Ripe For Judgment
Notes
Transcript
This is the fourth of five visions the LORD has shown Amos recorded in chapters 7-9.
Summer fruit, the end result of the year’s work, was anticipated from early spring. A bowl of summer fruit would be welcomed for a guest in home or tent. It would be tasty, refreshing and much anticipated.
In this vision Amos has received, it is finally here… but it is not what the people would expect.
1. The Visual of Israel’s Ripeness for Judgment, 1-3.
1. The Visual of Israel’s Ripeness for Judgment, 1-3.
When the LORD asks Amos what he sees, He is turning what would be a reason for celebrating into a reason for fear.
(8:2) The LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel. I will spare them no longer.”
Harvest time is a time for celebration. The fruit of the harvest is ripe. The Feast of Tabernacles is a reminder and a celebration of God’s faithfulness and provision for His people through their wilderness wanderings. It was a period to look back in gratitude for past deliverances and provision but also to look to the future and seek God’s blessings for the year to come. It was like our New Year’s Day — a time of looking back and looking forward.
This year, Amos writes, will be different. The basket of summer fruit is overly-ripe; it pictures the people ripe for judgment. The LORD has waited for them to repent and return to Him, but they have not and now their ‘basket’ of iniquity is full. As the LORD said in Amos 7:8, he says again in verse 2—God would ‘spare them no longer.’
There is no longer any suggestion of escape from punishment if or when they repented. It was too late for that. They would soon be taken into exile.
What would it be like on ‘that day’?
Songs in the Temple would turn from songs of celebration to tunes of wailing.
The land will quake (8:8).
The sun will set at noon; the earth will be dark at the time of bright daylight (8:9).
The feasts will be turned into mourning, singing into deep lamentation (8:10).
The effect of the invading forces is graphically depicted here as ‘many corpses,’ which will be disrespected by these forces, ‘in every place … cast forth’ with no one to mourn them: ‘in silence.” This is a glimpse of the awful horror of God’s judgment against sinners.
How do the people react to God’s message through Amos?
2. The Illustration of Israel’s Ripeness for Judgment, 4-6.
2. The Illustration of Israel’s Ripeness for Judgment, 4-6.
Impatience, especially seen in the desires of the rich people, whose great desire was not for the things of God, but for continuing growth in riches.
They did not enjoy the religious feasts, which were to benefit everyone. The words of their heart revealed their impatience to get back to their shady dealings in the grain market. They took delight not just in their profits but in the ways they swindled the poor and needy.
They made the bushels smaller for bigger profits.
They used dishonest scales to cheat the helpless and the needy.
They would even sell that which was only fit for the garbage heap.
All of this done under the pretense of holiness.
They may think that they are sly and their works are not known, but they fool themselves, just as every sinner does. But we are not fooling the only One who counts...
3. The Impact of God’s Judgment on Ripe Israel, 7-10.
3. The Impact of God’s Judgment on Ripe Israel, 7-10.
“The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob...” The LORD now swears an oath once again. In 4:2 He had sworn by His holiness and in 6:8 by Himself, but here He swears by “the Pride of Jacob.” In Psalm 47:4 and Isaiah 58:14, the pride of Jacob refers to the inheritance of the people (their land) but this passage does not refer to the land, so it must be a title for God Himself. As God never changes, the people of Israel could be assured that His word would never fail. God says, “I will never forget any of their deeds.” Although they were God’s chosen people, they had forfeited their privilege by refusing to reform their ways.
The judgments destined for Israel were dramatic, seen in the list of contrasting physical features described in these verses. The words of God through Amos were not to be ignored.
In disregarding His laws, God’s anger would be experienced. This is why the land will quake and all who dwell on it will mourn. This is explained in the latter part of verse 8, where everything will “rise up,” be “tossed about,” and “subside like the Nile of Egypt.” The Nile flooded every year like clockwork. According to the Holman Bible Atlas, it rose on average seven or eight meters (roughly 22.5 to 26 feet), and then receded. This description of the Nile is compared here to the earth—to an earthquake which would cause great upheaval and lead to mourning. This may be the very earthquake alluded to in the introduction to Amos in verse 1. These words of Amos were spoken two years before the earthquake mentioned in 1:1 marking the events, and as such was likely a major earthquake, just as Amos describes it here.
Verse 9 depicts a solar eclipse. When we hear of a solar eclipse, we seek to find ways to observe it safely. Some will even drive hundreds of miles to experience. People of the ANE would have called us nuts. A solar eclipse was understood as a bad omen, and its description of the judgment would have instilled fear and dread in them.
