Introduction
Earlier, in Amos 7, Amos received three visions from the LORD.
GOD showed him what Israel had become and what judgment would befall them because
of His righteousness and their covenant unfaithfulness to Him. With the first
two visions-locust swarm and fire, Amos intervened for Israel asking GOD’s
pardon for them. With the third vision of chapter seven, that of the plumb
line, Amos did not mediate to GOD for the Israelites. He realized the extreme
extent of their sins and the rightness of GOD’s charge and judgment on them.
In chapter seven, the chief priest of the northern kingdom,
Amaziah, interrupted Amos charging him with wanting to overthrow the
government. This priest cried out when Amos deigned to speak GOD’s judgment on
the religion of Israel. Amaziah prohibited Amos from prophesying in Israel. He
tried to censor him. Amos retorted he was a shepherd not a prophet trained or by
birth. GOD called him to the task. With the last exclamation by Amaziah, Amos prophesied
GOD’s words against Amaziah and the priesthood. Amaziah and his line would die
by the sword. The captors would dishonor them. Amaziah would remain unclean on
unclean soil.
With chapter eight of Amos, Amos revealed another vision the
LORD gave him. This vision, like the first three, aimed directly at a sub-group
of Israel’s population, the merchants. With this vision, GOD’s charge of the
people and His judgment resound along with the feared removal of GOD’s
protection of them and the resultant gloom and mourning.
Vision of Summer Fruit
In Amos 8:1-3, the LORD gave a vision to Amos of ripe summer
fruit, explained the vision to him, and told him how it related to the
Israelites. Amos said in verses one through three,
1 “Thus the Lord GOD showed me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit. 2 And He said, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ Then the LORD said to me, ‘The end has come for My people Israel. I will spare them no longer. 3 The songs of the palace will turn to wailing in that day,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘Many will be the corpses; in every place, they will cast them forth in silence.’” (NASB)
This fourth vision spoke about Israel’s theological trouble.
They worshiped false gods, and did not keep Yehovah’s laws. That showed lack
of love for the LORD and lack of care for the poor. The gods the Israelites
worshiped would not raise them above GOD’s judgment. What GOD says will happen
will most surely occur.
At the beginning of this warning/sermon, Amos ensured people
knew from whom his vision came. He said the Lord GOD showed him. This Lord GOD
is Adonay, the revered mighty God, and Yehovah, the existing One who always
was, is, and will be. He is the I AM who spoke to Moses and of whom Moses
taught the Israelites. This Lord GOD showed Amos a basket of summer fruit. The
vision appears mild until put into perspective with GOD’s judgment of Israel
throughout the chapter. The Hebrew word from which “fruit” comes is qayits. The fruit represents harvest
time, the ripening of time and produce for plucking, cutting, and reaping. It
tells the readers the time of which GOD spoke to Amos was harvest time, the
time in which to celebrate the bounty from GOD’s hands. Humans sometimes
perceive this time as the harvest festival or fall festival of what we
have produced from our land. For GOD and Amos, this basket of summer fruit
represented Israel. They were ripe and ready for plucking. Their sins were
great/complete (“for three transgressions and for four” as Amos said in Amos
2). They had not turned away from their sins to return to GOD, so this harvest would
be a harvest of judgment. GOD would not let them sin anymore before His judgment
came upon them. We understand this better with verse two when GOD explains the
vision to Amos.
In verse two, GOD told Amos, “The end has come for My people
Israel.” The English word “end” comes from the Hebrew word qets. Qets and qayits of verse one sound similar and so
are a play on words. This play on words re-enforces GOD’s judgment by saying
just as the fruit is ripe at the end of summer and ready for picking, so Israel
is ripe for plucking from her land because of her sin and GOD’s judgment on
them. Israel’s sin upon sin made her ripe for GOD’s picking, His judgment. Amos
was not the only prophet to say the Israelites’ end had come. Ezekiel 7:2 &
6 say the same thing. He recorded GOD said, “The end has come upon the four
corners of the Land! I will unleash My anger against you. I will judge you
according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.” (NASB)
Besides ensuring the Israelites understood the LORD spoke this judgment against
them and that their end was near, Amos made sure they knew GOD still considered
them-the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-as His people. He chose them and they
covenanted with Him. GOD judged them because of His love for them and His
covenant faithfulness toward them. The LORD said He would not spare them again.
His Father’s heart gave them mercy and grace for many sins, but His love for
them required no sparing of discipline anymore.
