Amos Amos
Amos
Introduction
At a Glance
Author: Amos the prophet
Audience: The Northern Kingdom of Israel
Date: Mid-700s BC, during the reigns of Kings Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah
Type of Literature: Prophecy
Major Themes: Righteousness; justice; economic oppression of the poor; true and false prophecy; religious blending (syncretism); the responsibility of leaders; the day of Yahweh; Bethel; Samaria; seeing Jesus in the book
Outline:
I. Superscription: author and setting — 1:1–2
II. Judgment on the nations, including Israel — 1:3–2:16
a. Judgment on three gentile nations — 1:3–10
b. Judgment on three nations related to Israel — 1:11–2:3
c. Judgment on Judah — 2:4–5
d. Judgment on Israel — 2:6–16
i. Israel’s injustice, profane worship, and covenant breaking — 2:6–12
ii. Crushing of a rebellious culture — 2:13–16
III. Oracles against Israel — 3:1–5:17
a. Divine legal indictment against the chosen covenant people — 3:1–15
b. Judgment on an arrogant, unrepentant people — 4:1–13
i. Condemnation of oppressive, upper-class Israelite women — 4:1–3
ii. No repentance after punishments — 4:4–13
c. Judgment on an unjust, oppressive people — 5:1–17
i. Funeral lament — 5:1–3
ii. Exhortation to seek life in God (i) — 5:4–6
iii. Indictment of social, legal, and economic injustices — 5:7–13
iv. Exhortation to seek life in God (ii) — 5:14–15
v. Mourning for the loss of prosperity — 5:16–17
IV. The day of Yahweh: visions of divine judgment and an ultimate blessing — 5:18–9:15
a. A woe-oracle: misplaced hope in the coming day of Yahweh — 5:18–27
b. A woe-oracle: indictment of Israel’s complacent pride — 6:1–14
c. Visions of divine retribution — 7:1–9:10
i. Judgments averted: a swarm of locusts and a devastating fire — 7:1–6
ii. Inevitable judgments: the plumb line, the basket of fruit, Yahweh by the altar — 7:7–9:10
d. The blessing of the day of Yahweh: the restoration of the dynasty of David and the return of Israel to the promised land — 9:11–15
About the Book of Amos
Amos is arguably the most strident and outspoken of the prophetic books. It is classified as a “minor” prophet but only because of the book’s brevity, not as a reflection of the power and timelessness of its message.
This book has eternal significance because every civilization that achieves prosperity runs the risk of losing touch with its foundational principles, ensuring its eventual downfall. As it turns out, Amos was correct in his warnings. A generation after his prophecies, the “ten lost tribes of Israel” were wiped out by the Assyrians, never to be heard from again.
A nation can only endure if it continues to cultivate the values of justice and righteousness, without which its religious activity is a sham.
Spare me the monotonous melodies of your “worship.”
I don’t want to hear your strumming guitars anymore.
It’s just noise to me.
However, I delight in
a land where justice flows like a river
and where true righteousness rolls like a steady flowing stream. (Amos 5:23–24)
Amos would have no respect for those of us religious insiders who perhaps insist that our faith has no place in the public square or the marketplace. It was his very faith that drove him to confront the corrupt leaders of both.
Purpose
Amos saw his vocation as agricultural, not religious, but he felt compelled by God to call the leaders of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to account even though he was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. What emerged is powerful preaching of righteousness and justice in the face of corruption and decadence—both political and spiritual. Peering over the border to the north at Israel, Amos observed a wealthy nation that was overripe and slipping into decadence, losing touch with its own covenant identity, and he intended to do something about it. He left his hometown of Tekoa and embarked on a scorching speaking tour of his neighbor to the north, sending leaders running for cover and asking him to go back home and prophesy there instead.
The initial oracles given to Amos by God concern the surrounding pagan nations as well as Israel and Judah (1:3–2:16), and they effectively enhance the impact of Amos’ central purpose: calling the rebellious nation of Israel to account. This opening passage contains eight powerful indictments and accompanying catastrophic judgments against a succession of godless nations, the final two of which are Judah and Israel. What is significant here is the ethnic, religious, and cultural identity of these nations, considered sequentially, along with the consistently repeated and ominous refrain throughout: “For the three terrible crimes of . . . no, make that four” (1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6).
