9:6 poureth them out. Amos again reminds the people that the God whom they have rejected, Jehovah, is the one who built heaven and populated the earth. Furthermore, He later poured all the waters of the sea over all the earth, at the great Flood. It is He who is now judging them, as though they were His enemies, instead of His chosen people.

9:8 not utterly destroy. Although most of the Israelites were slain in the terrible Assyrian invasion and deportation, God has repeatedly promised to spare a remnant.

9:9 sifted in a sieve. The survivors of the Assyrian holocaust were so thoroughly “sifted among all nations” that they have been referred to as the “ten lost tribes of Israel,” yet God knows where each one and his descendants yet remain.

9:11 tabernacle of David. This great prophecy of the ultimate restoration of the Davidic kingdom was still future when Peter and James quoted this verse (Acts 15:14-18). It will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ, the promised Messiah of Israel, who will Himself assume the throne of David (Luke 1:31-33).

9:15 out of their land. This promise applies, not to the return from Babylon, but to the final restoration from exile, when they will never again “be pulled up out of their land.”