Yehovah explained to Amos the extent of His judgment on
Israel. He said the songs of the palace, and the songs of praise for the
harvest the Israelites sang in their temples and homes would become dirges. Earlier
in Amos 5:23, Amos said GOD would not listen to their music. The Israelites should
have sung songs to Yehovah, not to their idols and themselves. The priests
should have shouted and sung about the judgments coming upon them-the anguish,
death, and destruction. GOD said their songs of the harvest would turn to
wailing when His judgment occurred. Why? His judgment on them meant many people
would die. In every place, they would cast forth corpses. Remember in Amos
6:8-10 Amos told the Israelites their relatives would come to carry out the
bodies and burn them. There would be so many bodies, they had to throw them
into a fire together or into a mass grave. It's important to understand, GOD said
they would do this in silence. Too many dead people makes a town, city, and
nation overwhelmed. The paid mourners and wailers would be too busy finding and
casting out the dead to give their professional services for all the dead of Israel.
Israel would be silent as they cast forth the corpses. They would be silent recognizing
the justice of GOD’s judgment. The people of Israel had no defense for GOD’s
charge and kept silent in the face of His judgment. The terror and enormity of
what happened would make them silent. GOD’s charges and judgments against
Israel were just. The people of Israel would receive His judgment and recognize
the justice of it for themselves. GOD’s justice comes from His righteousness.
His righteousness is the absolute by which to compare the righteousness of
humanity. With this vision and its explanation given to Amos, Amos could do
nothing but proclaim it to Israel. He loved them because they were family and
because GOD loved them.
·
Are you
basking in the summer sun?
·
Are you
enjoying the fresh fruit and taking the credit for it?
·
Are you
thanking and praising God for His gifts and seeking His word and will for your
life?
A Final Warning
GOD’s Charge
With verses four through fourteen, Amos gives a final
warning, a sermon, to the Israelites. Like in earlier chapters where he spoke
to the rich, the leaders, the priests, the kings, and the judges, in this
chapter he relayed GOD’s judgment to a group of Israelites, the merchants. What
did GOD charge against the merchants of Israel? Amos told them in verses four
through six. Amos said,
“Hear this, you who trample the needy to do away with the humble of the land saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may buy grain, and the Sabbath, that we may open the wheat market to make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger, and to cheat with dishonest scales, so as to buy the helpless for money and the needy for a pair of sandals, and that we may sell the refuse of the wheat.?’” (NASB)
Just as he did in each of his other sermons/proclamations,
Amos began with the word shama. Remember,
shama means to hear, listen, and
obey. He used a word familiar to them from priests and from the past when the
Israelites walked with Moses during the exodus. This word would catch their
attention. What came next the Israelites would not expect. Amos spoke a
reproof. Their priests seldom corrected the Israelites about their way of
living. They encouraged greediness as long as the people appeased their gods, paid
the priests well, and gave them an important place in society. To whom did Amos
speak GOD’s words? He spoke to the people “who trampled the needy” and did away
with the “humble of the land.” The Hebrew word from which “trample” comes is sha’aph. It means to crush, tread on,
and pant after what another person has so much you would get it by deceit and
trickery. David spoke of these people in Psalm 14:4 as evil doers who devoured
his people like bread. Proverbs 30:14 said the people had jaws set with knives
to devour the poor and needy. These people would do whatever it took to get richer
from the people who had the least in their nation. Besides this, GOD said
through Amos these people did away with the humble of the land. They destroyed
the poor, weak, and needy just because they could since they were wealthy.
Amos explained the minds of these merchants who cared for
riches instead of humanity in verse five. He said they “chomped at the bit” for
the completion of the religious festivals so they could sell more and make more
money. They asked when the new moon festival, the first day of the lunar month,
would be over so they could sell grain. Whether these merchants served Yehovah
or their idols, they did not want to give a day for worshiping and celebrating.
Greed was their influence, not their god. GOD told the Israelites in Numbers
28:11 that the first of every month, the lunar month, they were to offer burnt
offerings to Him. In Exodus 21:13-17, GOD set aside the Sabbath as holy and for
a day of rest. Whether the new moon celebration and the keeping of the Sabbath
came from their history of worship of the LORD or from their own minds in
worship of their idols, the merchants of Israel did not want to set aside that
time away from their shops. Israel and Judah both received judgment for this.
