THE BOOK OF AMOS
LESSON 4
CHAPTERS 7-9: The Five Visions and The Promise of Restoration
The emphasis in the center section of Amos was one of woe rather than doom, warning rather than judgment, and there is also sympathy and concern. In the intercessions that take place in the first two visions, Amos sides with Jacob (Israel) against Yahweh. However, in the condemnations that go with the second two visions, Amos stands with Yahweh against Israel.
The Book of the prophet Amos is an intensely personal account; it is both a testament and an apologia, a defense of God's actions concerning the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Amos 7:1-3 ~ The First Vision: The Locusts
This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: there was a swarm
of locusts when the second crop was sprouting, full-grown locusts,
after the king's hay had been cut. 2 When they had
eaten all the grass in the land, I said, Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you. How
can Jacob survive, being so small?' 3 Then Yahweh relented; It will not
happen,' said Yahweh.
The Book of Visions contains the only narrative material in the Book of Amos. Locusts (derived from the Latin locusta, meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers that can have a swarming phase. They are usually solitary but can become more abundant under certain conditions and form a swarm. Typically, their numbers are low, but in conditions of severe drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, they can start to breed abundantly and form dense populations that attack crops. Plagues of locusts destroying crops have been known since prehistory.
after the king's hay had been cut.
The first harvest of the crops belonged to the king as a
kind of tribute tax. In the second harvest, the plague of locusts began their
devastation in the vision.
Question: What was Amos's response to the vision?
Answer: Moved with compassion for the people, Amos
pleaded with God for mercy, asking how Jacob/Israel could survive with so few
survivors.
Yahweh responded to His prophet's intercession for the people by relenting and withdrawing the locust judgment.
Amos 7:4-6 ~ The Second Vision: The Fire
4 This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: Lord
Yahweh summoning fire in punishment; it had devoured the great Abyss and was
encroaching on the land, 5 when I said, Lord Yahweh, stop, I beg
you. How can Jacob survive, being so small?' 6 Then Yahweh relented;
This will not happen either,' said the Lord Yahweh.
Lord Yahweh summoning fire in punishment; it had
devoured the great Abyss and was encroaching on the land ...
In Scripture, the Abyss or Pit is a place for the dead as
well as the abode of demons. It is in the heart of the earth and is connected
to the earth's surface by a shaft. It is also where the Beast or Antichrist
arises and where Satan will be bound for a thousand years after Christ returns.
Scripture also describes the Abyss as the dwelling place of demons and the
Beast and their place of confinement until the Final Judgment. See Luke 8:31;
Romans 10:7;
Revelation 9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3.
Fire coming up from below the earth (from the Abyss) in verse 4 may refer to devastating volcanic eruptions and the kind of judgment that destroyed the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:24-25.
Question: What is Amos's reaction to the vision, and how
does Yahweh respond?
Answer: Amos is horrified again and pleads with God to
spare the people. For the second time, God relents.
Amos asked, "How can Jacob survive, being so small?"
The basis of the appeal in 7:5 and 7:2 is that "Jacob
(Israel) is small, but Yahweh's compassion is not small/limited.
Visions 1 and 2 are linked by Amos's pleas for mercy and God's response to dismiss the judgment.
Amos 7:7-9 ~ The Third Vision: The Plumbline
7 This is what he showed me: the Lord
standing by a wall, with a plumbline in his hand. 8 What do you
see, Amos?' Yahweh asked me. A plumbline,' I said. Then the Lord said, Look,
I am going to put a plumbline in among my people Israel; never again will I
overlook their offenses. 9 The high places
of Isaac will be ruined, and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste, and, sword
in hand, I will attack the House of Jeroboam.'
