In the last unit we have looked at some of the main themes of Amos. In this unit we will look at other themes in Amos, and how they are connected. We will also look at Amos’ prophecy of hope at the end of his book.
Other themes in Amos
Repeated Theme in Amos: Sexual Immorality
Instruction
Read Amos 2:7-8 and think about the following questions:
- What kind of sexual immorality is described here?
- How is sexual immorality linked to idolatrous worship?
- How is sexual immorality linked to mistreatment of the poor?
- How is sexual immorality linked to empty religiosity?
Thoughts to consider
Amos 2:7-8 “Father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge.”
- What kind of sexual immorality is described here? What is described are sexual relations which are either the use of prostitutes, or sexual abuse of a vulnerable person, likely a minor, possibly a minor domestic worker. It is also repulsive on the grounds of both a father and a son sleeping with the same girl, of this being condoned, having become family culture, with no shame operating any more. “Lay themselves down beside every altar” also implies acts like this being committed in the context of ritual prostitution at pagan temples.
- How is immorality linked to idolatrous worship? Often nature, fertility or idol worship is associated with ritual prostitution. This was common in the Canaanite Baal and Astarte cults. There were temple prostitutes at the shrines, and sexual relations with these temple prostitutes was part of the idolatrous ceremonies. Sexual acts were considered worship of the deity and helping to bring about the desired fertility of the land. Exploitation of women for this sordid cults was a given. Lev 19:29 prohibits selling a daughter into sexual slavery of this or other kind. The presence of a law like that gives insight into the practice. Girls from dysfunctional or poor families would have been particularly at risk to be sold, used of trafficked in this way.
- So how is immorality linked to power, dominion and mistreating the weak? Whether in idolatrous practices, in abusive families (see the laws in Lev 18:5-21, forbidding sexual relations with family members), in sexual abuse of domestic workers or straight out rape in other situations, always the women and especially girls of poor families find themselves at particular risk. Most often the poor cannot afford to take legal action against a more powerful perpetrator, whether for fear of persecution, lack of money or lack of connections. This inability to protect the women leads to more impunity and carelessness on the side of perpetrators or the powerful in general.
- How is immorality linked to empty religiosity? If religiosity means outward adherence to ritual acts (sacrifices, feasts), then the heart is not addressed, my sinful tendencies are not condemned, conviction is not encouraged but rather stifled. It leads to self-righteousness (“see, I do a lot!”) or a ‘the gods can be bribed by sacrifices’ mentality. If I separate personal morality from religious practice, I have opened the door to religiously sanctioned evil acts.
Repeated Theme in Amos: Profaning and Misinterpreting God and his Law / False Religiosity
Instruction
Read the passages below and think about the following questions:
- What exactly does Amos blame Israel for in each passage?
- How does the false religiosity of Israel show in each passage?
- How does Amos use irony – or else powerful statements – to get across his point?
- Amos 2:8 “They lay themselves down beside every altar.”
- Amos 2:12 “But you made the nazirites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, you shall not prophesy.”
- Amos 4:4-5 “Come to Bethel and transgress, to Gilgal – and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; bring a thank offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!”
- Amos 5:5 “Do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beer-sheba.”
- Amos 5:21-24 “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”
Findings
- Amos 2:8-9 implies idolatry, sexual immorality or temple prostitution combined with harshness to the poor who can’t pay back and have their things taken in pledge (Deut 24:10-13).
- Amos 2:12 According to the Law of Moses a person could choose to take a nazirite vow, a time of willing self-consecration, where eating grapes or drinking wine was prohibited (Num 6:1-4). To make the nazirite drink wine is utter disrespect for the commitment or obedience of another, a (likely) jealous spite which has me look down on any true devotion.
- Amos 4:4-5, 5:5 These verses drip with irony, Amos hitting at the false religiosity of Israel. But there is a very important message, too: Bethel’s calf-cult is sin, even if it is claimed that its sacrifices are for “God”. None of this honors God. What was going on in Gilgal and Beer-sheba? The Bible doesn’t further explain, but it seems these also were places where idolatrous shrines had sprung up. It is noteworthy that once the tabernacle of God camped for several years at Gilgal (Jos 5:10). Maybe that place was thought to have a prolonged spiritual significance and so became a shrine of some sort. Same with Amos 5:5.