Every reason the people would have to celebrate and rejoice will be done away. Festivals and songs would turn into mournings and lamentations, ominously suggesting widespread death.
It is the LORD who will cause the people to put on sackcloth. He will bring baldness on every head, a “baldness” which in the prophetic books is more distinctly a sign of “the mourner’s separation from the community.” How they shaved themselves bald is not known. It could be a reference to men shaving their beard, or it could refer to men and women shaving their head as an act of mourning.
Verse 10 gives us the last description of the acts of mourning, where the LORD “will make it like a time of mourning for an only son.” the mourning over an only child would have been intense with grief. The culture of the ANE held having children—and especially sons—as vital for one’s survival. Losing an only son would have been devastating.
In these verses, the level of grief and mourning expands. At the beginning one mourns and laments, increasing to sackcloth added and then baldness. Even more intense, their mourning is described as though they have lost their only child, and finally ends with “that day” described as bitter.
4. The Lord’s Silence in His Judgment, 11-14.
4. The Lord’s Silence in His Judgment, 11-14.
The day that Amos describes begins with the participle “Behold,” which in the Hebrew indicates that the coming day is arriving soon.
The declaration of the LORD is another of judgment, but turning from the physical to spiritual. A famine was one of the Judgment God would bring upon His covenant people, to turn them back to Himself; however, that time is past for Israel. This famine is not physical but spiritual. Now Israel has gone through periods of “drought” from the LORD’s word;
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent.
“For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law.
This description of the magnitude of this famine goes beyond anything Israel had previously experienced.
The verb translated “hearing” is how the Hebrew word is usually understood. Depending on the context, this word can also mean obeying; as in
“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are observed. So they do not drink wine to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again; yet you have not listened to Me.
In these verses, it is translated as simply hearing ...
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
“Now if You slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,
We do not see our signs; There is no longer any prophet, Nor is there any among us who knows how long.
Verse 12 describes this famine of the Word of the LORD as being so severe that people will desperately seek it. That they are doing so implies that now that they are willing to obey the word of the LORD, they do not hear it. The powerful imagery here depicts the people as though they are stranded in a desert desperately seeking water, staggering from sea to sea. The Mediterranean Sea is to their west, the Red Sea is to their south. But then they also stagger from north to east, so they go every direction, seeking but not finding.
But what does the Mosaic Covenant promise?
“But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.
And this is reiterated in Jer 29:13
‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
So when Amos says they will not be able to find the word of the LORD is disheartening. We must understand the context of Amos to understand the discrepancy. This lack of finding is only specified as occuring in the days of judgment (vv. 11a, 13a). This is a part of the LORD’s judgment, a period of time during which the LORD’s word will be silent. He will not speak to the people. Those who return to Him have the hope that still remains that they will have His word again. But the oracle is the LORD’s accusation against people who have not sought Him.
The fainting described here is the same type of fainting Jonah faces when he endures a scorching sun and east wind. Young men and women represent the future of the nation, hope, vitality, and strength. To lose these would be considered a great travesty for the nation.
Those who have not sought the LORD are describe in our last verse by illustrating how they swear an oath. The LORD swears an oath at the beginning of the judgment section. He swears the truth of His words on their sinful arrogance. Here in verse 14 there is no actual oath provided but there is a simple reference to how the Israelites swear.
They swear “by the guilt of Samaria.” This could be a general reference to all their guilt. Since the Israelites do not think themselves guilty, this may best be read as a sarcastic statement from Amos about their sin. They have chosen to forsake true worship of the LORD, going through the obligations of the law without a heart to love and serve Him. They have chosen to worship other gods, who are not God. No matter if Israel swore, claiming they loyally worshipped the Lord throughout the land from the extreme north to the extreme south, what they swear would not relieve the famine of God’s word.
Does this text we look at today make you uncomfortable? Today, such judgment-heavy portions of the OT are often met with unease because they are so unpleasant. This oracle, though, clearly reveals a part of who the LORD is — a God of judgment. He is holy, and sin must be punished.
For those who are a part of the new covenant do not need fear the type of judgment described in this covenant lawsuit. But we do need to realize that the God described in these verses is the same God who established the new covenant. Our LORD is a holy God, and he demands judgment. When we only focus on the love-and-mercy part of His character, we are often lulled into a sense of complacency. The more we understand that LORD is a God of judgment, the more we will be compelled to follow his commands to share the gospel with those who will otherwise face His judgment.