Amos the Herdsman

3. Transgressions of Israel

Amos 2:4‑16

"For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isa.10:4) So did the prophet Isaiah, half a century after Amos, intone his lament over the inevitable fate of Israel, a fate which Amos was now about to declare in the ears of all Israel as he stood in the idol sanctuary at Bethel. He had just pronounced Divine judgment soon to fall upon the six neighbour nations; now it was the turn of Judah and Israel. The nation had dwelt in the Promised Land for something like seven hundred years and for a major part of that time they had served God either partially or not at all. At first, they had leaders, "judges," in the main resolute. God‑fearing men who did their best to guide their people in the right way; but in between consecutive judges there was almost always a "falling away" into godlessness. Later they had kings, men of the line of David who occupied the throne as the earthly representative of God, the true king of Israel. Sometimes they were righteous men, but mostly they were oppressive, grasping tyrants, who cared little for the welfare of the people they ruled and nothing for the laws of God. In not a few cases they led the people into open idolatry and flagrant violation of the Mosaic covenant. So, God raised up prophets, men who were guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit to wean the people from their misdeeds and persuade them back to their true allegiance. Amos was one such, but by his time the rot had gone so far that it could not be remedied. He could only tell them of the coming disasters which they had brought upon themselves by their own heedless course.

He turned first to Judah, Judah the two‑tribe kingdom which had received so much at the Lord’s hands in being made the custodian of the Temple and its worship and the seat of royalty. Jerusalem the holy, the sacred city, the royal city, the city of peace, lay within its territory. Here, in those brief times when all Israel was united in sincere worship of God, all the tribes came to render homage and participate in the annual sacred feasts and ceremonies. Here, if anywhere, should it have been that God was worshipped continually in spirit and in truth. "Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed sang the Psalmist "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come." (Psa.65:1‑2) "In Judah is God known: His name is great in Israel." "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem...whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel." (Psa.76:1; 122:2‑4) But all that was in the days of David when the kingship was new and the nation united and enthusiastic. The Lord had promised that David’s throne would endure for ever and his people know only prosperity and well‑being, but they ignored and forgot that all this was conditional upon their own allegiance to God and His laws. They forswore their allegiance and flouted the laws, and now, only two centuries after David, not more than seven or eight generations, they were to reap the consequences. So, Amos declared the wrongdoing they had wrought and the penalty they must suffer.

The accusation was short and succinct. They had spurned the law of the Lord; they had failed to keep His commandments; they had allowed themselves to be led astray to the worship of false gods. (Amos 2:4) The whole added up to apostasy, an apostasy which went right back to the beginning. Amos was not talking only to his own generation; his denunciation went back to include past generations, even to the times when Israel took possession of the land. The Old Testament includes sufficient detailed cases. Right at the beginning Jonathan the grandson of Moses allowed himself to be made the first High Priest of a renegade sanctuary in the territory of Dan (Judg.18) where God was worshipped under the visible figure of a silver ox. (In later days the custodians of the oracles altered the name of Moses to Manasseh in Judg.18:30 to avoid their revered leader being associated with so disgraceful a proceeding.) Then, not much later, Gideon, that great champion for God, instituted a centre of worship in his own tribal territory in competition with the national centre at Shiloh where stood the Mosaic Tabernacle. In the days of Rehoboam, successor of Solomon, the Israelites built "high places" in the land, ostensibly for the worship of God (1 Kings 14), but these degenerated quickly into idol shrines. Sometimes the kings were evil and sometimes they were good, but in both cases the high places remained, mute witnesses to national apostasy. Good king Josiah destroyed them and endeavoured to bring his people back to God, but then it was too late. Less than thirty years was to run before the blow was to fall on Judah.

So, Amos pronounced judgment. Because of this persistent unfaithfulness the penalty of the Covenant was to be enforced. "I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour all the palaces of Jerusalem." (Ch.2:5) It was the same judgment that came upon the entire six surrounding nations, but this time upon the people of the Lord. Chosen nation and unique people they might be, but they were not exempt from the consequences of sin on that account. In that respect they were no different from the nations round about, for "there is no respect of persons with God." (Rom.2:11) Judah had greater responsibility. The peoples round about were born and lived their lives in measurable ignorance of God; Judah and Israel were, between them, recipients and guardians of the oracles of God. They knew His Law and they had seen His miracles and experienced His power in deliverance. They had less excuse. They suffered accordingly.

The "fire upon Judah" was, of course, war. The fulfilment began fifty years later when Sennacherib the Assyrian invaded Judah and took some two hundred thousand captives before the angel of the Lord, in response to the faith of king Hezekiah, intervened and destroyed the Assyrian army, thus saving Jerusalem. A last chance of repentance for Judah, perhaps? If so, it was of no avail. Hezekiah’s next two successors on the throne were evil men and they led Judah into even grosser idolatry. Manasseh the king was taken captive into Babylon, but even this did not deter Amon his son from following the same evil way. Then came the Egyptians in the days of Josiah and Jehoahaz, and following them the Babylonians in those of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, a continual state of invasion and war desolating the land during the space of a hundred and twenty years, until finally Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian destroyed Jerusalem, its palaces and its Temple, just as Amos had foretold, and took the remaining people captive to Babylon. The land which nearly a thousand years earlier had seen the conquering hosts under Joshua entering and taking possession now saw the last pitiful remnants of the once proud nation driven like beasts into hopeless servitude. "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people" lamented Jeremiah, the prophet who so vainly tried to avert the calamity by exhorting the people to repentance and faith; "she that was great among the nations...how is she become tributary (a slave)!" (Lam.1:1)

Amos turns now to Israel, the ten‑tribe nation. Her judgment was to be executed first, her land desolated and her captivity effected a century before that of Judah, but Amos leaves Israel to the last because it is against Israel that the main burden of his entire prophecy is directed and all that has gone heretofore has been by way of preliminary. Up to this point the men and women in that idol temple at Bethel would have listened smugly if not with secret satisfaction at the prospect of Divine chastisements shortly to fall upon all their enemies. Their complacent expressions were quickly swept from their faces when the youthful prophet faced them with the ominous words "for crime after crime of Israel I will grant them no reprieve." (Ch.2:6 NEB) Amos laid three stated crimes to their charge, three headings under which could be included all the evil and apostasy of which they had been guilty. Here at this point the prophet declares each crime in turn.

"They sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They grind the heads of the poor into the earth and thrust the humble out of their way." (Ch.2:6‑7) The latter phrase is the NEB rendering and is preferable. This is an allusion to that provision in the Law of Moses (Lev.25) by which a debtor could be sold into slavery or a poor man sell himself, but the contract was only to last until the next year of Jubilee (the fiftieth year, when all lands and properties reverted to their original owners). The implication here is that a kind of trade had grown up, founded on this custom, whereby men and women in Israel had become objects of barter and sale for private profit, which was a long way from the original provision intended solely for the satisfaction of a debt. So the poor, the innocent, the humble had become the helpless prey of the soulless rich in complete negation of the original conception which viewed all Israelites as brothers. Here is to be seen all the elements of sordid commercialism and social injustice which is so fearfully rampant in the world today.

"A man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name." (Ch.2:7) The reference here is to pagan ritual‑worship of the most depraved kind. The word rendered "maid" in the A.V. is kedeshah,[The Hebrew word appears to be na’arah meaning girl], which denotes a priestess‑prostitute attached to a pagan temple. The underlying principle was that the woman yielded what was most precious to her as a sacrifice to the god or goddess, and that by a kind of "sympathetic magic" the act would result in renewed fertility of crops and flocks and herds to the benefit of the community. A more accurate rendering of the sentence would be "Son and father resort to the same kedeshah to the profanation of my holy name." The practice was expressly forbidden the daughters of Israel (Deut.23:17), nevertheless a burning passage in Hos.4:12‑14 shows that this sin was rife in Israel. Thus did Amos seize upon the most degraded element in pagan ritual to condemn the whole system of pagan idolatry into which Israel had fallen.

"And they lie down beside the altar on garments seized in pledge, and drink wine at the expense of those they have fined in the house of their god." (Ch.2:8 author’s own ) This was the third charge. Again, it relates to the oppression of the poor, and it introduces an element, of unctuous hypocrisy. The Law of Moses provided that if, as security for a loan, a poor man was required to surrender his warm outer garment, it was in any case to be returned to him when evening came; he would need it for warmth through the cold Eastern night. (Exod.22:25‑27; Deut.24:10‑13) Here was a condition in which the creditor not only failed to return the garment, but used it for his own comfort whilst performing his ritualistic observances at the idol altar—which may very well have included the sin just previously referred to. Not only so, but he caroused with intoxicants in that same temple on the usury he had extorted from those same poor debtors. The whole picture is that of the unprincipled exploiter of the poor, flaunting his ill‑gotten gains and his own indulgence under the cloak of respectability in the temple where such things were the normal custom.

These three sins pictured the whole gamut of iniquities for which the Lord was about to pass judgment on Israel. But first He had something to say.

"Yet...[I—even I] destroyed…the Amorite before them (you), whose height was like…the cedars...yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and…for Nazarites...But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying ‘Prophesy not.’" (Ch.2:9‑12)

Against the three crimes of Israel for which they stood arraigned before Him the Lord set three great things He had done for them in times gone by. He had delivered the nation from Egypt in the time of Moses, led them for forty years through the wilderness and brought them to the borders of the Promised Land. He had eliminated the Amorite inhabitants of the land to the extent that Israel could enter and conquer. He had given them prophets to encourage them in the right ways and warned them against the wrong. He had played His part and fulfilled all His promises, had been a Father to them and treated them as His children. They had repaid Him with ingratitude, heedlessness and rebellion. They had refused to heed the counsel of His prophets, misused them and in many cases killed them. They had shamefully treated those among them who were of a different mind and had dedicated themselves to God—the Nazarites—and compelled them to forswear their vows of dedication. They had in every way proved themselves unworthy of all that God had done for them. God had done all that could be done for an unresponsive people. Later on He was to say to Isaiah "I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good...a people that provoketh me to anger continually...these are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day...when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not." (Isa.65:2‑12) All that was true in the days of Amos also, so sadly true that the Lord had to express Himself as weighed down in spirit by the burden of their sins.

"Behold" He says "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." (Ch.2:13) There is some doubt respecting the grammatical construction of the words. It is uncertain whether the meaning is that Israel is pressed down with the weight of sin like a harvest‑wagon laden with sheaves of grain, or that God is burdened down in heaviness at the knowledge of their sin. The NEB has it "I groan under the burden of you, as a wagon creaks under a full load" (v.13) and it is very possible that this is the true sense of the passage. God is not an angry, vengeful Deity, a savage "tribal god of the Hebrews" as some would have it. He is the contrary, a loving, tender and all‑wise Father ever seeking the welfare and happiness of the creatures His hand has made. It is because sin and the way of sin can only lead to unhappiness and disaster for those creatures that He takes every step necessary to convince men and women of that fact; so, it must be from time to time that a sharp lesson is necessary and people allowed to reap the consequences of their own folly. But even so He is ever ready to save and deliver before humanity has gone too far to be recovered. So, in the fulness of time it became possible to inscribe on the pages of history the never‑to‑be‑forgotten words "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) After all those years of disobedience and disloyalty, rebellion against and renunciation of God, He was still conscious of the weight of an infinite sorrow that such things should be, and, too, without doubt, that He must inflict chastisement that men might ultimately be reclaimed. So, with heavy heart, speaking in human terms, and with sad reluctance, again, speaking in human terms, He told them what must surely come to pass.

