure is caused by war. קל בּרגליו belong together: "He who is light in his feet." The swift-footed will no more save his life than the rider upon a horse. נפשׁו .esroh in Amos 2:15 belongs to both clauses. אמּץ לבּו, the strong in his heart, i.e., the hearty, courageous. ערום, naked, i.e., so as to leave behind him his garment, by which the enemy seizes him, like the young man in Mark 14:52. This threat, which implies that the kingdom will be destroyed, is carried out still further in the prophet's following addresses.
Under you - Under the load of your sins.
*More commentary available at chapter level.