Amos 8 (CSB) · OmniBible

1Chapter

¹The words of Amos, who was one of the sheep breeders from Tekoa —what he saw regarding Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
²He said: The Lord roars from Zion and makes his voice heard from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.

Judgment on Israel’s Neighbors

³The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Damascus for three crimes, even four, because they threshed Gilead with iron sledges. ⁴Therefore, I will send fire against Hazael’s palace, and it will consume Ben-hadad’s citadels. ⁵I will break down the gates of Damascus. I will cut off the ruler from the Valley of Aven, and the one who wields the scepter from Beth-eden. The people of Aram will be exiled to Kir. The Lord has spoken.
⁶The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Gaza for three crimes, even four, because they exiled a whole community, handing them over to Edom. ⁷Therefore, I will send fire against the walls of Gaza, and it will consume its citadels. ⁸I will cut off the ruler from Ashdod, and the one who wields the scepter from Ashkelon. I will also turn my hand against Ekron, and the remainder of the Philistines will perish. The Lord God has spoken.
⁹The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Tyre for three crimes, even four, because they handed over a whole community of exiles to Edom and broke a treaty of brotherhood. ¹⁰Therefore, I will send fire against the walls of Tyre, and it will consume its citadels.
¹¹The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Edom for three crimes, even four, because he pursued his brother with the sword. He stifled his compassion, his anger tore at him continually, and he harbored his rage incessantly. ¹²Therefore, I will send fire against Teman, and it will consume the citadels of Bozrah.
¹³The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing the Ammonites for three crimes, even four, because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their territory. ¹⁴Therefore, I will set fire to the walls of Rabbah, and it will consume its citadels. There will be shouting on the day of battle and a violent wind on the day of the storm. ¹⁵Their king and his princes will go into exile together. The Lord has spoken.

2Chapter

¹The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Moab for three crimes, even four, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime. ²Therefore, I will send fire against Moab, and it will consume the citadels of Kerioth. Moab will die with a tumult, with shouting and the sound of the ram’s horn. ³I will cut off the judge from the land and kill all its officials with him. The Lord has spoken.

Judgment on Judah

⁴The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Judah for three crimes, even four, because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord and have not kept his statutes. The lies that their ancestors followed have led them astray. ⁵Therefore, I will send fire against Judah, and it will consume the citadels of Jerusalem.

Judgment on Israel

⁶The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Israel for three crimes, even four, because they sell a righteous person for silver and a needy person for a pair of sandals. ⁷They trample the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground and obstruct the path of the needy. A man and his father have sexual relations with the same girl, profaning my holy name. ⁸They stretch out beside every altar on garments taken as collateral, and in the house of their God they drink wine obtained through fines.
⁹Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced; his height was like the cedars, and he was as sturdy as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. ¹⁰And I brought you from the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness in order to possess the land of the Amorite. ¹¹I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is this not the case, Israelites? This is the Lord’s declaration. ¹²But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets, “Do not prophesy.” ¹³Look, I am about to crush you in your place as a wagon crushes when full of grain. ¹⁴Escape will fail the swift, the strong one will not maintain his strength, and the warrior will not save his life. ¹⁵The archer will not stand his ground, the one who is swift of foot will not save himself, and the one riding a horse will not save his life. ¹⁶Even the most courageous of the warriors will flee naked on that day — this is the Lord’s declaration.

3Chapter

God’s Reasons for Punishing Israel

¹Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan that I brought from the land of Egypt:
²I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. ³Can two walk together without agreeing to meet? ⁴Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion growl from its lair unless it has captured something? ⁵Does a bird land in a trap on the ground if there is no bait for it? Does a trap spring from the ground when it has caught nothing? ⁶If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, aren’t people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn’t the Lord done it? ⁷Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the prophets. ⁸A lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy?
⁹Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt: Assemble on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great turmoil in the city and the acts of oppression within it. ¹⁰The people are incapable of doing right — this is the Lord’s declaration— those who store up violence and destruction in their citadels.
¹¹Therefore, the Lord God says: An enemy will surround the land; he will destroy your strongholds and plunder your citadels.
¹²The Lord says: As the shepherd snatches two legs or a piece of an ear from the lion’s mouth, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued with only the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch.
¹³Listen and testify against the house of Jacob— this is the declaration of the Lord God, the God of Armies. ¹⁴I will punish the altars of Bethel on the day I punish Israel for its crimes; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. ¹⁵I will demolish the winter house and the summer house; the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed, and the great houses will come to an end. This is the Lord’s declaration.

4Chapter

Social and Spiritual Corruption

¹Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan who are on the hill of Samaria, women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring us something to drink.”
²The Lord God has sworn by his holiness: Look, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, every last one of you with fishhooks. ³You will go through breaches in the wall, each woman straight ahead, and you will be driven along toward Harmon. This is the Lord’s declaration.
⁴Come to Bethel and rebel; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tenths every three days. ⁵Offer leavened bread as a thanksgiving sacrifice, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings, for that is what you Israelites love to do! This is the declaration of the Lord God.

God’s Discipline and Israel’s Apostasy

⁶I gave you absolutely nothing to eat in all your cities, a shortage of food in all your communities, yet you did not return to me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
⁷I also withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. I sent rain on one city but no rain on another. One field received rain while a field with no rain withered. ⁸Two or three cities staggered to another city to drink water but were not satisfied, yet you did not return to me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
⁹I struck you with blight and mildew; the locust devoured your many gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees, yet you did not return to me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
¹⁰I sent plagues like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I caused the stench of your camp to fill your nostrils, yet you did not return to me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
¹¹I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick snatched from a fire, yet you did not return to me — This is the Lord’s declaration.
¹²Therefore, Israel, that is what I will do to you, and since I will do that to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God! ¹³He is here: the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, the one who makes the dawn out of darkness and strides on the heights of the earth. The Lord, the God of Armies, is his name.

5Chapter

Lamentation for Israel

¹Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:
²She has fallen; Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land with no one to raise her up.
³For the Lord God says: The city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left in the house of Israel.

Seek God and Live

⁴For the Lord says to the house of Israel: Seek me and live! ⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. ⁶Seek the Lord and live, or he will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph; it will consume everything with no one at Bethel to extinguish it. ⁷Those who turn justice into wormwood also throw righteousness to the ground.
⁸The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth — the Lord is his name. ⁹He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the fortress.
¹⁰They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate, and they despise the one who speaks with integrity. ¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted. ¹²For I know your crimes are many and your sins innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates. ¹³Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent at such a time, for the days are evil.
¹⁴Pursue good and not evil so that you may live, and the Lord, the God of Armies, will be with you as you have claimed. ¹⁵Hate evil and love good; establish justice at the city gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
¹⁶Therefore the Lord, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: There will be wailing in all the public squares; they will cry out in anguish in all the streets. The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail. ¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass among you. The Lord has spoken.

The Day of the Lord

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! What will the day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light. ¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion only to have a bear confront him. He goes home and rests his hand against the wall only to have a snake bite him. ²⁰Won’t the day of the Lord be darkness rather than light, even gloom without any brightness in it? ²¹I hate, I despise, your feasts! I can’t stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. ²²Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle. ²³Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. ²⁴But let justice flow like water, and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.
²⁵“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness? ²⁶But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves. ²⁷So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” The Lord, the God of Armies, is his name. He has spoken.

6Chapter

Woe to the Complacent

¹Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the hill of Samaria— the notable people in this first of the nations, those the house of Israel comes to. ²Cross over to Calneh and see; go from there to great Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours? ³You dismiss any thought of the evil day and bring in a reign of violence.
⁴They lie on beds inlaid with ivory, sprawled out on their couches, and dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall. ⁵They improvise songs to the sound of the harp and invent their own musical instruments like David. ⁶They drink wine by the bowlful and anoint themselves with the finest oils but do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. ⁷Therefore, they will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and the feasting of those who sprawl out will come to an end.

Israel’s Pride Judged

⁸The Lord God has sworn by himself —this is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Armies: I loathe Jacob’s pride and hate his citadels, so I will hand over the city and everything in it.
⁹And if there are ten men left in one house, they will die. ¹⁰A close relative and burner will remove his corpse from the house. He will call to someone in the inner recesses of the house, “Any more with you?” That person will reply, “None.” Then he will say, “Silence, because the Lord’s name must not be invoked.”
¹¹For the Lord commands: The large house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.
¹²Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does anyone plow there with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood — ¹³you who rejoice over Lo-debar and say, “Didn’t we capture Karnaim for ourselves by our own strength?” ¹⁴But look, I am raising up a nation against you, house of Israel — this is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Armies— and they will oppress you from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.

7Chapter

First Vision: Locusts

¹The Lord God showed me this: He was forming a swarm of locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout—after the cutting of the king’s hay. ²When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”
³The Lord relented concerning this. “It will not happen,” he said.

Second Vision: Fire

⁴The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. ⁵Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”
⁶The Lord relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.

Third Vision: A Plumb Line

⁷He showed me this: The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸The Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will no longer spare them:
⁹Isaac’s high places will be deserted, and Israel’s sanctuaries will be in ruins; I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.”

Amaziah’s Opposition

¹⁰Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words, ¹¹for Amos has said this: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland.’”
¹²Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. Earn your living and give your prophecies there, ¹³but don’t ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”
¹⁴So Amos answered Amaziah, “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs. ¹⁵But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”
¹⁶Now hear the word of the Lord. You say: Do not prophesy against Israel; do not preach against the house of Isaac.
¹⁷Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself will die on pagan soil, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland.

8Chapter

Fourth Vision: A Basket of Summer Fruit

¹The Lord God showed me this: a basket of summer fruit. ²He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” The Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel; I will no longer spare them. ³In that day the temple songs will become wailing” —this is the Lord God’s declaration. “Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere! Silence!”
⁴Hear this, you who trample on the needy and do away with the poor of the land, ⁵asking, “When will the New Moon be over so we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so we may market wheat? We can reduce the measure while increasing the price and cheat with dishonest scales. ⁶We can buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and even sell the chaff!”
⁷The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget all their deeds. ⁸Because of this, won’t the land quake and all who dwell in it mourn? All of it will rise like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.
⁹And in that day— this is the declaration of the Lord God— I will make the sun go down at noon; I will darken the land in the daytime. ¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make that grief like mourning for an only son and its outcome like a bitter day.
¹¹Look, the days are coming— this is the declaration of the Lord God— when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. ¹²People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east seeking the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. ¹³In that day the beautiful young women, the young men also, will faint from thirst. ¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, “As your god lives, Dan,” or, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives” — they will fall, never to rise again.

9Chapter

Fifth Vision: The Lord beside the Altar

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: Strike the capitals of the pillars so that the thresholds shake; knock them down on the heads of all the people. Then I will kill the rest of them with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape. ²If they dig down to Sheol, from there my hand will take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. ³If they hide on the top of Carmel, from there I will track them down and seize them; if they conceal themselves from my sight on the sea floor, from there I will command the sea serpent to bite them. ⁴And if they are driven by their enemies into captivity, from there I will command the sword to kill them. I will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good.
⁵The Lord, the God of Armies— he touches the earth; it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn; all of it rises like the Nile and subsides like the Nile of Egypt. ⁶He builds his upper chambers in the heavens and lays the foundation of his vault on the earth. He summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth. The Lord is his name.

Announcement of Judgment

⁷Israelites, are you not like the Cushites to me? This is the Lord’s declaration. Didn’t I bring Israel from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir? ⁸Look, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will obliterate it from the face of the earth. However, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob — this is the Lord’s declaration— ⁹for I am about to give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as one shakes a sieve, but not a pebble will fall to the ground. ¹⁰All the sinners among my people who say, “Disaster will never overtake or confront us,” will die by the sword.