- Amos 5:21-24 In these emotional and extremely powerful verses Amos spits out God’s frustration at Israel’s hollow religiosity. No amount of pious acts or ceremonies can cover for injustice and disdain for the poor. These are very strong words against everything fake, against forms without content, against the outward without inward conviction, against pleasing without pure motives, against the combining of things that never belong together: the name of God and careless injustice. The opposite is like fresh air “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
- This theme is equally a sore challenge for us half-hearted believers today, calling us to a no compromise with evil and injustice.
Repeated Theme in Amos: Self-sufficiency and false security
Instruction
Consider the following passages and try to understand what exactly triggers God’s anger:
- Amos 2:13-16, 6:13 “Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?”
- Amos 6:8 “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds.”
- Amos 9:10 “All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, Evil shall not overtake of meet us.”
Thoughts to consider
- Israel’s assurance in their own power, their strongholds, the pride in thinking oneself so secure is both false and stupid.
- Jeroboam II’s political success truly has fooled Israel into thinking itself safe.
- This is the exact opposite of what God would want: fear of God, to walking in relationship with a holy God, depending on him, open to his correction.
- We worship the wrong things, we take identify from the wrong things, we find security in the wrong things.
Repeated Theme in Amos: Loss of distinctiveness
Instruction
Consider the following verses and try to understand the reason for God’s frustration expressed in these verses. Think how this contrasts to Israel’s calling (Exo 19:4-6). How is trying to smash Israel’s sense of superiority in the second verse?
- Amos 3:9 “Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves on Mount Samaria, and see what great tumults are within it, and what oppressions are in its midst.”
- Amos 9:7 “Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the LORD. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? The eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth – except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the LORD.”
Thoughts to consider
- Amos 3:9 is God inviting surrounding heathen nations to see the utter shame and unrighteousness of Israel, – hardly a compliment.
- It is even worse when thinking back to Israel’s calling to be a “light to the nations”, a nation so under God that is would attract other nations to this God (Exo 19:4-6, Deut 4:5-6).
- How utterly has Israel failed!
- Amos 9:7 Amos now shakes up Israel’s false security in being the chosen nation and the object of God’s favor.
- Amos tells them that they are no longer different from the Ethiopians (a country far away).
- What God has done for Israel (bringing them out of Egypt), he equally did for the heathen Philistines and Arameans, both traditional enemies of Israel.
- Amos slashes at any sense of ‘chosenness’ Israel still might have.
- There is a seriousness that comes with these theme, a fear of God.
- Callings can be lost, promises can be taken back. Moments can be missed.
- Humility, gratefulness for God’s favor and a sense of responsibility to put things to work is what saves us.
Repeated Theme in Amos: Hating Truth
Instruction
It is easy to pity Israel and think that they may not have known or understood. Amos is crystal clear that this is not the case. Read the verses below and think about the relationship between knowing truth and human will:
- Amos 5:10 “They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.”
- Amos 2:12 “But you made the Nazirites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, “You shall not prophesy.”
- Amos 7:12-13 “And Amaziah (‘High priest’) said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it it a temple of the kingdom.”
- Amos 8:11-14 “famine for hearing the words of the LORD … they shall run to and fro, seeking the world of the LORD, but they shall not find it.”
Findings
- Israel in general and the spiritual leaders in particular are rejecting what they don’t want to hear, reject the truth, reject the message – so their corrupt and idolatrous ways are not challenged.
- Amaziah, the ‘high priest’ of Bethel in a patronizing way threatens and belittles Amos.
- Continual rejection of truth leads to a hard heart, it eventually reaches a point of no return, like in the Pharaoh of Moses’ time.
- In the end, this leads to an inability to hear the word of God, a ‘famine’, without people finding the word anymore.
- The only safe way to live is by continuously respond to the conviction of God in our hearts.
- Do not ignore the voice of conscience! Do not be slow to respond! Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19)!