The first three indictments are leveled against Aram (and her city Damascus), Philistia (and her city Gaza), and Phoenicia (and her city Tyre). These nations were all culturally, ethnically, and religiously pagan, three of the many gentile territories in the geographic vicinity of the covenant people of Israel.
However, the next three nations Amos condemned were Edom, Ammon, and Moab, which may be designated as “family nations” related to Israel. These all originated from the wider family of the patriarchs who received the covenant of promise from Yahweh himself: Edom was founded by the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, father of the twelve sons who formed the tribal nucleus of the nation of Israel (Gen. 25:19–34; 27; 32–33). The nations of Ammon and Moab were founded, respectively, by the descendants of the two sons of Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham. Ammon (also known as Ben-Ammi) and Moab were born to the two daughters of Lot as the result of an incestuous union with their father (Gen. 19:30–38). The final two nations to be indicted were Judah and Israel. And the most detailed condemnation by far was reserved for Israel (Amos 2:6–16).
The ordering of the successive condemnation of all these nations is significant. Amos’ original audience would have been well aware that the condemnation began with rank “outsiders,” the pagan gentile nations of Aram, Philistia, and Phoenicia. Then, as the indictments of Edom, Ammon, and Moab followed, the Israelite audience would have begun to feel uncomfortable since these nations had “blood connections” with the covenant people of God. Then the final manifestation of divine judgment fell upon them—first of all Judah, then Israel. It is hard to see how this approach could have been the result of anything other than deliberate intent or purpose.
What follows in the prophecy, right up until almost the very end, is a devastating series of judgment oracles designed to expose the very core of Israel’s rebellion against their covenant God, Yahweh, resulting in a terrifying sequence of punishments that functioned essentially as covenant curses. It is, in fact, only right at the end of Amos’ prophecy (9:11–15) that God reveals his ultimate promise of forgiveness, renewal, and restoration for his wayward people.
Amos highlights Yahweh’s goodness as a God of righteousness and justice alongside his resultant judgment—judgment that has no favorites. He does not pass over those who think they are safe as religious “insiders” and yet persist in practicing oppression and injustice.
The Lion still roars from Zion (1:2), but that “roar” will ultimately be replaced by a gentle yet powerful expression of divine compassion, mercy, and forgiveness directed toward the people of God. Eventually, the undying, eternal fulfillment of God’s covenant promises will be realized.
Author and Audience
Amos called himself a sheep breeder and fig dresser from the town of Tekoa, near the border between Judah (south) and Israel (north). Obviously not a peasant farmer, Amos spoke with great confidence, potency, and authority, as someone used to giving, not receiving, orders. He clearly saw himself as a peer with the leadership of Israel and had no fear of them (7:12–17).
It is important for the modern reader to understand the geography and history of the time of Amos. The united kingdom of Israel of Saul, David, and Solomon had split in two some two hundred years earlier. The Northern Kingdom (ruled from Samaria) retained the name Israel, and the Southern Kingdom (ruled from Jerusalem) went by the name of its most powerful tribe, Judah. Sometimes the prophets referred to both nations together, collectively, as Israel/Jacob, and sometimes the same label meant only the Northern Kingdom. Amos was from the south and prophesied in the north.
The apocryphal (not considered Scripture by Jews or Christians) book Lives of the Prophets suggests that Amos may have been murdered by Northern Kingdom priests and buried in Tekoa. But we are unable to know this with any certainty.
Amos’ command of language is on par with any biblical author, as he expressed himself with exceptionally bold clarity. This suggests not only a high level of education but also the pragmatic wisdom of someone accustomed to leadership and public speaking. No one who heard him could have any doubt about what he was trying to say. Amos wastes no time going for the throat. It is unclear whether Amos spoke these things and others wrote them down or if he both wrote and spoke these words.
The original audience was without a doubt the people and leaders of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Later, during the Babylonian captivity, the rabbis saw the eternal value of the book and included it with other prophetic books, which became known as the Twelve.
Amos is one of the most chillingly relevant books in the Bible. Just because the stock market may be doing well does not mean that our civilization is safe from collapse from within. May your reading of Amos spur you to speak out boldly against injustice and corruption wherever you find them, even if you find them within yourself.
Major Themes
Righteousness. The Hebrew root for “righteousness” is tsaddiq. It is all about uprightness and integrity, living one’s life above reproach both privately and publicly, literally “walking tall.” It is an especially important quality for those who lead a society, whether in religion, politics, or the marketplace. When people lose trust in the leadership of a nation, destruction is around the corner. The lust for power without righteousness leads to the disintegration of the very foundation on which a nation is built.