Nehemiah 13:15 records Judah trod winepresses on the Sabbath. The merchants did
not want to go through the ritual, much less the intent for the festivals. They
did not care about their people or their religious celebrations. They cared about
wealth.
These merchants wanted to sell grain, open the wheat market,
and make money. GOD said even in doing that, they showed themselves as
unrighteous. In the second half of verse five, we read of them shorting the
buyers of wheat and shorting the sellers of gold or silver. The merchants made
the bushel smaller, possibly by putting a false bottom in it. They then charged
the person the price for a full bushel. This action is like what food
manufacturers today do when they make a package bigger than the product to make
it look like a person is buying more than they are. These merchants of Amos' time did not
steal only from their buyers. They stole from people from whom they bought
products. A common occurrence among unscrupulous merchants was to have two sets
of weights, one small and one large, to put on the balance scale. When a person
bought from him, the merchant would put the large weight on the balance to show
how much money the person owed him. When the merchant bought products, he would
put the token of lighter weight on the balance and owe the seller less.
Archeologists have found two sizes of weights in their digs in Samaria that
show this was a common practice. GOD forbade this practice in Deuteronomy 25:13-16,
and Leviticus 19:35-36. The LORD told Amos He saw these merchants cheating with
dishonest scales. They chose to pervert the law and defraud people in the market,
including the poor. The poor had no one who would stand up for them in court. The
merchant had nothing to fear from them. He would have to be very sneaky to
defraud another merchant because the buying merchant might have the funds to bribe
a judge. Besides Amos speaking against dishonest merchants, Hosea 12:7 and
Micah 6:11 speak against someone who measured with false weights and dishonest
scales.
This dishonesty affected the poor most. They had little
money by which to live. The needy had to take a loan to pay for new tree bark
sandals and then the lender took them to court for the price of those sandals
when they did not repay, which was equal to about fifty cents today. Verse six
speaks about this as does Amos 2:6. The helpless had no one in power who would
stand up for him or her and his or her rights as a child of GOD and a fellow
human being. These merchants cared little for the poor. Amos went further and
stated they stooped so low as to sell the refuse of the wheat, the chaff that
came out of the sieve, to the poor. The merchants knew no one else would buy
the chaff, but the poor were so desperate that eating chaff, even if it had no
nutrients, was better than nothing. For the cost of the sandals or the price of
wheat chaff, the merchants would enslave their fellow Israelites though that
person was a child of GOD and a member of their Israelite family. GOD gave a
law against it in Leviticus 25:39 that said a countryman should not enslave another
countryman. It would bring GOD’s judgment, according to Amos 2:6. GOD forbade
slavery in Amos 1:6 & 9, too.
The rich were so greedy they could barely wait one day even
if it was a religious festival or a Sabbath to get back to pursuing the humble,
poor, and needy, and making more money. The holy day was a hindrance to them
and their greed. These merchants loved market days more than Sabbath days. They
liked cheating people more than being honest. Though GOD made the Sabbath and
festival days to be days of rest and ceasing work, the merchants grudgingly obeyed
that. They wanted more money. Money was their god. A dichotomy exists from this
occurrence. If they had kept the Sabbath holy, they would not have abused the
poor. Keeping the Sabbath was a safeguard against the abuse of the poor because
it helped keep a person in a right relationship with the LORD. When in a right
relationship with the LORD, a person has a right relationship with people, too.
A person does not abuse or exploit people for his or her own gain. It is easier
to harm another person when we do not meet with the Lord regularly, which
causes our relationship with Him to grow weak.
·
Do you do anything
that God would consider trampling the needy or selling the poor for the price
of sandals?
·
What would
God rather you do when you meet a beggar?
·
What do
you do when a person bumps your car or cuts you off in traffic? What is the godly
alternative?
