Amos 2:13
Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.
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} qyem "angustabo", Vatablus; "coarctans", Montanus; "arcto", Mercerus; "premo, coarctabo, angustiis afficiam", Drusius; "pressurus sum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius; "arctaturus sum", Liveleus.
{a} qyet "coarctares", Montanus; "premit", Junius & Tremellius; Piscator, Tarnovius.