In 930 BC, Jeroboam I led a revolt against King Solomon's son Rehoboam. The result was a political and religious schism that created two kingdoms: The Northern Kingdom of Israel ruled by Jeroboam I (ruled 931-910 BC) and a religious schism in which he established a new priesthood and a new form of liturgical worship at shrines in the Northern Kingdom, forbidding the people to worship at the Jerusalem Temple. During Amos's mission, King Jeroboam II ruled the Northern Kingdom (783-743 BC).
One of the uses of plumblines in ancient times was to determine how out of line a wall or a building had become over time. It was used to determine whether the structure could be repaired or needed to be pulled down. Like a structure that had become unsound, Israel was beyond repair and needed to be demolished (cf. 2 Kng 21:13; Is 34:11; Lam 2:8). Amos did not offer a plea for mercy this time.
9 The high places of Isaac will be ruined,
and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste, and, sword in hand, I will attack the
House of Jeroboam.'
The open-air shrines from the time of Isaac son of Abraham
will be destroyed, and Israel's sanctuaries laid waste.
and, sword in hand, I will attack the House of Jeroboam.'
Jeroboam II's "house" came to an end with the assassination
of his son Zechariah.
Amos 7:10-17 ~ Amaziah, the Priest of the Northern
Kingdom, Rejects Amos's Message
10 Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, then sent
word to Jeroboam king of Israel as follows, Amos is plotting against you in
the heart of the House of Israel; the country cannot tolerate his speeches. 11
For this is what Amos says, "Jeroboam is going to die by the sword, and
Israel will go into captivity far from its native land." ' 12 To
Amos himself, Amaziah said, Go away, seer, take yourself off to Judah, earn
your living there, and there you can prophesy! 13 But never again
will you prophesy at Bethel, for this is a royal sanctuary, a national temple.'
14 I am not a prophet,' Amos replied to Amaziah, nor do I belong
to a prophetic brotherhood. I am merely a herdsman and dresser of sycamore figs.
15 But Yahweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yahweh said to
me, "Go and prophesy to my people Israel." 16 So now listen to what
Yahweh says: "You say: Do not prophesy against Israel, do not foretell doom on
the House of Isaac!" 17 Very well, this is what Yahweh says,
"Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets, your
sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled out by
measuring line, and you yourself will die on polluted soil, and Israel will go
into captivity far from its own land!"'
After the death of King Solomon, the ten northern Israelite tribes deserted his son, King Rehoboam, and formed a separate kingdom, electing a king who was not a Davidic heir. Their king, Jeroboam I, immediately broke away from the covenant God established with the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai. He dismissed the ordained priests who were the descendants of Aaron and established a separate priesthood from among men loyal to him. He didn't want his people to continue to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, so he built sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan and installed his version of liturgical worship that included the worship of pagan gods (1 Kng 12:20-33; 2 Chr 11:14-16). Each of his successors continued to promote illicit worship in the Northern Kingdom despite God's warnings through His prophets that their abandonment of God's covenant was going to bring down God's wrath upon an apostate people and their king (1 Kng 14:15-16). In another attempt to call the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to repentance, God sent Amos to the Northern Kingdom's sanctuary at Bethel.
In verse 10, Amaziah sent word to King Jeroboam that Amos was plotting against him, prophesying the king's death and that the people of Israel would be condemned to exile. Then, in 7:12-15, we read about two opposing views concerning the exercise of religion. Amaziah, the priest of the illicit sanctuary at Bethel, was loyal to a religion that represented the state's idea of what was acceptable for the people of the Northern Kingdom, including idol worship (1 Kng 12:28-30). Yahweh's prophet Amos was an outsider from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. He was loyal to the exercise of worship as defined by Yahweh in the Sinai Covenant. It was in the liturgy of proper worship offered through the priestly descendants of Aaron (the first high priest) in sacrifices and worship at the Jerusalem Temple where Yahweh communed with His people.
Amaziah rejected Amos as Yahweh's representative and his call for repentance and conversion. He challenged Amos's right to prophesy in God's name. He told Amos he had no authority as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom at "the king's sanctuary" (notice he did not say Bethel is Yahweh's Sanctuary). He told Amos to return to earn his living as a prophet in the Southern Kingdom of Judah (verses 12-13).
