Amos 4:2
2. The Lord—the same Hebrew as "masters" (Am 4:1). Israel's nobles say to their master or lord, Bring us drink: but "the Lord" of him and them "hath sworn," &c.
by his holiness—which binds Him to punish the guilty (Ps 89:35). he will take yon away—that is God by the instrumentality of the enemy. with hooks—literally, "thorns" (compare 2Ch 33:11). As fish are taken out of the water by hooks, so the Israelites are to be taken out of their cities by the enemy (Eze 29:4; compare Job 41:1, 2; Jer 16:16; Hab 1:15). The image is the more appropriate, as anciently captives were led by their conquerors by a hook made to pass through the nose (2Ki 19:28), as is to be seen in the Assyrian remains.Habakkuk 1:14-15
14. And—that is, And so, by suffering oppressors to go unpunished, "Thou makest men as the fishes . . . that have no ruler"; that is, no defender. All may fish in the sea with impunity; so the Chaldeans with impunity afflict Thy people, as these have no longer the God of the theocracy, their King, to defend them. Thou reducest men to such a state of anarchy, by wrong going unpunished, as if there were no God. He compares the world to the sea; men to fishes; Nebuchadnezzar to a fisherman (Hab 1:15-17).
15. they take up all of them—all kinds of fishes, that is, men, as captives, and all other prey that comes in their way.
with the angle—that is, the hook. Some they take up as with the hook, one by one; others in shoals, as in a "net" and "drag" or enclosing net. therefore—because of their successes. they rejoice—They glory in their crimes because attended with success (compare Hab 1:11).