Repeated Theme in Amos: Prediction of exile
Instruction
Read the following passages. Try to remember the history of Israel after Jeroboam II. What do you think is the need for the repetition of this theme? What is the grace in hammering home a destruction prophecy?
- Amos 4:2-3 “God has sworn: … the time is surely coming upon you, when they shall be take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. Through breaches in the wall you shall leave, each one straight ahead; and you shall be flung out into Harmon.”
- Amos 5:5 “for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.”
- Amos 5:6 “the LORD … will break out against the Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.”
- Amos 5:16-17 “in all squares there shall be wailing … they shall call the farmers to mourning … in all the vineyards there shall we wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you.”
- Amos 5:27 “I will take you to exile beyond Damascus.”
- Amos 6:7 (the rich) “shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.”
- Amos 6:14 “I am raising up against you a nation … they shall oppress you from Lebo-Hamath to the Wadi Arabah.”
- Amos 9:1-4 “Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left I will kill with the sward; not one of them shall flee away … escape. Though they hide … and though they go into captivity in front of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes on them for harm and not for good.”
Findings
- God is hammering home the reality of where Israel’s choices will end up: destruction as a country and exile for the surviving population.
- Together with Hosea Amos is God’s final call to Israel.
- In another 30 years the nation will be gone. Hosea woos them with a heart-rending description of God’s love, Amos bites them with searing and convicting irony, smashing all false security.
- Since Israel is so hardened, the repetition seems to be needed. God is trying to make Israel pay attention.
How are these prophecies fulfilled?
- 740-732 BC “In the days of Pekah” Assyria (King Tiglath-Pileser) captures many cities in Galilee, all land of Naphtali and exiles their population (2 Kin 15:29-31). King Hosea of Israel becomes Assyria’s vassal.
- 725 BC Assyria (King Shalmaneser) besieges Samaria.
- 722 BC Assyria (King Sargon II) conquers and destroys Samaria, exiling all remaining Israel (2 Kin 17:5-6). Israel never returns to its land. The people lose their identity and get absorbed into other nation.
Repeated theme in Amos: Call for repentance – or: there still is hope
Instruction
Read the passages below and ask yourself: What is the significance of God calling to repentance?
- Amos 5:4 “Seek me and live; but to not seek Bethel.”
- Amos 5:6 “Seek the LORD and live, or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.”
- Amos 5:14 “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
- Amos 5:24 “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”
Findings
- Amos calls with great urgency and great seriousness for repentance.
- Only a fool or a prophet would have dared to speak out like this – and a both were esteemed about the same in the mind of the ruling class.
- The significance of this is that God is still calling out, still wanting to forgive, still wanting to change his mind on the basis of their repentance.
- A call to repentance means that repentance is still possible. It seems that even that conquest of 732 BC might have been God calling on Israel, letting them know that the conquest and exile is real and coming, giving them one more chance to repent.
- Maybe Amos’ words in Amos 9:9-10 “I will shake Israel among all the nations … All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword” contain hope for those who do not sin.
- The prophecy fulfils: 30 to 40 years after Amos’ message, that is in 722 BC the northern kingdom of Israel is no more.
- We don’t know whether and how many repented personally.
- It could also be that Amos’ message, and maybe the 732 BC invasion together convinced people with faith to escape to Judah.
- Maybe that is why Amos says in Amos 9:11 “I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen”, the restoration is not promised to Israel, but to Judah.
- We do not know whether indeed any faithful in Israel moved to Judah and escaped the total destruction of the country.
- But we know that similar migrations happened twice in history before (during Rehoboam’s three good years, 2 Chr 11:13 and during Asa, 2 Chr 15:8) and later Hezekiah (2 Chr 30:11) will reach out to the area of Israel again.
Repeated theme in Amos: Day of the Lord
Instruction
Read the following passage and think about how Israel seems to have viewed the “day of the LORD” and how Amos is telling them to think instead.
Amos 5:18-20 “Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD. Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”
Findings
- It seems that Israel was looking forward to the day of the LORD as the day God will judge their enemies and restore them to prominence.