Justice. Shapat, the Hebrew root for “justice,” is all about judging and discerning with an unusually stubborn pursuit of pure truth, totally free of bias and spin. Amos had an innate gift for sensing when this essential insight was missing. He came down hard on those who perverted justice (5:9–12).
Economic Oppression of the Poor. One powerful expression of the lack of righteousness and justice in Israel in the mid-700s BC was that of economic oppression and exploitation of the poor in the land. The book shows several instances of this throughout: 2:6–7; 3:9; 4:1; 5:11–12; 8:4–6. One specific illustration of this abuse was the practice of making debt-slaves of the poor (2:6). When corruption follows prosperity, the poor are the ones who suffer most. Usury, the practice of charging high interest on financial loans, has been a demon lurking under banking and lending tables since the dawn of time. Our word mortgage (think mortality) comes from the French for “death pledge” or “a pledge until you die.”
Corruption is also a powerful subset of the practice of economic oppression. The marketplace was rigged (8:4–6). The currency was manipulated. Diminishing the buying power of the public through dishonest weights and measures or debasing/inflating the currency is a trick that has been played by those “regulating” the exchange of goods and services since the first marketplaces were established deep in our human past. It has become more sophisticated in our day, but clearly, it is still going on.
True and False Prophecy. “Yahweh says this” is a common phrase in Amos (and much of prophetic literature). The prophets saw themselves as a pipe through which the living water of Yahweh’s word would flow out to the people. In modern usage, the word prophet has deteriorated into “fortune teller.” The original Hebrew word nabiʾ, in contrast, suggests a fountain through which the word of Yahweh springs forth. The prophet spoke a message for his own present time, often with eternal and future implications. Biblical prophets saw themselves, literally, as mouthpieces for the Almighty, speaking to the issues of the day.
However, Amos’ prophecy has clear instances where God condemned the Israelites for the emergence of false prophets—impostors—who claimed to be the mouthpieces of Yahweh but, in fact, were not. They were only concerned with their fabricated messages that reflected their own selfish agendas (2:11–12). A particularly powerful divine indictment and subsequent punishment were leveled against the false prophet and priest Amaziah, who challenged and then dismissed Amos as a voice that could not be taken seriously (7:10–17). In the end, God promised to withdraw his word entirely from his people via a famine of the word of God; that is, there would be no more genuine prophets of Yahweh available to convey divine revelation to his people (8:11–12).
Biblical Hebrew does not have the same past-present-future verbal system used in English. Rather, the two main tenses are complete (perfect) and incomplete (imperfect). The people of ancient Israel did not think of things in terms of a timeline progression, as English speakers do, but rather in terms of being either finished or in process. The beautiful linguistic dance between complete and incomplete was the playing field of the prophets, brought to its highest apex in the book of Isaiah, and sheds light on the words of Jesus, who on the cross spoke forth, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Religious Blending (Syncretism). Israel had recently conquered neighboring peoples and had tolerated or even incorporated the worship of their gods. The technical term for such religious duplicity is syncretism, and Amos contains several references to such idolatrous worship by both Judah and Israel (Amos 2:4; 5:25–26; 8:13–14). There is only one creation and thus one Creator (4:13; 9:5–6), and any diffusion or fragmentation of worship among many gods and their images (idols) leads to cultural confusion, incoherence, decline, and eventual erosion of any society’s foundational principles. These principles were embodied in Israel’s unifying covenant relationship and its high standards, with the one Creator-God, Yahweh, who cannot be represented by any graven image.
The Responsibility of Leaders. With great authority comes great responsibility to care for all people, including the poor. Israel also had a special calling from Yahweh, who brought her out of slavery in Egypt (2:10). With this empowering calling, responsibility increased even more. Neglect of such responsibility, thus, had crushing consequences. It was about these gathering storm clouds of consequence that Amos was warning the people, much as his words warn us today. Examples of flawed and corrupt leadership in Amos include 3:9–10; 4:4–5; 5:7–10, 15; 6:1–8; 7:10–17.
The Day of Yahweh. Most of us who believe in God think, to this day, that the day of Yahweh (5:18) will be a good day for us and perhaps a bad day for people we don’t like. This is what the people of Amos’ day believed, but the prophet issued an alarming woe-oracle against those Israelites who longed for such a day. The Israelites were not as blameless as they thought; the day of Yahweh might not be as good for them as they self-righteously assumed.
