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Week 3: Amos

Introduction

Amos is a pre-exilic prophet. He prophesied around the same time as Hosea which was during the reign in Israel of Jeroboam II. So after Ahab, we had Ahaziah his son, and then Jehoram Ahab's son (since Ahaziah did not have children). Then we had Jehu and Jehoahaz and then Joash and then Jeroboam son of Joash who is Jeroboam II. All of these are evil kings.

So we said that pre-exilic prophets will be prophesying as "Return to the Lord for the exile is coming." And sometimes we see the stick and other times the carrot - "Return to the Lord lest you experience His wrath" or "Return to the Lord and you will experience His goodness and His mercy and His love." Of course, both are accurate - when I separate myself from the Lord in sin, I am separating myself from the Giver of all Good Things. And when I return to the Lord in repentance, I am returning and attaching myself to the Giver of all Good Things.

Let's talk about the person of Amos, the prophet who wrote the book.

His name means "burdened" or "bearer of a burden." The Jewish tradition says that the prophet Amos was slow of speech or slow of tongue - meaning that he was burdened by some sort of speech impediment. His name also gives us a hint about his prophecies - he will talk about the heavy burden of sin: unendurable and unacceptable to God.

He worked as a sheep herder and fruit gatherer in a small village called Tekoa. It is about 12 miles south of Jerusalem. If you have the map in your mind, you're thinking that's in Judah! And you're right! He lived in Judah. But he traveled up to Bethel (remember that's where Jeroboam I made one of his golden calves) and prophesied there against Israel.

The fact that he worked with sheep and gathered fruit, and that he was from a small village will reflect in his prophecies - we will see imagery drawn from the life of the dwellers of villages, and imagery of life in the wilderness.

During his time, Israel and Judah both saw prosperity. There was peace in the region - Assyria had conquered Aram in war, and Israel reacquired some of its land that Aram had taken. Assyria was at peace with Egypt - which was a big problem because for Assyria to go to Egypt, they had to pass through Israel. So with peace in the region, trade started to increase which led to economic growth - but usually economic growth means disparity. If people are getting rich, it means other people are getting poor. There starts to be two categories of people - the extremely rich traders, and the extremely poor farmers who were being oppressed by the rich.

In a time of economic prosperity, the rich start to see the practice of worshipping God as by giving money and sacrifices to the temple. The life of worship becomes separated from the spiritual concept completely. Also, when there is peace in the land, people start to think it is because of their own goodness - and start to see God as "the God of Israel only" and not the God of Gentiles. 

This time period that we just described is actually very similar to our time period. We live in a time of relative peace - sure, there is a war in Ukraine and Russia and another in Israel, but we are not feeling the effects of war. We are sitting comfortably in our homes in America with a roof over our head, enjoying our comforts. And we live in a time where some are wealthy and some are not. And sometimes the wealthy oppress the poor. I know if you're in college or grad school, you may not feel the wealth right now, but we live in a time where it's easy to say: "I give my tithes, and I support the church, that's enough." Or even "I go to liturgy every week... that should count for something, right?" and go and do whatever I want outside of liturgy and outside of Sunday. And we are reminded of Hosea 6:6 that verse that we memorized together - "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." 

The problems in those times, which are problems that we see in our modern society, include:

  • Self-centeredness
  • Permissiveness (everything is permissive)
  • Superficiality
  • Atheism
  • Materialism

So who does the Lord raise up to prophesy? Amos, raised among the poor, seeing the oppression of the rich, the empty spirituality of the rich, and proclaiming to them that God is "God of all" and does not endure sin no matter who commits it - rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. Amos will say in 9:12 "all the Gentiles are called by His name" which is also a prophesy about Christianity.

In the Old Testament you see that the authors came from all different classes or types of people. You have kings like King David and King Solomon who wrote, you have priests like Ezekiel or Ezra, you have Moses who grew up in Pharaoh's house, then lived as a shepherd, and then became leader of the nation of Israel; and then you have someone like Amos who was a shepherd and a gatherer of fruit living in a small village. 

Amos has many good qualities that we can learn from:

  • Humility: "I was no prophet, nor a son of a prophet, but I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore fruit. Then the Lord took me as I followed the flock." (Amos 7:14-15) - He was not ashamed to reveal his lowly and humble beginnings/profession.
  • Courage: He will go before Amaziah - the chief priest of Bethel - without fear or faltering. He will prophesy in front of him about the devastation of his house and will testify to the truth.
  • Wisdom: He speaks in a way that applies to everyone - rulers and elite, but also to those who are poor and living as farmers in the wilderness. His words are applicable to all for repentance
  • Meditative: He contemplates on the atmosphere that he lives in, on nature around him, and lives this life of contemplation and it's reflected in his prophesies.

Amos dies by being clubbed to death by the priests of Bethel.

The Book is split into three sections:

  • Chapter 1-2: Judgment of the Gentiles
  • Chapter 3-6: Sermons to Israel
  • Chapters 7-9: Visions and Promises of Salvation
Chapter 1

Chapter 1 opens with <The Lord Roars>

Chapter 1 and 2 are the Lord's charges and judgments against the nations. And each one is structured the same way "Thus says the Lord: For three sins of <place> and for four, I shall not turn away from it. For they did <this and that>. So I shall <do so and so>."

Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah and Israel all get the same formula.

Amos is showing here that it doesn't matter who sinned, all sin is corruption and the Lord hates all sin. The Lord does not have preferential treatment or conditional love... we will see that even Nineveh, an Assyrian city, will be prophesied to and saved from destruction because they had a heart open to repentance. God is God of the whole earth, even if they don't all worship Him. He cares for all, judges all, condemns all.

What does "For three sins and for four" mean? The Fathers express their comments on this a little bit differently from each other, reaching at least two conclusions that are beneficial for us. "For three sins and for four" refers to the maturity of the sin. St Jerome says that sin has evolved into its third and fourth generation. You can think of the first generation as "thinking of evil" - it starts in the mind. Then we progress to the second generation "doing the evil." The third generation is "continuing to do the evil" to where it becomes a habit, and specifically not repenting of it. The fourth generation is "preaching the evil." The Lord says you accepted evil in your mind, and I forgave you. You did the evil and I forgave you. You did not repent, and kept doing, and still I forgave you. But now will you preach it as well??

St Augustine comments on these numbers differently... St Augustine loves numerology and symbolism of numbers. He says that three represents the human soul - because in Genesis 1, we are created in the Image of God, according to His Likeness. And God is Trinity. But four represents the body, since the body comes from the dust of the earth (and usually earth is represented by number 4 because of the four directions NSEW). So for three sins and for four refers to our mental sins (like pride, hate, etc.) and our physical sins (like gluttony, carnal lusts, etc.). So God will judge us for those sins that we commit in our mind, and those that we commit with our hands.

So the prophet Amos expresses what he saw that the Lord showed him in this way, and he does it for each of these eight nations. Let's go through the eight nations and see what their sin is and what the punishment is, and how we can take it as a message to ourselves.

Damascus

Damascus' sin was their ego. They were brutal and for almost 100 years, Israel lived in a state of terror because of them. In 2 Kings 8, Elisha goes before Hazael the king of Damascus in Syria, the one mentioned in Amos 1:4, and he weeps. And Hazael asks Elisha why are you weeping? And Elisha said "Because I see the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: Their strongholds you will set on fire, their young men you will kill with the sword, and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child." Elisha saw all this with the prophetic eye! And now we read the same in Amos "they sawed open the pregnant wives of the men of Gilead with a saw made of iron." They were brutal, and they thought they could rule the whole world.

 

Gaza

Tyre

Edom

Ammon

Moab

Judah

Israel

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