Question: What was Amos's response?
Answer: Amos responded that he did not make his living as
a prophet. He said that he was not a member of a prophetic brotherhood, nor was
he a prophet attached to the court of the king of Judah. He was a shepherd and
a tender of sycamore trees. However, he declared that he did have authority to
prophesy at Bethel because God called him and gave him divine authority to
preach repentance and condemn the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
(verses 14-15).
Amos's reply in verses 14-17 is in three parts:
In verse 17, Amos spelled out the gruesome fate of Amaziah and the Northern Kingdom: "Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled out by measuring line, and you yourself will die on polluted soil and Israel will go into captivity far from its own land!"' The description reflects the consequences of invasion and conquest. Amaziah's destiny is to be taken captive and die on foreign soil.
Amos 8:1-3 ~ The Fourth Vision: The Basket of Ripe Fruit
1 This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: A basket of ripe
fruit [qaitz]. 2 What do you see, Amos?' he asked. A basket of
ripe fruit,' I said. Then Yahweh said, The time is ripe [the end has come] for
my people Israel; I will not continue to overlook their offenses. 3 That
day, the palace songs will turn to howls,—declares the Lord Yahweh—the corpses
will be many that are thrown down everywhere. Keep silent!'
God announced that the time is ripe to reap the sins of the Northern Kingdom in judgment. God would no longer give them any more time to come to repentance. There is a play on the Hebrew words for ripe fruit in verse 1 (qaitz, literally summer fruit) and qetz, "end" in verse 2.
The songs in the palace of the king would turn to howls of anguish, and the dead would be bodies so numerous that there was no one left to bury them. It is difficult to determine how much time passed between the reprieves given after the first and second visions and the final condemnation of Israel in the announcement of judgment in the third, fourth, and fifth visions. Notice that the fourth vision announces that "the end has come" in the Hebrew text (8:2). The time for repentance has ended. God likely gave the people time to repent before He declared the time to repent had passed.
Question: How are the third and fourth visions linked?
Answer: The third and fourth visions are linked by Amos
siding with Yahweh and not offering a plea for mercy on behalf of the people.
In fact, God ordered Amos to "keep silent."
Amos 8:4-8 ~ Against Swindlers and Exploiters
4 Listen to this, you who crush the needy
and reduce the oppressed to nothing, 5 you who say, When will New
Moon be over so that we can sell our corn, and Sabbath, so that we can market
our wheat? Then, we can make the bushel-measure smaller and the shekel-weight
bigger, by fraudulently tampering with the scales. 6 We can buy up
the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, and even get a price
for the sweepings of the wheat.' 7 Yahweh has sworn by the pride of
Jacob, Never will I forget anything they have done.' 8 Will not the
earth tremble for this and all who live on it lament, as it all rises together
like the Nile in Egypt, it swells and then subsides like the Egyptian Nile?
The message pronounced in verse 4, "Listen to this," is delivered in verse 7, "Yahweh has sworn," and echoes 4:2 and 6:8. Verse 4a denounces those who crush or trample the poor. Yahweh's words in verses 4-15 explain, justify, and elaborate on the prophecy of the end contained in the fourth vision, as well as increasing the tension before the climatic fifth vision. The oath God swears in verse 7 is solemn and commits Him to an unremitting remembrance, "I will never forget," all "their misdeeds." The oath that began in verse 7 continues with the threat in verse 8.
The Feast of the New Moon marked the beginning of every lunar
month (Num 10:10; 28:11-15;
1 Sam 20:5, 24;
Neh 10:34;
Is 1:13; 66:23;
Ezek 46:1, 6-7;
Col 2:16), and like the Sabbath and the other feasts, it was a day
of complete rest.
Question: What do the people do instead of honoring God's holy feast days?
