Amos

by Martin Archibald, Glasgow | Category: Profiles Of The Prophets | Oct 1978

The Herdman of Tekoa

The Book of Amos has an important place in 'The Book of the Twelve Prophets', as the first in composition and as an outstanding example of literary skill. Yet the author is introduced in chapter 1 not as a professional prophet or writer, but as a herdsman or sheep-farmer, the man who marked the sheep, and so was either a responsible tender or the owner. In chapter 7 he is described as cattle-tender and sycamore-grower. The absence of the usual word for shepherd, the 'pasturer' of Isaiah 40:11, and Amos's freedom to travel from Judah to Israel suggest a man of some means, albeit hard-won. This is consistent with the sideline of tending sycamores, which produced a poor type of fruit, but because of the altitude of Tekoa would have to be grown in fields leased in the land sloping eastwards to the Jordan valley. He refuses in 7:14 to be classed as a member of the many Hebrew schools of prophets who might earn their bread by fees, and who often attacked the government. This is a defence of the integrity and authority of his message (7:15), for he refers with respect (2:11, 3:7) to the prophets that clearly spoke from God.

Like David, alone on the hills caring for his sheep, he has plainly learned watchfulness and dependence on God. But living within eleven miles of Jerusalem, and looking down towards, and perhaps dealing with, traders on the caravan-route to Egypt and Arabia, his knowledge of men and affairs is greater than we would expect of a writer from a small community. He is acquainted with the origins and characters of peoples from Tyre to Edom, from Ethiopia to Kir (in Babylonia), the geography of Israel, and the behaviour of the Nile. This the Spirit turns to account in speaking with authority to the Northern kingdom. In addition, we can feel Amos's power as a writer in the vivid imagery in chapter 3; or the memorable pictures of the brand plucked out of the burning, God turning the shadow of death into morning, horses running on the rock, the ploughman overtaking the reaper. Samaria's rulers are reproached with stinging double meaning at 6:1: "the notable men of the chief of the nations".

The prophet also had courage. Though coming from another country, and only a private citizen, he fearlessly replies to the king's priest at Bethel that his wife will become a harlot, and his family will not even go forth as prisoners of war, but will be killed. Some then say Amos lacks warmth, but consider how deeply he cares about the atrocities of Ammon and Moab (1:13,2:1), and the plight of the poor and oppressed, and how he pleads, Moses-like, for Israel before the Lord (7:2,5). We may ask why Amos was sent to another kingdom. It is a lesson to us in God's freedom to use whom He chooses. When no vessel could be found in Israel, one fit for His purpose could be brought from the poorer Southern nation, most unexpectedly to men, while Hosea, who writes from the point of view of a citizen of Israel (Hosea 7:1-5), was used later to deal particularly with Israel's idolatry.

Amos was the first of the writing prophets. The oral prophets succeeded in leading the people and influencing events; henceforth the messenger's warning was to be set down in record against those who would no longer hear. Yet Zechariah and Haggai, whose ministry is recorded, had an immediate effect on their hearers (Ezra 5:1,2), and we may suppose some heeded Amos. An Ethiopian eunuch trusted in God when Jeremiah spoke to the final generation of the kingdom of Judah. To Amos's record we also owe some history that does not appear in the chroniclers' books - for example, the hardship described in 4:6-8.

Creation of Wealth in the Affluent Society

During the period of overlap in the rules of Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah, which would be the last fourteen years of Jeroboam's reign - long enough for Amos's ministry to Israel to begin and end the Northern kingdom must have been very conscious of the relief caused by God's overrule among their enemies. For the second half of the previous century they had lived under harassment by Syria, and two reigns before had even been overrun, together with Judah. One reign before Amos's prophecy, however, Syria was weakened by the attacks of the Assyrians and the king of Hamath, Joash defeated Ben-hadad III on three occasions, and Jeroboam II "recovered Damascus", so that Israel could on three fronts claim again the boundaries of Solomon (1 Kin. 8:65) and Moses' commandment (Num. 34:8,11). Then, in a striking example of God's disposition of the peoples to benefit His own, Assyria's trouble with Urartu to the east and conspiracy at home prevented her from reaching beyond Syria westwards. Now the class that organized profits from the new security and increase in trade built their own houses in dressed stone, with separate summer and winter quarters, using craftsmen who had learned from the period of close relations with Tyre and Sidon. In rooms with couches fitted round three walls below ivory relief work, the corner-seat opposite the door being the most sumptuous (see 3:12), the rich became accustomed to selected lamb and stall-reared calf, and served their wine in festival bowls. These comforts had become more important to them than the God they professed to serve, as can happen today; while the poor increased in numbers and were exploited and oppressed.

The Oracles (chapters 1 and 2)

This pursuit of material things Amos attacks with a series of poems that can be read in three groups oracles (or brief prophecies of punishment), sermons, and visions. These he heads with a text (1:2) reminding the ten tribes about Zion, God's centre, from which they should have learned faithfulness in worship. Moreover, the prophecy will be as certain as the word of God has always proved to be, for even the lofty ridge of Carmel, so fertile that its name means 'garden-land', will be blasted when the thunder of judgement comes. After this vigorous opening, so offensive to Northern ears, Amos turns to the people surrounding Israel and Judah, who were to receive judgement over the same period of time as they, because the power God was using was to overrun the whole of Palestine, even to Egypt. Secular history attributes the prosperity or decline of these peoples to changes in the strength of the dominant power, Assyria, until her fall before Babylon. But in the divine writings, the Holy Spirit traces the spiritual lessons of those days in the ways of God. The nations in Amos 1 had each seen in Israel in her finest days the witness to God's goodness. They had been tested in their relations with a people instructed in God's holiness and power to bless. Now they had shown their unchanged characters; and people who have known the grace of God merit greater judgement. Thus Amos uses the word 'transgressions' for their sins, since they are offences against instruction or commandment. Hence also the forcefulness of the word when used in 4:4 of Israel's pilgrimages to Bethel and Gilgal for sacrifice.

An Adversary Round About the Land (3:1-4:3)

As though the oracles were intended to shock the people into attention, Amos adjures them, "Hear this word ...", the repeated introduction to the 'sermons'. They were confident that after success against Syria, they had security for the foreseeable future, with strong neighbours to the east, and Judah and Edom dealt with (2 Kin. 14:7-14). But it was exactly this defence that would be swept away first, Amos was saying; the oppressors would overrun the neighbouring lands on their way to Israel, who had now become like one of them. It has been remarked that Amos does not mention the nation that would be used to judge Israel. Similarly Hosea, writing later in the century (cp. Amos 1:1 and Hos. 1:1) and thus nearer to the event, only warns them of the folly of a covenant with Assyria. So the prophet's task is to state that vengeance, ordained of God, assuredly will come, and concentrate on showing Israel their present error. To say that the agent would be a nation as remote and unknown as Assyria would not have made the prophecy any more credible. The graphic description of the conquerors' methods would be enough to convince them that the prophet had been shown a real event (e.g. 6:10).

"Seek Ye Me and Ye Shall Live" (4:4-5:17)

From Dan to Bethel there was an impressive amount of religious activity. Thus occupied, Israel did not recognize the warning of recent disasters to crops. But Amos was to open the worshippers' eyes to their true condition. Selfishness in their lives went with perversion in worship. They would even go 45 miles south of Jerusalem to reach Beersheba, revered because of its association with Isaac, and so their offerings were polluted with transgression (4:4). The Lord that "treadeth upon the high places of the earth" (4:13) needed no such eminences as the high places of Isaac (7:9), and to obey Him is better than sacrifice.

The people's principal evil has been to place their own desires before the claims of God; they are diseased with covetousness. The display of sacrifice and festival is financed by what the rich have extorted from the poor. They have forced up prices for their crops, absorbed the smallholdings into large estates, and thwarted the administration of justice in the gate (of the cities, where judges sat), so that those dispossessed of their inheritance cannot obtain redress (5:12). But covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5), and with such conduct they cannot claim to know the goodness of God. The only cure is to seek the Lord, the One who alone is good, in faithfulness - not the places of false worship, and a mere form of godliness whose power is denied. Otherwise, they will become a prey to evil in the very areas of their inheritance that they have abused. "Blessed are the pure in heart" said the Lord: "for they shall see God".

Righteousness as an Everflowing Stream (5:1-6:14)

The word of the Lord becomes two expressions of woe to those who cannot recognize His character (5:18, 6:1). Amos supremely teaches Israel what they had been told through Moses at the beginning, that the Lord Jehovah is the God of justice and mercy, safeguarding the poor and the exploited of whatever degree (Lev. 25:35 etc., but see also 19:15). Like men of our own time, Israel and Judah sought earthly things before the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The uprightness of those blessed by God ought to be steady and consistent, not like the Palestine river that was a torrent in winter, and a trickle or dry bed when the herdman came to it with his flock in summer:(5:24 RVM). Israel's tribute of sacrifice was corrupt, echoing the wickedness of their homes; and here judgement would fall, when a relative called to a refugee hiding in the innermost parts of a pillaged house, "Is there any with thee?" and hushed his reply, "for we may not mention the name of the LORD" for very despair.

The Visions (7-9:10)

Two judgements the prophet successfully pleads against. The first comes in the farmer's language of the latter growth after the king's mowings:

the second crop, that the common people needed for their cattle or themselves, was to be destroyed. The second punishment, of fire, is as drastic as the flood which God has promised will not come again. The third vision would appeal to craftsmen - the plumb-line that will be God's standard in testing the rectitude of their conduct (cp. Isa. 28:17). The picture would be the more frightening because walls could be destroyed with such thoroughness as if a plumb-line were being used (Lam. 2:8). Again comes a vision for people to whom harvest-time was very important - the picture of Israel as a basket of summer fruit - the last of the crop, late and poor; Amos the poet reminds them how the Hebrew word for "summer" is so like that for the "end". In the fifth vision, the Lord Himself declares that those who flee shall not escape - though they should hide themselves 1,800 feet high on Carmel, in the famous labyrinths of limestone caves (9:3).

The Word of Prophecy Made More Sure

Chapter 9:11-15 describes the true prosperity from God, which makes rich and adds no sorrow, picking up again the weaknesses Amos had pointed out in Israel's present ease. The barren places, not just the fertile plains, will be the source of corn and wine; the cities they build will have inhabitants; and from what they plant, they will be sure of reaping. In verses 11 and 12 he thinks of the king taken from following the flock to lead a nation. David's house of cedar led him to make provision for a temple that would be exceeding magnifical; but in Acts 15:16-18 James, as New Testament prophet, opens this vision and its present realization to people of all the countries this magazine reaches. Today disciples of Christ can come to the place of the Name and there be builded together to serve God, in the beauty of holiness that belongs to His pattern.

Martin Archibald, Glasgow | Oct 1978
Profiles Of The Prophets