God's Sin-Burden
George Hutcheson. Amos 2:13 Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. This verse, as it is by some translated, is a part of the sentence or threatening, showing that God would press their place or land, and fill it with heaps of judgments and enemies, as a cart is pressed and filled with sheaves in harvest. But as it is here translated, it is a general conclusion introductory to the sentence; wherein the Lord declareth, that the multitude and variety of these their sins did so provoke His justice and patience, that He might justly complain of them as insupportable and intolerable, as a cart groans under burdens; and therefore He would punish, as is declared in the following verses. Doctrine. 1. It is the way of secure sinners to lay over the weight of all their sins on God, and on His mercy, as if He were but a cart to lie under the burden of them all, that so they may sleep the sounder and sin the faster. 2. The Lord, even toward secure sinners, will take on this burden so far, as to suffer their manners long, before He cast it off, albeit He be provoked by every sin, and doth not allow their presumptuous casting off their iniquities upon Him, yet He doth not complain nor strike, till He be pressed, "as a cart that is full of sheaves." 3. God's patience and long-suffering will at last weary to endure the provocations of sinners, as becoming insupportable. 4. When the cup of men's iniquities is full, and God is about to bear them no longer, yet they may be so stupid as to need up-stirring to consider it. (George Hutcheson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. WEB: Behold, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain.