Chapter 17 AMOS
Two pre-Exile prophets Amos and Hosea prophesy to Israel immediate before the Assyrians conquered them and carried them away.
You will remember that prophets were called seers because they mainly saw the message in the form of visions and dreams. That stands out particularly in the book of Amos book because of prophet’s phrase “the words that Amos saw” You will remember also from the book of Exodus that God had chosen twelve tribes living as one nation to demonstrate to the rest of the world how God wanted all nations to live. That went radically wrong when ten of these tribes decided to copy the surrounding nations in idolatry, sexual promiscuity, child sacrifice and selfish greed.
Why should ten tribes fall so quickly and two tribes hold out for longer? If we take a look at the map194 you can see the ten tribes had trade routes passing through them. So, Rome, Greece, China and India were all beginning to influence Israel’s culture. When these nations passed through with their trade they also brought their gods, ethics and morality. “Trade with me and you trade with my god”, was as much a trade-mark then as it is today. That was not an easy situation for Israel any more than it is for Christians trading today. Christians may try to be ethical but it is not easy in a deceptive world. Most gods hide behind small print. Judah in the South was insulated mainly by the mountainous region between it and the trade routes. But also it had the stronghold of the temple and priests who isolated themselves from Samaria.
During this period Jeroboam was king of the ten tribes. There had been no wars for a generation
Figure 55: Judah’s pending Doom
and the nation moved from complacency to apathy195 The thirst for more material things led to greed and the people, degraded by affluence, became selfish, individualistic, and preoccupied with material things. It ended, as this cycle always ends, with two classes of people, the very rich and very poor, with few in between. Social injustice and corrupt judgments became a norm and, as the repeated cycle of history has always shown, when religion turned from a creator God, having been charged as stewards of His earth, people turns to a mother earth who will look after us if you indulge her. It’s what we call today ‘New age thinking’. It is not new at all it always raises its head as we get near to the final days of God’s tolerance. Although Amos and Hosea were sent to give a last chance of repentance to ten tribes of the North they also have one eye on Judah warning they were next if they did not change their ways. As good-cop bad-cop, both of these prophets had the same message. Amos carried the stick, Hosea the carrot.
When the people started regretting life under the standards of other nation’s gods, they started calling out to God and asking Him to do something about it. They were not thinking of repentance, they were thinking that God should deal with the other nations who were harassing them. God had warned them back in Exodus he would punish them for turning away from His standards by using surrounding nations to harass them, but they didn’t want to hear that. God was not saying He would deliberately send in the heavy mob but that as a natural result of turning from Him and following their ways they would also incur the results of their life-style. But their cry only wanted God to do something about the neighbours. So Amos, a shepherd from Tekoa in Judah was sent as prophet. Starting with the neighbouring nations, he told them that judgement was coming. But then he swung round with his stick and pointing to Israel telling them God would judge them by the same standards. You don’t get away with it just because you are a chosen people, he prophesied:
And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A plumb line. Then the Lord said, Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel;196
This made Jeroboam very angry and he tried to stop Amos preaching.
“Don’t ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’197
Jeroboam voiced what many Christians today are thinking. If God has blessed us with peace and prosperity why would He want to judge us? To which Amos replied,
“Everything has to be measured from the line of the plumb. God does not judge with the one rule for them and one for you. You don’t get special treatment just because you are a chosen people, rather you are expected to live to higher standards and expect greater punishment for not doing so.
194 see page ,
195 (see page ).
196 Amos 7: 8
197 Amos 7: 13