Answer: They observe them but can't wait for them to end
so they can take up the business of buying and selling and the practice of
defrauding their neighbors and the poor, a severe violation of the Law.
7 Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, Never
will I forget anything they have done.' 8 Will not the earth tremble
for this and all who live on it lament, as it all rises together like the Nile
in Egypt, it swells and then subsides like the Egyptian Nile?
The "pride of Jacob" refers to the arrogance of Israel.
The continual rising and falling of the Nile River is compared to the trembling
of the earth under God's judgment.
Amos 8:9-10 ~ Predictions of Punishment
9 On that Day "declares the Lord Yahweh "I
shall make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10
I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into
lamentation; I shall make you all wear sacking round your waists and have all
your heads shaved. I shall make it like the mourning for an only child, and it
will end like the bitterest of days.
The Day of Yahweh's judgment will be accompanied by
cosmic signs: earthquake (cf. Is 2:10; Jer 4:24; Amos 8:8) and solar eclipse
(cf. Jer 4:23; Amos 8:9). Their festivals will no longer be times of joy but will
become a time for mourning and lamentation. As a sign of mourning, the people
will wear sackcloth and shave their heads. Their grief will be felt like the bitterness
for the loss of an only child.
Question: What cosmic events accompanied Jesus's
crucifixion? See Matthew 27:45, 51.
Answer: Matthew recorded a solar eclipse during a full
moon cycle (a divine event since that is an impossibility naturally) and an
earthquake.
Amos 8:11-12 ~ Famine and Drought of the Word of God
11 The days are coming "declares the Lord
Yahweh "when I shall send a famine on the country, not hunger for food, not
thirst for water, but famine for hearing Yahweh's word. 12 People
will stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching
for Yahweh's word, but will not find it.
Amos does not predict a conversion resulting in the people expressing hunger for God's word (singular in Greek but plural in Hebrew) so they can obey Him. Instead, the lack of God's word is a punishment. He has become so angered by the people refusing to listen to the warnings of His prophets that He will no longer send His word through His prophets to the Israelites.
Amos 8:13-14 ~ Additional Predictions of Punishment
13 That Day, fine girls and stalwart
youths will faint from thirst. 14 The people who swear by the Sin of
Samaria, who say, "Long live your god, Dan!" and "Hurrah for the pilgrimage to
Beersheba!" will all fall, never to rise again.'
Verse 14 identifies those who swear by false gods, a violation of the covenant code (i.e., the First Commandment in Ex 20:3 and Dt 5:7). There is possibly a play on words between Ashimah, suggesting the name of a pagan goddess that was altered since the word means "shame" (2 Kng 17:30), worshipped in Samaria, and ashema (sin). See Deuteronomy 9:21, where Aaron called the image of the golden calf "your sin." Jeroboam's two golden calf idols were worshipped at Bethel and Dan (1 Kng 12:30). The pagan goddess was apparently associated with the cults at Dan and Beersheba.
The sin of idol worship had even spread to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Beersheba (verse 14) was a town in the Negeb in southern Judah chiefly known for its connection with the patriarchs. Verse 14 is a judgment against the entire nation since Beersheba was the southernmost limit of the Promised Land, hence the common idiom "from Dan to Beersheba," indicating the whole extent of Israelite domination from north to south (Judg 20:1; 1 Sam 3:20; 2 Sam 17:11; 24:15; 1 Kng 5:5; 1 Chron 21:2; 2 Chron 30:5; cf. 2 Sam 24:7; 1 Kng 19:3; 2 Kng 23:8; 2 Chron 19:4).
Amos 9:1-4 ~ The Fifth Vision: The Fall of the Sanctuary
1 I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he
said, Strike the top of the pillar so that the thresholds shake! Smash their
heads in, one and all! And I shall put any survivors to the sword; whoever runs
away will not run far, whoever escapes will not make good his escape. 2 Should
they burrow into Sheol, my hand will haul them out; should they climb to
heaven, I shall bring them down. 3 Should they hide on the top of
Carmel, I shall track them down and catch them; should they hide from me on the
sea bed, I shall order the Serpent there to bite them; 4 if their
enemies herd them into captivity, I shall order the sword to kill them there,
and I shall fix my eyes on them for evil and not for good.'