However, notwithstanding these observations, this final major section of the book (5:18–9:15) makes it very clear that the day of Yahweh has two distinctive and contrasting sides: it will be a day of judgment and a day of blessing. To be sure, the negative element of judgment—textually speaking—predominates from 5:18 right through 9:10. Then the final verses of the prophecy (9:11–15) constitute the glorious climactic manifestation of that day, where the positive element shines through—namely, the realization and fulfillment of God’s covenant blessing to pardon, renew, and restore the wayward people of Israel to their land. It is a promise that will never fail because such a restoration, initially fulfilled in a literal return to the promised land after exile, will find its ultimate consummation in the eternal kingdom of God. See the final section of the introduction, Seeing Jesus in the Book, for further comments on this theme.
Reading Amos forces us to be watchful for corruption and dishonesty in our own lives and to ask ourselves if we are perpetuating or benefitting from rigged systems of economic or political injustice. If you hire people, are you taking good care of your employees or just getting the most you can out of them while paying them the least you can get away with? Do you market your goods or services to people who can’t afford them, forcing them into a cycle of debt? Do your votes saddle future generations with government debt? Amos was very clear that Yahweh will be balancing the books, and “that day” of reckoning is always just around the corner.
Bethel. Amos focused on Bethel, the symbol of everything that was wrong with the Northern Kingdom spiritually, throughout the book. Bethel was the location of a temple that was a rival counterpart to the one in Jerusalem (Southern Kingdom) and where King Jeroboam II worshiped (7:13). References to the religious blight associated with Bethel are found in 3:14; 4:4; 5:5–6; 7:10–13.
Samaria. Likewise, Amos focused on Samaria, the political capital of the Northern Kingdom, when lambasting the leaders for neglecting righteousness and justice. Relevant references are found in 3:9, 12; 4:1; 6:1.
Seeing Jesus in the Book. The majority of the book of Amos focuses on the indictment of the faithless nation of Israel and her inevitable downfall that will follow as a manifestation of the judgment of the day of Yahweh. However, there is also the inescapable and glorious climax of the coming blessing of the day of Yahweh (9:11–15). It is here that the Christological focus of the prophecy may be found. The climactic blessing of the day of Yahweh is bound up with the consummation of redemption, expressed in the ultimate pardon, renewal, restoration, and manifestation of the everlasting kingdom of God. Such a kingdom embodies both an initial earthly fulfillment and then a heavenly one, expressed via the metaphor of the new heavens and the new earth.
After the hard-hitting and very specific indictment of Israel throughout Amos for her sins and the description of her resulting downfall, why this shockingly sudden turn to blessing and renewal? How can Israel, who has oppressed the poor and harbored injustice, experience the blessing side of the day of Yahweh? For that matter, how can any of us? The key to this final manifestation of the blessing of the day of Yahweh lies in the coming of the Messianic King, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of the world. In other words, Jesus Christ unlocks the doorway to the climactic and eternal fulfillment of the day of Yahweh—if we understand the good news of Jesus, we will understand why and how the day of Yahweh will be fulfilled.
At the heart of the gospel is the redemptive, atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross: a personal substitutionary offering that covered and atoned for the sins of the world, for all those who believe in him, confess their sins, and trust in his redemptive self-sacrifice to obtain that forgiveness, once and for all. No matter how great and iniquitous our sins—both individual and corporate—the blood of Christ cleanses us, and we remain ever pure. Only through Jesus’ redemption of his people can the good promises tied to the day of Yahweh be given to the Israelites in spite of their sins.
The final verses of Amos 9 express this hope in its earthly fulfillment for the people of God—namely, in the promise that God will repair the damage done to the house and lineage of David and restore that kingdom to the people of Israel (v. 11), including those nations over whom David had formerly ruled (v. 12). The promised prosperity, in line with the language of the old covenant associated with literal, economic, and material blessing, guarantees the future of Israel as one of unparalleled affluence (vv. 13–14). The final verse (v. 15) makes explicit the promise that the Israelites will never again be uprooted from the land that God had given to them. Now, the ultimate fulfillment of this promised kingdom renewal is not literal and physical but spiritual and otherworldly. The conclusive expression of the kingdom of God will not be found on this earth but in the glorious environment of the new heavens and the new earth.
Amos
The Prophet of Justice
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Amos Amos: TPT
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The Passion Translation ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಇನ್ನಷ್ಟು ತಿಳಿಯಿರಿAmos Amos
Amos
Introduction
At a Glance
Author: Amos the prophet
Audience: The Northern Kingdom of Israel
Date: Mid-700s BC, during the reigns of Kings Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah
Type of Literature: Prophecy
Major Themes: Righteousness; justice; economic oppression of the poor; true and false prophecy; religious blending (syncretism); the responsibility of leaders; the day of Yahweh; Bethel; Samaria; seeing Jesus in the book
Outline:
I. Superscription: author and setting — 1:1–2
II. Judgment on the nations, including Israel — 1:3–2:16
a. Judgment on three gentile nations — 1:3–10
b. Judgment on three nations related to Israel — 1:11–2:3
c. Judgment on Judah — 2:4–5
d. Judgment on Israel — 2:6–16
i. Israel’s injustice, profane worship, and covenant breaking — 2:6–12
ii. Crushing of a rebellious culture — 2:13–16
III. Oracles against Israel — 3:1–5:17
a. Divine legal indictment against the chosen covenant people — 3:1–15
b. Judgment on an arrogant, unrepentant people — 4:1–13
i. Condemnation of oppressive, upper-class Israelite women — 4:1–3
ii. No repentance after punishments — 4:4–13
c. Judgment on an unjust, oppressive people — 5:1–17
i. Funeral lament — 5:1–3
ii. Exhortation to seek life in God (i) — 5:4–6
iii. Indictment of social, legal, and economic injustices — 5:7–13
iv. Exhortation to seek life in God (ii) — 5:14–15
v. Mourning for the loss of prosperity — 5:16–17
IV. The day of Yahweh: visions of divine judgment and an ultimate blessing — 5:18–9:15
a. A woe-oracle: misplaced hope in the coming day of Yahweh — 5:18–27
b. A woe-oracle: indictment of Israel’s complacent pride — 6:1–14
c. Visions of divine retribution — 7:1–9:10
i. Judgments averted: a swarm of locusts and a devastating fire — 7:1–6
ii. Inevitable judgments: the plumb line, the basket of fruit, Yahweh by the altar — 7:7–9:10
d. The blessing of the day of Yahweh: the restoration of the dynasty of David and the return of Israel to the promised land — 9:11–15
About the Book of Amos
Amos is arguably the most strident and outspoken of the prophetic books. It is classified as a “minor” prophet but only because of the book’s brevity, not as a reflection of the power and timelessness of its message.
This book has eternal significance because every civilization that achieves prosperity runs the risk of losing touch with its foundational principles, ensuring its eventual downfall. As it turns out, Amos was correct in his warnings. A generation after his prophecies, the “ten lost tribes of Israel” were wiped out by the Assyrians, never to be heard from again.
A nation can only endure if it continues to cultivate the values of justice and righteousness, without which its religious activity is a sham.
Spare me the monotonous melodies of your “worship.”
I don’t want to hear your strumming guitars anymore.
It’s just noise to me.
However, I delight in
a land where justice flows like a river
and where true righteousness rolls like a steady flowing stream. (Amos 5:23–24)
Amos would have no respect for those of us religious insiders who perhaps insist that our faith has no place in the public square or the marketplace. It was his very faith that drove him to confront the corrupt leaders of both.
Purpose
Amos saw his vocation as agricultural, not religious, but he felt compelled by God to call the leaders of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to account even though he was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. What emerged is powerful preaching of righteousness and justice in the face of corruption and decadence—both political and spiritual. Peering over the border to the north at Israel, Amos observed a wealthy nation that was overripe and slipping into decadence, losing touch with its own covenant identity, and he intended to do something about it. He left his hometown of Tekoa and embarked on a scorching speaking tour of his neighbor to the north, sending leaders running for cover and asking him to go back home and prophesy there instead.
The initial oracles given to Amos by God concern the surrounding pagan nations as well as Israel and Judah (1:3–2:16), and they effectively enhance the impact of Amos’ central purpose: calling the rebellious nation of Israel to account. This opening passage contains eight powerful indictments and accompanying catastrophic judgments against a succession of godless nations, the final two of which are Judah and Israel. What is significant here is the ethnic, religious, and cultural identity of these nations, considered sequentially, along with the consistently repeated and ominous refrain throughout: “For the three terrible crimes of . . . no, make that four” (1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6).
The first three indictments are leveled against Aram (and her city Damascus), Philistia (and her city Gaza), and Phoenicia (and her city Tyre). These nations were all culturally, ethnically, and religiously pagan, three of the many gentile territories in the geographic vicinity of the covenant people of Israel.
However, the next three nations Amos condemned were Edom, Ammon, and Moab, which may be designated as “family nations” related to Israel. These all originated from the wider family of the patriarchs who received the covenant of promise from Yahweh himself: Edom was founded by the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, father of the twelve sons who formed the tribal nucleus of the nation of Israel (Gen. 25:19–34; 27; 32–33). The nations of Ammon and Moab were founded, respectively, by the descendants of the two sons of Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham. Ammon (also known as Ben-Ammi) and Moab were born to the two daughters of Lot as the result of an incestuous union with their father (Gen. 19:30–38). The final two nations to be indicted were Judah and Israel. And the most detailed condemnation by far was reserved for Israel (Amos 2:6–16).
The ordering of the successive condemnation of all these nations is significant. Amos’ original audience would have been well aware that the condemnation began with rank “outsiders,” the pagan gentile nations of Aram, Philistia, and Phoenicia. Then, as the indictments of Edom, Ammon, and Moab followed, the Israelite audience would have begun to feel uncomfortable since these nations had “blood connections” with the covenant people of God. Then the final manifestation of divine judgment fell upon them—first of all Judah, then Israel. It is hard to see how this approach could have been the result of anything other than deliberate intent or purpose.
What follows in the prophecy, right up until almost the very end, is a devastating series of judgment oracles designed to expose the very core of Israel’s rebellion against their covenant God, Yahweh, resulting in a terrifying sequence of punishments that functioned essentially as covenant curses. It is, in fact, only right at the end of Amos’ prophecy (9:11–15) that God reveals his ultimate promise of forgiveness, renewal, and restoration for his wayward people.
Amos highlights Yahweh’s goodness as a God of righteousness and justice alongside his resultant judgment—judgment that has no favorites. He does not pass over those who think they are safe as religious “insiders” and yet persist in practicing oppression and injustice.
The Lion still roars from Zion (1:2), but that “roar” will ultimately be replaced by a gentle yet powerful expression of divine compassion, mercy, and forgiveness directed toward the people of God. Eventually, the undying, eternal fulfillment of God’s covenant promises will be realized.
Author and Audience
Amos called himself a sheep breeder and fig dresser from the town of Tekoa, near the border between Judah (south) and Israel (north). Obviously not a peasant farmer, Amos spoke with great confidence, potency, and authority, as someone used to giving, not receiving, orders. He clearly saw himself as a peer with the leadership of Israel and had no fear of them (7:12–17).
It is important for the modern reader to understand the geography and history of the time of Amos. The united kingdom of Israel of Saul, David, and Solomon had split in two some two hundred years earlier. The Northern Kingdom (ruled from Samaria) retained the name Israel, and the Southern Kingdom (ruled from Jerusalem) went by the name of its most powerful tribe, Judah. Sometimes the prophets referred to both nations together, collectively, as Israel/Jacob, and sometimes the same label meant only the Northern Kingdom. Amos was from the south and prophesied in the north.
The apocryphal (not considered Scripture by Jews or Christians) book Lives of the Prophets suggests that Amos may have been murdered by Northern Kingdom priests and buried in Tekoa. But we are unable to know this with any certainty.
Amos’ command of language is on par with any biblical author, as he expressed himself with exceptionally bold clarity. This suggests not only a high level of education but also the pragmatic wisdom of someone accustomed to leadership and public speaking. No one who heard him could have any doubt about what he was trying to say. Amos wastes no time going for the throat. It is unclear whether Amos spoke these things and others wrote them down or if he both wrote and spoke these words.
The original audience was without a doubt the people and leaders of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Later, during the Babylonian captivity, the rabbis saw the eternal value of the book and included it with other prophetic books, which became known as the Twelve.
Amos is one of the most chillingly relevant books in the Bible. Just because the stock market may be doing well does not mean that our civilization is safe from collapse from within. May your reading of Amos spur you to speak out boldly against injustice and corruption wherever you find them, even if you find them within yourself.
Major Themes
Righteousness. The Hebrew root for “righteousness” is tsaddiq. It is all about uprightness and integrity, living one’s life above reproach both privately and publicly, literally “walking tall.” It is an especially important quality for those who lead a society, whether in religion, politics, or the marketplace. When people lose trust in the leadership of a nation, destruction is around the corner. The lust for power without righteousness leads to the disintegration of the very foundation on which a nation is built.
Justice. Shapat, the Hebrew root for “justice,” is all about judging and discerning with an unusually stubborn pursuit of pure truth, totally free of bias and spin. Amos had an innate gift for sensing when this essential insight was missing. He came down hard on those who perverted justice (5:9–12).
Economic Oppression of the Poor. One powerful expression of the lack of righteousness and justice in Israel in the mid-700s BC was that of economic oppression and exploitation of the poor in the land. The book shows several instances of this throughout: 2:6–7; 3:9; 4:1; 5:11–12; 8:4–6. One specific illustration of this abuse was the practice of making debt-slaves of the poor (2:6). When corruption follows prosperity, the poor are the ones who suffer most. Usury, the practice of charging high interest on financial loans, has been a demon lurking under banking and lending tables since the dawn of time. Our word mortgage (think mortality) comes from the French for “death pledge” or “a pledge until you die.”
Corruption is also a powerful subset of the practice of economic oppression. The marketplace was rigged (8:4–6). The currency was manipulated. Diminishing the buying power of the public through dishonest weights and measures or debasing/inflating the currency is a trick that has been played by those “regulating” the exchange of goods and services since the first marketplaces were established deep in our human past. It has become more sophisticated in our day, but clearly, it is still going on.
True and False Prophecy. “Yahweh says this” is a common phrase in Amos (and much of prophetic literature). The prophets saw themselves as a pipe through which the living water of Yahweh’s word would flow out to the people. In modern usage, the word prophet has deteriorated into “fortune teller.” The original Hebrew word nabiʾ, in contrast, suggests a fountain through which the word of Yahweh springs forth. The prophet spoke a message for his own present time, often with eternal and future implications. Biblical prophets saw themselves, literally, as mouthpieces for the Almighty, speaking to the issues of the day.
However, Amos’ prophecy has clear instances where God condemned the Israelites for the emergence of false prophets—impostors—who claimed to be the mouthpieces of Yahweh but, in fact, were not. They were only concerned with their fabricated messages that reflected their own selfish agendas (2:11–12). A particularly powerful divine indictment and subsequent punishment were leveled against the false prophet and priest Amaziah, who challenged and then dismissed Amos as a voice that could not be taken seriously (7:10–17). In the end, God promised to withdraw his word entirely from his people via a famine of the word of God; that is, there would be no more genuine prophets of Yahweh available to convey divine revelation to his people (8:11–12).
Biblical Hebrew does not have the same past-present-future verbal system used in English. Rather, the two main tenses are complete (perfect) and incomplete (imperfect). The people of ancient Israel did not think of things in terms of a timeline progression, as English speakers do, but rather in terms of being either finished or in process. The beautiful linguistic dance between complete and incomplete was the playing field of the prophets, brought to its highest apex in the book of Isaiah, and sheds light on the words of Jesus, who on the cross spoke forth, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Religious Blending (Syncretism). Israel had recently conquered neighboring peoples and had tolerated or even incorporated the worship of their gods. The technical term for such religious duplicity is syncretism, and Amos contains several references to such idolatrous worship by both Judah and Israel (Amos 2:4; 5:25–26; 8:13–14). There is only one creation and thus one Creator (4:13; 9:5–6), and any diffusion or fragmentation of worship among many gods and their images (idols) leads to cultural confusion, incoherence, decline, and eventual erosion of any society’s foundational principles. These principles were embodied in Israel’s unifying covenant relationship and its high standards, with the one Creator-God, Yahweh, who cannot be represented by any graven image.
The Responsibility of Leaders. With great authority comes great responsibility to care for all people, including the poor. Israel also had a special calling from Yahweh, who brought her out of slavery in Egypt (2:10). With this empowering calling, responsibility increased even more. Neglect of such responsibility, thus, had crushing consequences. It was about these gathering storm clouds of consequence that Amos was warning the people, much as his words warn us today. Examples of flawed and corrupt leadership in Amos include 3:9–10; 4:4–5; 5:7–10, 15; 6:1–8; 7:10–17.
The Day of Yahweh. Most of us who believe in God think, to this day, that the day of Yahweh (5:18) will be a good day for us and perhaps a bad day for people we don’t like. This is what the people of Amos’ day believed, but the prophet issued an alarming woe-oracle against those Israelites who longed for such a day. The Israelites were not as blameless as they thought; the day of Yahweh might not be as good for them as they self-righteously assumed.
