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NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)

New Living Translation (NLT)

A Call to Repentance

5 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing: 2 “The virgin Israel has fallen, with no one to help her up.” 3 The Sovereign LORD says: only ten will come back alive.” 4 Now this is what the LORD says to the family of Israel: “Come back to me and live! 5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel; and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” 6 Come back to the LORD and live! won’t be able to quench the flames. 7 You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed. You treat the righteous like dirt. 8 It is the LORD who created the stars, The LORD is his name! 9 With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong, crushing all their defenses. 10 How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth! 11 You trample the poor, you will never drink wine from them. 12 For I know the vast number of your sins and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. 13 So those who are smart keep their mouths shut, for it is an evil time. 14 Do what is good and run from evil just as you have claimed. 15 Hate evil and love what is good; will have mercy on the remnant of his people. 16 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: and summon professional mourners to wail. 17 There will be wailing in every vineyard, says the LORD. 18 What sorrow awaits you who say, That day will bring darkness, not light. 19 In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion— and he’s bitten by a snake. 20 Yes, the day of the LORD will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope. 21 “I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. 22 I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. 23 Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. 25 “Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? 26 No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves. 27 So I will send you into exile, to a land east of Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Heaven’s Armies.

Introduction to Amos

Background of Amos

What Is the Book of Amos About?

Time: 3 Minutes

What do you care about? Are there things you should care about?

The book of Amos asks us these questions.

Amos was a shepherd of sorts—a rural man, sent by God to speak to the northern kingdom of Israel a very long time ago. The people of Israel enjoyed prosperity, comfort, and success. They were religiously cleaned up on the outside—keeping festivals, honoring certain holy days, not missing a Sunday, so to speak (Amos 4:4-5).

Despite their appearance, their hearts were far from God. Material comforts consumed their hearts and they stopped caring about what they ought to care about—justice (Amos 6:1-7).

They did not give God the honor he was due (Amos 2:4). They rejected his law and his authority (Amos 2:8). Therefore, they forgot his heart. They forgot the marginalized, and they did not honor the needy, the poor, and the oppressed (Amos 2:7; 4:1).

God responds to their heartless religion by covering his ears: “Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:23-24 ESV).

Amos shows us that the God of the Bible will not tolerate injustice. He sent Amos to prophesy of coming exile for the people of Israel (Amos 6:7; 7:10, 17). In 722 BC, just as he promised, God sent Assyria to destroy the northern kingdom of Israel for their sin. God would justly repay their oppression with oppression, their injustice with injury.

God would also punish his people by handing them over to their own desires: they didn’t want his law, so he would hide it from them (Amos 8:11). They would “stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it” (Amos 8:12 NIV). God did not send a prophet for 400 years of Israel’s history. God punished his people with the worst punishment imaginable: life without his Word.

Yet, as in all of God’s judgments, we find a diamond of mercy—though he shakes the house of Israel with his anger, he would not totally destroy it (Amos 9:8). God would one day pick up the pieces of fallen Israel and rebuild it to include all nations (Amos 9:12).

Amos warns us against disingenuous worship and cautions us to make our priorities what God cares about. It also leaves us wondering how we can be righteous, and whether Israel would ever truly seek justice. We have the answer if we look elsewhere in the Bible:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Romans 3:21-22 ESV)

Since we cannot be righteous, God must give us righteousness. God did not lay out stipulations for a new brand of religion, he gave us a person—his own Son—to trust, to know, and to seek. He ended the famine of his Word and gave us Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14).

God doesn’t want something from us. He requires one thing: love. Love for God and love for others—honoring God and others as they are due. God wants our hearts to belong to him and to beat like his with love for others. This is righteousness.

For all your spirituality, attempts to do what’s right, and own sense of right and wrong, do you have the righteousness God requires? God wants faith from us, trust in Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness. When we believe in him for the forgiveness of all our injustice, he begins the work of making us righteous, but then also enabling us to be righteous people and to help the marginalized.

Open Amos, and ask God to give you his righteousness. Then ask him where in your life are there people you may have neglected, who need to experience his love?

What Is the Background of Amos?

Time: 20 Minutes

Background of Amos

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Author and Date

Amos was not a prophet by profession (see Amos 1:1; 7:14–15) but nevertheless was entrusted with bringing a message from the Lord to the northern kingdom of Israel. He prophesied sometime between 793–739 BC, probably nearer the end of that period.

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Theme

The theme of Amos is the universal justice of God. The Israelites clearly expected a “day of the Lord” when all their enemies would be judged (Amos 1:2–2:5). What they were not prepared for was that they too would be judged (Amos 2:6–9:10). In fact, they would be held more accountable than their neighbors.

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Purpose, Occasion, and Background

After about 780–745 BC, the Assyrian Empire was unable to continue the pressure it had put on the nations of the Canaanite coast during the previous century. At this same time, both Judah and Israel were blessed with fairly stable governments. As a result of these two factors, the two nations (especially Israel) were experiencing a time of wealth and prosperity. But what the Israelites saw as the beginning of a new “Golden Age” was really the end for them. It was Amos’s unhappy task to tell them of God’s coming judgment. Within just a few years Israel would no longer exist as a nation. They would continue to exist as a scattered people only by God’s unmerited grace (Amos 9:11–15). “The day of the Lord,” far from being a day of blessing, was going to be a day of darkness. By 722 BC Assyria would regain its strength, and the Israelites would be conquered and exiled.

4

Key Themes

1. The Lord is the Creator of the universe. Therefore his ethical norms are universal, and all people are subject to judgment in light of them.

2. Justice and righteousness in the treatment of other people are the key evidences of a right relationship to the Lord.

3. Religious observances in the absence of social justice are disgusting to God.

4. Israel’s covenant with the Lord did not guarantee special protection for them when they broke that covenant. Rather, it meant that they would be held to a higher standard of obedience.

5. Thus, the “day of the Lord” would not be a time of miraculous deliverance for unrepentant Israel. Rather, it would be a time of terrible destruction.

6. A faithful remnant of Israel would be preserved and would someday see glorious restoration and blessing.

5

Outline

I. Superscription (1:1)
II. Oracles of Judgment (1:2–6:14)
III. Visions of Judgment (7:1–9:15)

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The Near East at the Time of Amos

Background of Amos

The Global Message of Amos

The message of Amos lands on the global church today with as much force and necessity as it landed on the people of God 2,700 years ago. The key idea in Amos is that God is just and impartial and will judge not only the nations but also his own people for their life of ease and apathy amid human suffering. To prosperous nations around the world today, and particularly prosperous Christians in those nations, the prophecy of Amos is a clear call for active engagement with the poor and afflicted, especially among God’s people.

1

Amos in Redemptive History

The Purpose of Prosperity

God created humanity to flourish. When sin entered the world, the ground was cursed so that only through toil and hardship would mankind’s work prove fruitful (Genesis 3:17–19). Yet in his great kindness, or as a hint of the prosperity to come in the new earth, or to test his people, or for other reasons, God often allows human beings to flourish in terms of material prosperity. During such times of prosperity, God’s people are called to embody his character, gladly extending mercy, compassion, and generosity to those in need. God had called Abraham in order that his descendants, the children of Israel, might exercise precisely such mercy and justice, so that they would be a light to the nations of the world (Genesis 12:1–3; compare Amos 3:2).

Israel’s Misuse of Prosperity

In Israel and Judah during the eighth century BC, at the time of Amos’s prophecy, the people of God were prospering materially. Yet as was so often the case down through Israel’s history, they failed to love one another as they had been called to do (Amos 3:10; 5:7, 12; 8:4). God had redeemed Israel in mercy from Egypt (Amos 2:10; 3:1), and the Israelites were now to act in mercy toward one another accordingly. Yet, lazily indulging in God’s gift of prosperity, their worship of God had turned hollow (Amos 5:21–23; compare Amos 4:4–5) and heartfelt concern for one another had withered (Amos 2:6–7).

Judgment for Israel’s Lack of Mercy

Because of all this, the Lord will exile his people (Amos 5:27; 7:17) and will bring upon them the “day of the Lord,” a day of climactic judgment. More than any other prophet, Amos describes this coming day of judgment in terms of darkness. “Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light. . . . Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18, 20; compare Amos 4:13; 5:8). Toward the end of Amos we even hear the Lord say regarding the day of final judgment, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9).

Ultimate Prosperity in the New Earth

In the next verse we are told that this cosmic darkening will be linked with mourning that is “like the mourning for an only son” (Amos 8:10). This is an arresting passage in Amos’s prophecy because it describes precisely what took place when Jesus hung on the cross seven centuries after Amos lived: the earth grew dark at noon, for three hours, signifying God’s judgment, as an only son, God’s only Son, perished (Mark 15:33; John 3:16). Amos’s prophecy then concludes with a deeply comforting promise of restoration through faithfulness to David (Amos 9:11–15). Through this restoration God’s people will be reinstated in the land, and “the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it” (Amos 9:13).

On the cross, Jesus experienced the judgment of the prophetic day of the Lord for all those around the world who trust in him. These believers “from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9) will one day enter into the lavish abundance described in Amos 9, a restored paradise, a new earth—a true and final Eden.

2

Universal Themes in Amos

God’s Impartial Justice

The Lord does not overlook injustice on the part of his own people simply because they are his. Indeed, God’s covenant relationship makes justice and righteousness in the lives of his people all the more crucial, for they are representing the Lord to the nations (see Romans 2:17–24). Thus when his people “trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end” (Amos 8:4), God will certainly not exempt them from the judgment that such selfishness deserves. Amos reminds the global church of the commitment to justice that is embedded in the very character of God.

The Dangers of Wealth

“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,” says the Lord in Amos 6. “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches . . . who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils” (Amos 6:1, 4, 6). Not only are God’s people living in luxurious ease, however, but in their self-satisfied greed they are also trampling on the needs of the poor, dealing deceitfully in business transactions, and profaning the sabbath to make more money (Amos 8:4–6). Such is the tendency of the human heart when prosperity comes. While material prosperity is a blessing from the Lord (Proverbs 10:22) and is appropriately earned by those who work diligently and wisely (Proverbs 21:5), the accumulation of wealth tends to lead to a variety of temptations and sins (1 Timothy 6:9–10). Material wealth is to be received gratefully and yet must never displace God as the center of our affections—and the main practical way to keep wealth in its proper place is to be generous toward those in need, especially in light of the generosity God has shown us in Christ (2 Corinthians 8:9; compare 2 Corinthians 9:11).

3

The Global Message of Amos for Today

The prophecy of Amos carries an urgent message for the global church in the twenty-first century. Where God has brought material blessing to his people through honest hard work and diligence, such blessing should be received gratefully and enjoyed. Yet in light of massive worldwide needs such as poverty, lack of clean water, malnutrition, and inadequate medical care, material blessing granted to some believers must go out to those parts of the world where help is needed. To do anything less is to tragically imitate the people in Amos’s day who neglected the poor among them. Such neglect deserves, and will receive, God’s judgment.

The church must never presume upon God’s favor. His justice is universal. He will deal in perfect justice with those who claim his love and compassion but fail to extend that love and compassion in concrete ways to others. As those who have been shown mercy, may we as the church universal love our neighbors, both near and far, with the radical, self-giving love shown to us in the gospel. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1–2).

5:1 funeral song: The Hebrew word (qinah) describes a special rhythm (3+2 beats) used for funeral dirges (most of the book of Lamentations is written in qinah). The ominous significance was clear: Israel had already died and now awaited burial.

5:1-5:3 The charges against Israel had been filed (3:1-2; 4:1-3); now it was time for judgment. Amos made this point clear by singing a funeral song for Israel, as though the nation were already dead.

5:2 When used to describe political powers, virgin refers to a state of being unconquered by a foreign power (e.g., Babylon, Isa 47:1; Jerusalem, Lam 2:13; cp. Lam 1:1).

5:3 This verse is a reversal of the promises made in Lev 26:8.

5:4 Come back to me and live implies a condition: In order to live, Israel should seek the Lord (also in 5:6). Otherwise, the funeral song (5:1-2) would become Israel’s death sentence.