GOD’s Oath
GOD could have just spoken His judgment against the
Israelites and let it go; however, He had already stated with certainty in
chapters four and six that when He says something will happen, it will most
assuredly occur. GOD’s oath in verse seven expresses this same thing. Amos said
in verse seven,
“The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob, ‘Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.’” (NASB)
This verse states, just as Amos said in earlier chapters,
the LORD Yehovah, the GOD who was, is, and will be swore an oath. Anyone can
swear they will do something, but when a person swears, that person might lie
because he or she is sinful. This oath GOD took reminds us of the covenants He
made with the Israelite people. GOD sealed and attested to Old Testament
covenants with His presence as the tongue of flame that walked between the two
halves of the sacrificial animal used to confirm the covenant. GOD’s presence
and His being are the statement of certainty that what He says, He will do. It will
occur because He is the basis of truth and righteousness. So, when GOD said He
swore, He gave an oath of constant faithfulness to what He said He would do. He
swore by Himself, by His own name, as Amos said in Amos 6:8, and in Amos 4:2
where He swore on His holiness. God is truthful because of His righteousness. Besides His truthfulness, God said He swore on
the pride of Jacob. The “pride of Jacob” of which Amos spoke refers to every
descendant of Jacob/Israel, not just the Israelites of the northern kingdom. The
northern kingdom tainted the “pride of Jacob” with self-pride that harmed
others. The “pride of Jacob” is what Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 33:26 and
29 when he said there is no one like the GOD of Jeshurun. This pride of Jacob
is what David spoke of in Psalm 68:34 when he proclaimed the power of GOD. The
pride of I AM is who made a promise to Abraham to give him descendants and make
of him a nation, and to give them a promised land. The GOD who made this
promise and fulfilled it is “the pride of Jacob.” This oath surely got the Israelites’
attention. What GOD stated next would have made them cower.
GOD stated an oath on himself that He would “never forget
any of the Israelites’ deeds”. Each of the animals they sacrificed to their idols
did not atone-wipe away-their sins. Their sins covered them with darkness. GOD
remembered them, He said. He would never forget them. The sins of the
Israelites were serious and GOD would remember them and bring judgment on them.
Let’s look closer at these words. The English word “forget” comes from the
Hebrew word shakach. It means to forget
and cease to care. With Yehovah’s statement in this verse, He said He would
never forget or cease to care about the sins of the Israelites and the plight
of the poor. He would not let it go unpunished. After speaking of the
affliction of the poor and humble, David said in Psalm 10:17-18, “O, LORD, Thou
hast heard the desire of the humble; Thou wilt strengthen their heart, Thou
wilt incline thine ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, that man who is
of the earth may cause terror no more.” (NASB) David knew Yehovah was great and
faithful to His people. Hosea 7:2 said evil people did not realize GOD
remembered all their evil deeds. He said in Hosea 8:13 the LORD will remember
their wickedness and punish their sins. People throughout the Old and New
Testaments knew, and we know from our experiences with GOD, that He will defend
the weak and oppressed and bring judgment on the persecutors. That GOD swore on
Himself in verse seven told the Israelites and tells us today, what GOD said He
would do would most surely happen.
·
Have your
actions or words ever caused a person to wonder if you are a Christian?
·
Have your
words or actions ever caused God grief like Israel’s did?
GOD’s Judgment
In verses eight through fourteen, GOD told the Israelites
through Amos what would happen to the northern kingdom because of their sin and
His judgment of them. Amos told them six things would occur because of GOD’s judgment-earthquake,
unexpected darkness, mourning, famine, LORD’s hiding from them, and the fall of
the nation. GOD would directly cause three of these. He states these in verses
nine through eleven with “I” statements-unexpected darkness, mourning, and
famine.
Amos began this part of the prophecy with two rhetorical
questions in verse eight. He asked them “would not the land quake because of
the LORD’s judgment”. The second question he asked was “would not the people
mourn”. Obviously, the answer to both questions is yes. The Israelites would
remember the earthquake that occurred two years after Amos’ ministry began in
Israel. They would remember the suddenness of it and not knowing how it would
affect and harm them. The earthquake made no place safe. When Amos said GOD would
make the land quake, he meant the people of the land would quake, too. Their
fear from the earthquake and of GOD would make them tremble. The fear of GOD’s judgment
would cause the Israelites to tremble. Isaiah 5:25 speaks of the LORD causing
the mountains to shake because of His anger toward His people. As a visual
image for the people, Amos said the land would rise up like the Nile River. This
provided a sensory reminder for the Israelites of how fearful a natural
phenomenon like an earthquake is. On the other hand, they would know the Nile
rises slowly over a couple of months, but an earthquake is sudden. People saw
the Nile floods as helpful to the land providing rich nutrients for crops, but
an earthquake would turn everything over and create chaos and devastation. This
was the first devastation GOD said His judgment of them would cause. The Assyrians
would overturn the Israelites’ lives in 722 BC. They were like an earthquake. The Assyrians entry to the land
came from GOD removing His hand of protection from Israel. This caused chaos
and devastation.