- Amos gives a very different perspective: any one who sins, who commits injustice, who is flippant should fear the day of the LORD. This shows again just how much false security there was in people’s thinking.
Repeated theme in Amos: Intercession
Instruction
Read Amos 7:1-9. Think about the following questions:
- What are the visions Amos sees and how does he respond to each vision?
- How would Israel have felt about Amos’ words “How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
- Why do you think Amos no longer intercedes after the third vision? Do you think he should have continued?
Findings
- Amos first sees God making locusts, then God calling down a shower of fire, then holding a plumb line to a crooked wall.
- All three are clearly visions of judgment, locusts being a partial judgment according to Deu 28:38 and fire being a general metaphor for destruction.
- The vision of a plumb line being held to a wall also is a picture of evaluation and judgment.
- Amos’ emotional reaction “O Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” is not something proud Israel would want to hear.
- They think themselves far more powerful than that.
- Amos successfully intercedes the first two times and God listens to him and relents.
- But when Amos sees the plumb line he becomes silent.
- Some say he should have continued to entreat God.
- Maybe. But I think more than that he falls silent because in the face of the crooked state of Israel, with all injustice going on, he realizes that God’s judgment is more than justified, it is even needed.
- Once a nation becomes so unjust, to let it keep running is the greater injustice than to stop it. Amos cannot but agree with God.
- Sometimes also as modern Christians we are almost blaming God in intercession: ‘why don’t you do anything for us poor humans?’
- This is neither true intercession nor did we understand God.
- He doesn’t need to be convinced to be merciful, He is merciful.
- If at all he can find half an inch of legal grounds to grant grace, he will.
- Not self-pity, but rather understanding for God should mark our prayers.
Amos’ message of future salvation
Instruction
Read Amos 9:11-15. Think about the following questions:
- For whom exactly is the restoration?
- Amos describes God’s blessing in very practical, economic terms. Does this surprise you after his many words to challenge the rich?
- Is economic prosperity a good thing? What would you say is the problem with it?
Findings
- Amos pronounces (or later writes) a prophecy of hope, not so much for Israel as a nation (which is never restored), but for those individuals, of that remnant who have faith and will move to Judah. He also writes for Judah as a nation, that they also will be exiled eventually, but there will be a return from exile.
- This return and restoration will have a messianic dimension, meaning it will only be fully fulfilled through the Messiah.
- As noted before in Amos 9:11 it is the “booth of David” that will be repaired and raised up, not a divided kingdom at war with each other (Israel-Judah).
- In Amos 9:12 the purpose of this restoration is to “possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, says the LORD who does this”.
- How do we understand this passage? Does this refer to a political dominion of the Jews over Edom and other nations at a later date?
- This verse also implies that there will be a remnant of Edom and of all nations will be called by God’s name.
- So this is not a victory of Jews over non-Jews, it is some of the non-Jews who will be called by God’s name being subsumed into God’s nation.
- This interpretation is confirmed by the way this passage is quoted in Acts 15:16-17 during the Jerusalem council.
- So here the New Testament gives us the interpretation of this OT passage: In quoting this Amos passage the apostles understand that the Gentiles were meant to be part of the restoration, part of the messianic kingdom, co-inheritors of God’s salvation.
- They will be non-Jews would be also called by God’s name.
- In Amos 9:13-15 we find a very physical, agricultural and economic restoration prophesied by Amos. God’s blessing is eloquently expressed in very physical terms.
- This seems to be a stark contrast to Amos’ denouncing of the rich. Is Amos not anti-prosperity?
- Well not really. Amos was not anti-prosperity, he was anti-injustice. Spiritual well-being is invariably linked with physical well-being throughout the Bible.
- According to the Law of Moses physical well-being is a true fruit of godliness.
- Riches can be earned properly, righteously, wisely. It is riches through injustice and corruption God condemns.
- Notice also that with all the blessing, people are working (planting, sowing, reaping, …) which is in contrast to the laziness, extreme luxury and oppression of the rich in Amos 6:1-6.
- The restoration is a description of a society working hard, being fruitful, protected by justice and at peace.