5:5 Beersheba was another site (see study note on 4:4) with ties to the patriarchal era (e.g., Abraham, Gen 21:33; 22:19) that had been made into a shrine. • Gilgal . . . exile: A wordplay using alliteration (Hebrew hagilgal galoh yigleh).

5:6 The northern kingdom of Israel (literally the house of Joseph) was dominated by the tribes of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (see study note on 5:15; see Hos 5:3, 5).

5:8-5:9 Amos quotes a second hymn fragment (see 4:13; 9:5-6). Once again, the prophet emphasizes the contrast between the cosmic God and the local gods. • Stars, celestial bodies, and constellations such as Pleiades and Orion were regarded as deities in the ancient world. Not so, says Amos; the Lord made them and placed them in the sky. • water: The ancients had observed a process that they did not understand (evaporation and condensation). However, the Lord understands and controls natural processes that seem mysterious to humans.

5:10 Amos resumes the thought begun in 5:7. Israel’s courts, controlled by the wealthy, depended on corrupt judges and hired witnesses. They had no use for what was true, but only for what was expedient to their own cause (5:12).

5:11 stone houses: Again, Amos targets the rich. The houses of peasants were built of mud brick. Cut stone, the result of laborious handwork, was very expensive.

5:13 Witnesses pleaded that they saw and heard nothing. Truthfulness had become a liability (5:10) and might endanger the one who spoke it.

5:14 Amos makes his earlier hints (5:4, 6) more explicit: Israel must do what is good and right in order to survive.

5:15 the remnant of his people: The Hebrew text uses the remnant of Joseph to refer to the northern kingdom, who were still God’s people despite their rebellion and idolatry.

5:16 farmers . . . professional mourners: This expression is a graphic way of describing that everyone would grieve.

5:16-5:17 crying . . . mourning . . . wailing: Grief would result from the widespread and certain destruction that lay ahead (5:1-2).

5:18 Amos again confronts the Israelites’ distorted view of their chosen status (see 3:2). • The phrase What sorrow awaits you denotes despair brought on by a great tragedy. • The day of the Lord in the Old Testament (see Isa 13:6, 9) was a time when God would intervene in the world to set right those things that had gone wrong. God’s intervention would mean vindication for the righteous, but judgment for the wicked. Israel thought that on that day (see also Amos 8:3, 9, 13; 9:11) God would save them. However, because the Israelites had been wicked, the day of the Lord would bring darkness, not light. Assyria conquered the northern kingdom in 722 bc (2 Kgs 17:7-23), fulfilling this prophecy.

5:18-6:14 The pronouncements of sorrow in this section develop two themes: (1) Israel’s apostasy would make the “day of the Lord” a day of judgment, not salvation; and (2) Judah’s spiritual complacency would also bring judgment.

5:21-5:27 Amos again confronts the religious hypocrisy and spiritual unfaithfulness of the Israelites (see 4:4-5; Isa 1:10-20).

5:22 God would not accept the offerings (see Lev 1–6) of the Israelites because they were attempts to manipulate him magically rather than signs of true repentance and faith.

5:24 This is the second of the great thematic verses in Amos (see 4:12). • endless river: The streams or gullies (wadis) in Israel’s dry areas contained water only temporarily during rainy seasons. However, God wanted continual, not just seasonal, justice.

5:25 Israel’s relationship with God was based on true devotion that yielded obedience (1 Sam 15:22-23). Sacrifices representing repentance and faith could repair a breach made by sin, but they were not a substitute for a life lived in accordance with God’s word. • Forty years in the wilderness was the duration of Israel’s wandering after the rebellion at Kadesh-barnea (see Num 14:32-35).

5:25-5:26 Although the people of Israel claimed that God had to bless them because of the Sinai covenant, Amos demonstrated that they had been fundamentally pagan from the very earliest days of the covenant.

5:26-5:27 The names that appear in 5:26 have given rise to several conjectures, but many interpreters consider them to be names of unidentified pagan gods. The king god may well be Molech, god of the Ammonites (see 1:15). The word translated you served may mean you will lift up, in which case the prophet is making a contrast between Israel or Judah, who carried their idols, and God, who carries his people (see Isa 46:1-7).

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