GOD as Destroyer
With verse nine, GOD spoke in the first person. He said
through Amos that He would make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark
during daylight hours. Before this, GOD said, “In that day.” This day He spoke
of was “the day of the LORD” like in Amos 5:18. It would be a day of GOD’s
active presence in the midst of the Israelites. The Israelites would not doubt
by whose hands these terrible things occurred. The terrible thing is this verse
would be darkness instead of light. A solar eclipse is the literal
interpretation of this part of GOD’s judgment. Scientists determined a near
total eclipse occurred June 15, 763 BC. The people would know about eclipses
and the fear they caused because they were unnatural. The figurative
meaning is Yehovah would overpower Ra, the sun god. GOD’s power would show the Israelites’
idol had no power.
Another figurative allusion of the darkness in this verse is that the grand lifestyles and luxurious living would fall away and days of gloom and
misery would come upon the Israelites. The time of prosperity and sunshine would
end and GOD’s calamities would fall on them bringing darkness and distress. The
Israelites would have trouble, afflictions, and distress, and experience
persecution. That time of darkness would be a period of evil, suffering, and
loss for the corrupt and oppressive Israelites. Job 5:14 speaks of a darkness
coming during the daytime. Isaiah 13:10 says the rising sun would darken.
Jeremiah 15:9 prophesies the sun would set while it was still day. Micah 3:6
explains the sun would set for the prophets of the false gods and the day would
go dark for them. Without the sun, literally, and the ways of life the
Israelites loved to live, their days would be dark, just as earth would be
dark. It would be a time of confusion and GOD would hide His face from them.
Isaiah 59:9 says the Israelites looked for light, but all was darkness.
Remember, too, Amos 4:13 and 5:8 say GOD turns dawn to darkness, darkens day to
night, and turns midnight into dawn. The LORD would show Himself as more
powerful than the Israelites’ gods and greater than the wealth they gathered
for themselves and about which they boasted.
Verse ten gives another example of GOD speaking in first
person of His own hand bringing the judgment upon Israel. He said, “I will turn
your festivals into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will
bring sackcloth on everyone’s loins and baldness on every head. And I will make
it a time of mourning like for an only son, and the end of it will be like a
bitter day.” (NASB) The word “turn” means to overthrow, overturn, or transform.
The festivals of which the LORD spoke were the festivals the people celebrated
for their false gods and for themselves because of their business acumen and
“getting one over” on other people. GOD said He would overthrow those festivals
and transform them back to what He intended, times of praise for His provision.
They were again to be times to rejoice together-rich and poor, young and old. Job
20:23 says GOD would vent His anger against them. Amos 5:21 says the LORD
despised their religious festivals. GOD does not want action without proper
intent, nor does He want improper action forgetting from Whom each person
receives any blessings. This “day of the LORD” would bring unending mourning
and grief as compared to the days of feasts-religious or secular.
The day of the LORD would end with mournful
songs-lamentations and dirges-and not songs of joy in which they sang about
themselves and their false gods. Besides the “day of the LORD’ bringing
mourning and lamentation, it would cause every person to wear sackcloth and
baldness. The rich would understand firsthand the mourning the poor and needy
experienced. They, with the poor, would wear sackcloth to show their sorrow and
humility before GOD. Wearing sackcloth showed through an outward sign the
inward condition of a person. Sackcloth, made of dark goat’s hair, was very
uncomfortable against the skin. It reminded them of their sorrow. Isaiah 50:3,
Revelation 6:12, 1 Kings 21:27, 2 Kings 6:30, Job 16:15, and Isaiah 32:11 each
record people wearing sackcloth. Besides mourning and wearing sackcloth, GOD
said the people would be bald. The word “bald” comes from the Hebrew word gorchah, which means baldness,
plucked-out scalp, and shaved scalp. As a sign of their mourning, the people would
pluck out their hair or would shave it. This sign was a custom GOD banned in
Deuteronomy 14:1. Jeremiah 48:37 and Ezekiel 27:31 prophesy the people would
put on sackcloth and make themselves bald. Making themselves bald was a
grieving custom the Israelites learned from other nations and practiced though GOD
forbade it.