This vision probably concerns the shrine at Bethel, but the lack of a precise location indicates that Amos has the other pagan shrines of the kingdom in mind as well. Bethel symbolized the worst aspects of illicit religion in the north from the time of Jeroboam I.
The vision passes into an oracle without a break. There are two phases in the oracle:
The order to destroy the altar may have been given to an angel as God's agent of destruction. The second phase declares that none of the idol worshipers would escape. Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in Greek is the abode of the dead into which all the dead went until the sacrifice of Christ when He descended into Sheol to liberate the dead who accepted Him as Lord and Savior (Apostles' Creed and 1 Peter 3:18-22). See Jesus's description of Sheol/Hades in Luke 16:19-26. After Jesus's descent into Sheol and Resurrection, it became a place of purification for all souls destined for Heaven (1 Cor 3:10-15; CCC 1030-32). Sheol/Hades/Purgatory will continue to play a role in salvation until the Final Judgment (Rev 20:11-13).
3 Should they hide on the top of Carmel, I
shall track them down and catch them
Mount Carmel was most famous for the contest between
Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kng 18L20-40), whom God's prophet destroyed
with fire. Like those idolaters, the idol worshipers who try to hide on Mount
Carmel will also be destroyed.
Amos 9:5-6 ~ Doxology
5 Lord Yahweh Sabaoth "he touches the earth
and it melts, and all living things on it lament, as all rises together like
the Nile in Egypt and then subsides like the Egyptian Nile. 6 He who
builds his mansions in the heavens, supporting his vault on the earth; who
summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the surface of the land:
Yahweh is his name.
The hymn pictures two kinds of sanctuary: one in Heaven made by God, and the other an earthly shrine replicating the heavenly one and approved by God, the Jerusalem Temple (Dt 12:11-12). The right worship of Yahweh can only be offered in these two holy places.
Amos 9:7-15 ~ The Epilogue: Five Promises of the Restoration of Israel
Amos 9:7-10 ~ Sinners Will All Perish
7 Are not you and the Cushites all the same
to me, children of Israel? "declares Yahweh. Did I not bring Israel up from
Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir? 8 Look,
Lord Yahweh's eyes are on the sinful kingdom, I shall wipe it off the face of
the earth, although I shall not destroy the House of Jacob completely "declares
Yahweh. 9 For look, I shall give the command and shall shake out the
House of Israel among all nations as a sieve is shaken out without one grain
falling on the ground. 10 All the sinners of my people will perish
by the sword, who say, Disaster will never approach or overtake us.'
This oracle begins with the reminder that Yahweh is the
Divine Father and protector of all nations (verse 7). However, He does not
condone sin and will condemn it in any form (verse 8). His judgment is to
"wipe" Israel, which He created to be His witness to the Gentile nations, "off
the face of the earth." However, in His mercy, God will not entirely destroy
the "House of Jacob."
Question: Instead, what will He do to the people?
Answer: God will sake the people out like a sieve across
the Gentile world.
This infusion of the Israelites among the Gentiles began with the Assyrian conquest, continued in the Babylonian conquest, and after the Romans put down the first and second Jewish Revolts against Rome. His covenant people in the various exiles carried the message of the One True God out into the Gentile world while the sinners "perished by the sword."
