Then as if the people had interrupted him with the question, What sign do you give us that this judgment is near?--Amos goes aside into that noble digression (vv. 3-8) on the harmony between the prophet's word and the imminent events of the time, which we have already studied.[268] From this apologia, verse 9 returns to the note of verses 1 and 2 and develops it. Not only is Israel's responsibility greater than that of other people's. Her crimes themselves are more heinous. _Make proclamation over the palaces in Ashdod_--if we are not to read Assyria here,[269] then the name of Ashdod has perhaps been selected from all other heathen names because of its similarity to the Hebrew word for that _violence_[270] with which Amos is charging the people--_and over the palaces of the land of Egypt, and say, Gather upon the Mount_[271] _of Samaria and see! Confusions manifold in the midst of her; violence to her very core! Yea, they know not how to do uprightness, saith Jehovah, who store up wrong and violence in their palaces._ "To their crimes," said the satirist of the Romans, "they owe their gardens, palaces, stables and fine old plate."[272] And William Langland declared of the rich English of his day:-- "For toke thei on trewly · they tymbred not so heigh, Ne boughte non burgages · be ye full certayne."[273] _Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Siege and Blockade of the Land!_[274] _And they shall bring down from off thee thy fortresses, and plundered shall be thy palaces._ Yet this shall be no ordinary tide of Eastern war, to ebb like the Syrian as it flowed, and leave the nation to rally on their land again. For Assyria devours the peoples. _Thus saith Jehovah: As the shepherd saveth from the mouth of the lion a pair of shin-bones or a bit of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be saved--they who sit in Samaria in the corner of the diwan and ... on a couch._[275] The description, as will be seen from the note below, is obscure. Some think it is intended to satirise a novel and affected fashion of sitting adopted by the rich. Much more probably it means that carnal security in the luxuries of civilisation which Amos threatens more than once in similar phrases.[276] The corner of the diwan is in Eastern houses the seat of honour.[277] To this desert shepherd, with only the hard ground to rest on, the couches and ivory-mounted diwans of the rich must have seemed the very symbols of extravagance. But the pampered bodies that loll their lazy lengths upon them shall be left like the crumbs of a lion's meal--_two shin-bones and the bit of an ear!_ Their whole civilisation shall perish with them. _Hearken and testify against the house of Israel--oracle of the Lord Jehovah, God of Hosts_[278]--those addressed are still the heathen summoned in ver. 9. _For on the day when I visit the crimes of Israel upon him, I shall then make visitation upon the altars of Bethel, and the