"Flight shall not save the swift, the strong man shall not rally his strength. The warrior shall not save himself, the archer shall not stand his ground; the swift of foot shall not be saved, nor the horseman escape; on that day the bravest of warriors shall be stripped of his arms and run away." "This is the very word of the LORD." (Ch.2:14‑16. NEB)

That meant military defeat, total and complete. There had been a time when these things had been true of the people that invaded Israel and in their faith and trust in God the warriors of Israel had stood still and watched all these things happen to the enemies who had come to despoil them. Not many generations previously good king Jehoshaphat had sallied forth with his army and his priests, singing the high praises of God, to face the invaders from Moab and Ammon and Edom. "Ye shall not need to fight in this battle" he told his people, "the battle is not yours, but God’s. Stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD." (2 Chron.20:17,15) Israel stood still on the heights and watched, while the invaders fell out between themselves, and began to battle with each other until not one of them was left. (2 Chron.20) It could have been the same again, had there been the same faith. But times had changed; the people were of different mind, and when the Assyrians came upon them not many years later they found a nation defenceless and dispirited, trusting in gods which were unable to deliver, and so the Assyrians carried them all away.

What is the moral behind all this for today? The same basic sins are rife, much more exceedingly rife in modern society. Indifference to, and flagrant disobedience of Divine law is commonplace. In many quarters, and increasingly so, honesty and fair dealing, kindliness, generosity and charity, are despised as signs of weakness. There are children who grow up not knowing, because they have never been taught the meaning of the word honesty. With each succeeding generation the standards of Divine ethics recede farther into the background. The words of Amos 2:4 become increasingly true as time goes on. The second sin, soulless commercialism, which seeks to enrich the few at the expense of the many, is manifest today as never before. The masses are deluded into believing that things are being done for their welfare which in reality serve only to bring them more into bondage to the world system which is being created. The poor, whether of the "third world" or of the dominant nations, are pressed relentlessly into the dust as in the days of Amos, and none heed their cries except the God of all justice, who is by no means heedless, even although His plans for their eventual full salvation have yet a span of time to wait whilst the essential prior experience must work itself out. Then that against which Amos voiced his most trenchant condemnation, idolatry and idol worship, is rampant today as never before. Science, wealth, power, pleasurable indulgence, permissiveness and depravity of every description, these are the gods and the worship of this present Age and these will bring this world to its end just so surely as the same things in principle but on a smaller scale brought Israel to its end in the days of Amos. As it was then, so it is now, there will be no escape. "The swift of foot shall not be saved, nor the horseman escape…the bravest of warriors shall be stripped of his arms and run away." (Amos 2:15‑16 NEB) The same principles in operation will bring about the same end. Thank God that the same is true of the eventual outcome. At the close of his prophecy Amos shows that at the end of time God will restore those victims of the judgment incurred by their own foolishness, that by reason of the lesson well learned they will enter into a blessed afterward in which they willingly and enthusiastically achieve a state of loyalty to, and co‑operation with, God that will ensure their everlasting happiness. So too will it be with this modern world; the position is not really hopeless. After judgment comes blessing. The nations will, one day, eschew (avoid) the immoral principles which govern human society today and embrace anew the life that is of God. "The ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isa.35:10) "This is the very word of the LORD." (Ch.2:16 NEB)

The grammatical case here indicates an extreme of emphasis—this is a very solemn utterance. All that has been said beforehand is spoken with a due consciousness of its gravity and import. The Lord has spoken and there can be no reversal. These things shall surely be

This is the end of the first section of Amos’ prophecy. Perhaps, at this point, he turned and walked out of the idol sanctuary at Bethel, leaving king, priest and people to ponder over the significance of his message. But he was to come back. Maybe before many days had passed his stalwart figure was to be seen again, his voice uttering the next of five more denunciations before at length the High Priest felt compelled to retaliate.

To be continued
AOH