Amos 9:11-15 ~ Five Promises of Restoration and
Idyllic Prosperity
11 On that Day, I shall rebuild the
tottering hut of David, make good the gaps in it, restore its ruins and rebuild
it as it was in the days of old, 12 for them to be master of what is
left of Edom and of all the nations once called mine "Yahweh declares, and he
will perform it. 13 The days are coming "declares Yahweh "when the
ploughman will tread on the heels of the reaper, and the treader of grapes on
the heels of the sower of seed, and the mountains will run with new wine and
the hills all flow with it. 14 I shall restore the fortunes of my
people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them, they will
plant vineyards and drink their wine, they will lay out gardens and eat their
produce. 15 And I shall plant them in their own soil and they will
never be uprooted again from the country which I have given them, declares
Yahweh, your God.
The Five Promises:
The nation of Israel ceased to exist when the Assyrians invaded and captured the Northern Kingdom's capital of Samaria in 722 BC and exiled the population into Assyrian lands. The Southern Kingdom of Judah suffered exile in the Babylonian conquest of 587/6 BC but survived when King Cyrus of Persia allowed them to return to their homeland. Judahites persisted as a people until the Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans, which ended in 136 AD and resulted in the exile of over a million Jews into lands controlled by the Roman Empire. No nation called Israel existed until 1947 when the United Nations created two states from land taken from the Muslim allies of Natzi Germany: the nation of Israel, the size of New Jersey for the Jews, and the nation of Jordan, three times bigger, for the Palestinian Arabs and Bedouins. It was seen as a miracle by Jews and Christians and a fulfillment of the prophecy in Amos 9:11-15. The citizens of Israel have vowed to fulfill the prophecy of verse 15 and never again be uprooted from the country that Yahweh gave them.
To whom do you listen concerning the exercise of "right worship"? Do you follow those who have redefined the interpretation of Scripture to suit their agendas or the trends and morals of secular society and political leaders, like the apostate people of the Northern Kingdom? Or do you remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the deposit of faith He entrusted to Peter and the Apostles who founded His Kingdom of the Church? The Church's teaching has remained unchanged and faithfully passed down from Jesus to the Apostles, to the bishops and priests of His Church, and to the faithful of every generation who call themselves true believers and defenders of the Word. No human being, not even a Pope, has the authority to alter our traditions and the commandments in Scripture.
Questions for reflection or group discussion:
Question: How often is God's Divine Name invoked from 7:1 to 9:15?
Question: What did God say about the use of His Divine Name in Exodus 3:14?
Question: Why did St. James quote Amos 9:11-12 at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:13-21?
Answer: He quoted Amos to convince the council members that
they should not be surprised by the influx of the Gentiles into Jesus's Kingdom
of the Church throughout the Gentile world. The prophets predicted that the
Lord would return so that all other peoples could seek a relationship with the
Lord God. After James finished speaking, the council accepted his advice and
Peter's (Acts 15:7-12). They wrote a decree and sent it to the Jewish-Christian
communities of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia (Acts 15:22-29).
St. James's speech to the council is frequently misinterpreted. Based on James's words, some have seen James as in opposition to Paul, who would permit Gentile conversion without observance of the Jewish Law and circumcision, supposing James would require it. Some have assumed that James was insisting that the Gentile Christians observe Jewish dietary laws and thus infer that James believed Gentiles must observe Mosaic Law in general. However, the specific dietary restrictions James imposes on the Gentile converts are not listed in Leviticus 17-18; neither of these texts mentions meat sacrificed to idols or fornication. Instead, James listed practices believed to be common in pagan temples: worshiping false gods, eating meat with blood in it, drinking blood as part of idol worship, and engaging in sexual immorality at pagan feasts. He was not telling them to observe Jewish Law but to make a clean break from their pagan past and observe the Noahite Laws that applied to all peoples before the Sinai Covenant (Genesis 9:4-7), of which Amos and the other prophets would have agreed.
Catechism references for this lesson (* indicates
Scripture is quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Amos 7:2 (CCC 2584*);
7:5 (CCC 2584*);
8:4-10 (CCC 2269*);
8:4-6 (CCC 2409*);
8:6 (CCC 2449*);
8:11 (CCC 2835*)
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2023 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.