Matthew Poole and continuators on Amos 6:12

12 ¶ Shall horses run upon the rock ? will one plow there with oxen ? for ye have turned judgment into gall , and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock .

Would it not be dangerous to Horse and Rider? if Prophets and Pious men exhort, threaten or advise, they endanger themselves, it does no more good then if you would run your Horse on the slippery Precipices of Rocks. Or all is lost labour on these hardned Sinners.

Your hearts are hard as the Rocks; my Prophets Preaching, my lesser Judgments warning you, all gentler means used are but as a Husbandmans Plowing the Rocks. These shall therefore be torn up by the Roots, your State and Kingdom shall be utterly overthrown.

You Judges, and Governours in the Ten Tribes, and in Iudah too.

Vid. chap. 5. ver. 7. let. g, h, i.

Or poyson, by those Laws they took away life, and forfeited Estate which had the Laws been rightly executed, had saved both.

All that fruit which Equity and Justice would have produced by due application of the Law, hath been wormwood, grief and complaints by your wresting and perverting the Law.

A deadly and pernicious weed, so the course of your Courts have been.

Marginal references: Hos. 10.4. chap. 5.7.