GOD said the Israelites’ mourning would be intense because
of their guilt, affliction, and recognition of the might and majesty of Yehovah
when compared to their false gods. This mourning would be like mourning the
death of an only son. Remember, men had property rights and were the leaders of
the people, tribes, clans, and families. If a man or woman did not have a son
to protect and provide for them in their old age or infirmity that man or woman
would become one of the powerless needy of the land. That powerless person would
become like the ones they themselves oppressed and of whom they took advantage.
So, to say the mourning would be like the mourning for an only son meant their
mourning would be of the highest intensity. The Israelites’ mourning would be like
Yehovah’s who mourned over His children when they turned away from Him to
follow their own ways. They would have no hope that GOD’s judgment would not
come against them, just as they had no hope for the family when an only son
died. Just as there would be no future for the family when their only son died,
Israel would have no future because of their sin and GOD’s judgment on them. This
grief would have a bitter end. It would be as bitter as the beginning. The grief would not end.
The worst part of GOD’s judgment on Israel this time is that
He would be Israel’s destroyer. Along with that, as we will see in verses
eleven through fourteen, GOD would abandon them. He would be the one to inflict
damage and He would abandon them. The Israelites would have no hope for a
reprieve from GOD’s judgment, or from it ending quickly.
GOD’s Abandonment of Israel
GOD explained His abandonment of the Israelites in verse
eleven. With the next three verses, He showed how that would affect the people.
In Amos 8:11, Amos said,
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the LORD.’” (NASB)
The word “behold” introduces something new and surprising,
something the Israelites never experienced. The LORD said He would send a
famine. A famine that destroyed Israel’s food supply was not new to them. Amos
4:6 speaks about a famine. GOD spoke in this verse about a famine for His word. The people would
seek Him and would not find Him. The word “hearing” in this verse is from a
very important word in the Old Testament. It comes from the Hebrew word shama’. Shama’ means to hear, listen,
and obey. The people of Israel would thirst and hunger to hear the word of the LORD.
The prophets of the Old Testament knew humans could not live by bread along,
but needed the words of the LORD. Moses stated this in Deuteronomy 8:3. Isaiah
55:1-7 states when people can find GOD. To find GOD, the Israelites had to do
something. They had to forsake their wickedness and return to a right relationship with the LORD.
First Samuel 28:6 and Psalm 13:1 attest to times when people could not find GOD
and He would not speak. These times occurred when sin remained unconfessed and
people chose ways other than the LORD’s. Saul did not repent, but David did. In
Amos 8, GOD said the Israelites would experience a famine and thirst for His
words and they would not find Him because they did not seek Him with repentance
in their hearts to follow Him and His ways. They wanted only His power to
rescue them. The Israelites did not want to hear and obey GOD’s words when they
trampled on the poor so they would receive no comfort or hope when their days
of mourning came. To find the LORD, the Israelites needed to seek Him with a
genuine and repentant heart. First Samuel 3:1 records a time when the word of
the LORD was rare. Second Chronicles 15:3 states Israel was without the true GOD
for a long time, without a priest to teach them, and without the law. Ezekiel
7:26 speaks of a prophecy about when the people would search for a prophet with
a vision and for priestly instruction in the law and would not find them. Micah
said there would be darkness without visions and divination. The sun would set
for the prophets and the day would go dark for them. The absence of the LORD
was total abandonment. The Israelites would not find His word by any means-prophet
or priest. They would be thirsty for GOD, but GOD’s judgment brought a famine
of Him and His word on the people.
Verse twelve continues this idea. Amos said in verse twelve,
“People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.” (NASB)
In this verse, we understand Amos told the Israelites no
matter where they looked to find GOD and His word, they would not find Him. If
they looked from sea to sea or from north to east, they would not find Him.
Amos did not say if they looked south because south is where the southern kingdom lay and Israel alienated themselves from Judah. The Israelites would rove about like people who
stagger from thirst. They would thirst for GOD’s word, but would not find it.
Why? Two reasons give the answer. First, GOD removed His hand and presence from
them as punishment. Second, their seeking of the LORD came not from a repentant
and sincere heart to obey Him. They recognized the power of Yehovah and just
wanted the judgment to end. They feared more punishment. Ezekiel 20:3 records
the elders sought Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord, but GOD would not let them
find him. Ezekiel said in verse thirty-one of this chapter the people could not
inquire of the Lord because they continued in sin. He said the same thing in
Ezekiel 14:3. The Israelites would die inwardly because they did not have GOD’s
word to feed their souls. He would keep His prophets and priests from preaching
to the Israelites. This judgment was unlike any Israel had ever before
experienced. At one time the merchants thought it was a waste of time to close
their shops for Sabbath and sacred times; later they would try to find and hear
GOD’s voice. They would seek GOD like a thirsty man seeks water.