However, notwithstanding these observations, this final major section of the book (5:18–9:15) makes it very clear that the day of Yahweh has two distinctive and contrasting sides: it will be a day of judgment and a day of blessing. To be sure, the negative element of judgment—textually speaking—predominates from 5:18 right through 9:10. Then the final verses of the prophecy (9:11–15) constitute the glorious climactic manifestation of that day, where the positive element shines through—namely, the realization and fulfillment of God’s covenant blessing to pardon, renew, and restore the wayward people of Israel to their land. It is a promise that will never fail because such a restoration, initially fulfilled in a literal return to the promised land after exile, will find its ultimate consummation in the eternal kingdom of God. See the final section of the introduction, Seeing Jesus in the Book, for further comments on this theme.
Reading Amos forces us to be watchful for corruption and dishonesty in our own lives and to ask ourselves if we are perpetuating or benefitting from rigged systems of economic or political injustice. If you hire people, are you taking good care of your employees or just getting the most you can out of them while paying them the least you can get away with? Do you market your goods or services to people who can’t afford them, forcing them into a cycle of debt? Do your votes saddle future generations with government debt? Amos was very clear that Yahweh will be balancing the books, and “that day” of reckoning is always just around the corner.
Bethel. Amos focused on Bethel, the symbol of everything that was wrong with the Northern Kingdom spiritually, throughout the book. Bethel was the location of a temple that was a rival counterpart to the one in Jerusalem (Southern Kingdom) and where King Jeroboam II worshiped (7:13). References to the religious blight associated with Bethel are found in 3:14; 4:4; 5:5–6; 7:10–13.
Samaria. Likewise, Amos focused on Samaria, the political capital of the Northern Kingdom, when lambasting the leaders for neglecting righteousness and justice. Relevant references are found in 3:9, 12; 4:1; 6:1.
Seeing Jesus in the Book. The majority of the book of Amos focuses on the indictment of the faithless nation of Israel and her inevitable downfall that will follow as a manifestation of the judgment of the day of Yahweh. However, there is also the inescapable and glorious climax of the coming blessing of the day of Yahweh (9:11–15). It is here that the Christological focus of the prophecy may be found. The climactic blessing of the day of Yahweh is bound up with the consummation of redemption, expressed in the ultimate pardon, renewal, restoration, and manifestation of the everlasting kingdom of God. Such a kingdom embodies both an initial earthly fulfillment and then a heavenly one, expressed via the metaphor of the new heavens and the new earth.
After the hard-hitting and very specific indictment of Israel throughout Amos for her sins and the description of her resulting downfall, why this shockingly sudden turn to blessing and renewal? How can Israel, who has oppressed the poor and harbored injustice, experience the blessing side of the day of Yahweh? For that matter, how can any of us? The key to this final manifestation of the blessing of the day of Yahweh lies in the coming of the Messianic King, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of the world. In other words, Jesus Christ unlocks the doorway to the climactic and eternal fulfillment of the day of Yahweh—if we understand the good news of Jesus, we will understand why and how the day of Yahweh will be fulfilled.
At the heart of the gospel is the redemptive, atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross: a personal substitutionary offering that covered and atoned for the sins of the world, for all those who believe in him, confess their sins, and trust in his redemptive self-sacrifice to obtain that forgiveness, once and for all. No matter how great and iniquitous our sins—both individual and corporate—the blood of Christ cleanses us, and we remain ever pure. Only through Jesus’ redemption of his people can the good promises tied to the day of Yahweh be given to the Israelites in spite of their sins.
The final verses of Amos 9 express this hope in its earthly fulfillment for the people of God—namely, in the promise that God will repair the damage done to the house and lineage of David and restore that kingdom to the people of Israel (v. 11), including those nations over whom David had formerly ruled (v. 12). The promised prosperity, in line with the language of the old covenant associated with literal, economic, and material blessing, guarantees the future of Israel as one of unparalleled affluence (vv. 13–14). The final verse (v. 15) makes explicit the promise that the Israelites will never again be uprooted from the land that God had given to them. Now, the ultimate fulfillment of this promised kingdom renewal is not literal and physical but spiritual and otherworldly. The conclusive expression of the kingdom of God will not be found on this earth but in the glorious environment of the new heavens and the new earth.
Amos
The Prophet of Justice
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