GOD’s judgment would affect everyone, even the youth who
were the future of Israel. Amos said in verse thirteen,
“In that day, the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint from thirst.” (NASB)
The failure by the adults to lead the nation and their
families to seek the LORD with their whole being would cause the young girls
and men to continue to walk in the ways of their parents. They would turn away
from GOD and sin. This would cause the young men and women to faint from a thirst
of not hearing the word of the LORD. Their strength was not enough to combat
moral and spiritual crises. The unrepentant adults would lead their children to
be unrepentant and, thus, to live under the LORD’s judgment in captivity,
oppressed and needy. If the young could not survive this judgment, how much
less could the weak and old survive. The LORD’s judgment of Israel was so
extensive it would affect generations to come. Israel would learn only that by
hearing and obeying (shama’) GOD’s
word could a nation be strong and avoid GOD’s judgment. Isaiah 41:7 and Hosea
2:3 say GOD would make Israel’s land like a desert and slay her with thirst.
Lest anyone continue to think worshiping and swearing by
their gods would allow them to avoid GOD’s judgment, GOD said through Amos in
verse fourteen,
“As for those who swear by the guilt of Samaria, who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall and not rise again.” (NASB)
This verse should take us back to verse seven to compare
the oaths taken by the LORD to the oath the people took in verse fourteen. Both use
the same word shaba’ meaning to take
an oath or swear. In verse fourteen, Amos stated the people swore by the guilt
of Samaria, the gods of Dan, and the way of Beersheba. Looking closer at this
verse, we realize the word “guilt” comes from the Hebrew word ashmah. It is a play on words for one of
the gods, Ashimah, of the people of Hamath of Aram who lived in Samaria and of
the Hebrew exiles in Egypt during the fourth and fifth centuries BC. Amos said
the people swore by the guilt of Samaria, following and worshiping false gods,
and swore by a god in Samaria, Ashimah. Second Kings 17:30 tells us about this
god. These people swore their faithfulness by the power of idols and GOD’s
judgment would fall on them. The Israelites swore by the god of Dan, the golden
calf. This calf had no power. Men made it by their hands. This statue could not
save the Israelites from GOD’s judgment. Lest the southern kingdom consider
themselves better than the northern, Amos highlights their sin, too. He said
even those who swear by the way of Beersheba (at the southern end of Judah where
the Negev began), by worshiping her false gods, would fall and not rise again. Amos
said in Amos 5:2 “Fallen is virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her
own land with no one to lift her up.” (NASB) From the northernmost point of the
Promised Land to its southernmost tip, GOD’s judgment would fall on each person
who worshiped false gods. Amos’ prophecies were mostly for the northern
kingdom, but he included Judah at times. We know Amos spoke about
false gods because he
used the Hebrew word Hê
that signifies false Gods, not Hâ,
which denotes the true GOD. GOD’s judgment of Israel was unstoppable by no
one’s god. The Israelites’ trouble was spiritual. They worshiped false gods, gods
who would never raise them up from Yehovah’s judgment on them.
·
Have you
ever put something you desired over your love and obedience to God? Possibly a promotion,
money, or prize?
·
Have you
ever been in the same place as Israel, and wondered why life was so hard and
where God was?
·
Have you
experienced the joy of knowing all your needs are taken care of and recognize God
is in control, then praised Him for His love for you? This is where God wants
us to be.
Recap
With chapter eight, GOD showed Amos a fourth vision of ripe fruit
and relayed to him the time was near, Israel’s sins were complete, and His judgment
was imminent. The fruit represented Israel. They were ripe and ready for
harvest just as Israel was ripe and ready for GOD’s judgment. GOD explained to
Amos who then told Israel GOD’s judgment would most certainly come upon them.
He swore on Himself, “the pride of Jacob”. This judgment points to the
merchants who cared greatly about making money even if that meant defrauding
buyers and sellers, putting the needy into jail or slavery, and wishing the
Sabbath and festival days would not happen. The merchants’ intent was to make
money, not to care for GOD or His people.
GOD told Amos with this vision, who proclaimed it to the
Israelites, His judgment would come soon and would bring gloom and darkness. He
said it would be sudden, deadly, and chaotic like an earthquake. GOD’s judgment
would take light and joy away. His judgment would cause mourning like for an
only son. It would cause everyone to put on sackcloth and remove their hair.
Amos explained to the Israelites GOD’s judgment of them including His
abandoning them. The Israelites would search for Him after recognizing His
supreme might and not be able to find Him because they did not seek Him with
their whole being and with repentance. No matter where they went to find the
Him, GOD said they would not find Him. Even the young and strong men and women would
not find Him, but would lose their strength. Israel would lose their future. Its
future, government, and religion would fall and the nation would be no more.
Never before had GOD totally abandoned the Israelites. Never had another nation
subjugated this theocracy established by Yehovah. The Israelites’ sins were complete.
GOD’s judgment was definite.
Conclusion and Relevance
It would be easy to point our fingers at Israel and exclaim how
awful they were. They cheated the needy, oppressed the poor, and obstructed
justice. The Israelites walked away from Yehovah who called them His people and
established them as a nation. Yet, when we take the time to look closely at
Israel, we each can and should admit we bear similarities to them. Maybe you
call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, but you sometimes do not go to
church on the Sabbath. Possibly you “put your thumb on the scale” when you sell
products. Perhaps you do not correct someone’s interpretation of another
person’s actions and that leads to the other person being disrespected at work
and in the community. Perchance you found $100 in front of a store or senior
center and pocketed it, not trying to find the person who lost it. Or maybe it
was something as simple as the cashier giving you too much change and, when you
found out, you did not return it to her. These examples and others happen
daily. Each may seem small and of no consequence to you, but they are sins in God’s
eyes. They harm and do not help other people. Anything that puts us at an advantage
while harming another person is not God’s will. In popular jargon, God’s will
brings about a win-win situation where God gets the praise from both sides of
the relationship.
God knows us. He knows our hearts, minds, and intentions. The
Lord knows we are like sheep easily led away from Him and so He made a way for
us to find Him and return to Him. Isaiah said it well in Isaiah 53:6. He said,
“All of us like sheep have gone astray (from God and His way), each of us has
turned to his own way, but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall
on Him.” (NASB) The old covenant led people to GOD to keep them in a
relationship with Him. The new covenant brought about by the death and
resurrection of Jesus the Messiah leads us to GOD and provides everlasting
salvation. The Old Testament laws required twice daily sacrifices for the
atonement of sin. Even those did not remove the stain of sin from the
person. With Jesus’ death and
resurrection as the perfect sacrifice provided by GOD, no other sacrifice need
occur ever. Once Jesus cleanses a person from his or her sins by His blood when
the person becomes a believer in Him as GOD’s Son and confesses Him as
Lord and Savior, nothing can ever separate that person from GOD again. Paul
said it well in Romans 10:9-10 when he said,
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart GOD raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.” (NASB)
Does GOD still discipline His people? Of course! If He
didn’t, He would not love us. Because of His love for us, He gives us grace and
mercy though we do not deserve it. Yet, when a person continues to sin, like a
loving parent, God must discipline His child so he or she returns to his or her
relationship with Him and grows more like Christ each day. The difference
between now and during the time of Israel’s judgment is believers are saved and
nothing can separate them from God’s love. With Israel, He abandoned them. For
His children of the new covenant, Jesus reiterated what Jeremiah said in
Jeremiah 29:13. In Matthew 7, Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. He told
the people who followed Him about living as a child of God through the
salvation He would give. Jesus taught about the righteous in verses seven and
eight,
“Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.” (NASB)
He said to crave for righteousness, the way of God, and He
will give you a gift because He loves you. Seek with your whole being, with
heart, mind, body, and soul, and you will discover and understand more about God
and His will. Knock at God’s door, requesting entrance to Him, and He will make Himself
open to you. God will refuse no one who asks for His righteousness. Each person
who seeks for God with his or her whole being will discover, recognize, and come to know Him. God will
admit to His presence any person who actively seeks Him. That person will know
His will and grace. The Israelites did not ask for knowledge of God or His way.
They did not seek Him with all they were while leaving behind their desires for
riches. The Israelites did not actively knock asking admittance to the presence
of God and His kingdom. They enjoyed their prosperity and left God behind.
Today we each must decide for ourselves if we want only what
life on earth can give us or if we want what the One Holy God can give us now
and forevermore.
Will you ask
for God and His righteousness,
actively seek
Him and His will, and
knock intentionally
to know Him and to be in His presence forever?