Announcement of Restoration

¹¹In that day I will restore the fallen shelter of David: I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, ¹²so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name — this is the declaration of the Lord; he will do this.
¹³Look, the days are coming— this is the Lord’s declaration— when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the one who treads grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. ¹⁴I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce. ¹⁵I will plant them on their land, and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them. The Lord your God has spoken.

Study

Chapter 8

ESV

A Vision of the Terrible End. Amos describes the final end of Israel in powerful imagery.

ESV

The Hebrew terms for summer fruit (qayits) and end (qets) sound alike. In Hebrew literature this kind of wordplay is very common. Beyond this, “summer fruit” did signify the last of the harvest. See Jer. 8:20, “the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” The long summer of God’s patience has finally come to an end, and there has been no harvest of repentance.

ESV

dead bodies. See Ezek. 9:7. The paganized worship of Israel will end in a terrible silence.

ESV

The terrible irony is that the Israelites thought that ritualistic worship could excuse oppression and greed. Even a sincere worship could not have atoned for that. See the notes on 4:4–5 and 5:22.

ESV

you who trample on the needy. The rich and powerful were oppressing the poor and weak rather than helping them. But those who sought to bring the poor of the land to an end were themselves going to face a terrible end.

ESV

Real worship of God in the new moon and Sabbath festivals would have created compassion for the poor and the needy. Throughout the OT, false balances are a symbol of injustice (Lev. 19:35–36; Prov. 20:10; Mic. 6:10–11). The weight of goods being bought or sold was determined by hanging them on one end of a balance beam while standard weights (such as a shekel) were hung on the other end. If the weights were only slightly false in the merchant’s favor, considerable profits could be made. The situation was similar if the measure of volume (such as an ephah) being used was incorrect.

ESV

buy the poor … and the needy. Rather than helping their poor neighbors, the rich and powerful were using their money and power to put these people into slavery.

CSB

The Lord’s choice of the nation was evident in his delivering them from Egyptian slavery in the exodus. But the Israelites had become complacent about their standing with the Lord (v. 10); they had forgotten that his calling laid upon them a special obligation of obedience. In response, Amos reminded them that the Lord had a plan for all the world’s peoples, including the Cushites (Ethiopians), the Philistines, and the Arameans (Syrians). Because of Israel’s sin, the “house of Israel” (especially the northern kingdom) would be shaken and the disobedient would meet with the Lord’s judgment. But Amos looked ahead to the day when the Davidic dynasty, which had lost control of the northern tribal areas (“the fallen shelter of David,” v. 11) would be restored and would, in fact, receive “all the nations that bear my name” (v. 12). According to James, leader of the early church in Jerusalem, this prophecy was fulfilled when the Gentiles began to turn to Jesus Christ (Ac 15:13-18), the “descendant of David” (Rm 1:3).

ESV

The pride of Jacob could be taken in two different ways: it could be a reference to God himself (see 6:8), or it could be a literal reference to Israel’s insupportable pride in its strength and wealth (see also 6:8).

ESV

rise … and sink … like the Nile. Amos sees the coming destruction to be like the annual flooding of the Nile. The flood is absolutely inevitable, covering everything and leaving destruction in its wake. See also 9:5.

ESV

Israel’s destruction will be so terrible that even nature will go into mourning, with the sun hiding its face. This is reminiscent of the darkness that covered the earth when God’s only Son died for the sins of Israel and the whole world (see Mark 15:33). Darkening can serve as a symbol of judgment (Joel 3:15; see also Rev. 6:12; 8:12).

ESV

Israel had rejected the words of the LORD from Amos and so they would go into exile, where there would be no word from the Lord at all. In its absence they will find that the revelation from God had been their most precious possession. they shall not find it. People who have repeatedly rejected God’s words will suddenly be unable to find God’s words at all. In 7:17 severe judgment came to a priest for rejecting God’s words, but here severe judgment comes upon the people as a whole for the same sin.

ESV

Israel had depended on their paganized ideas of Yahweh, represented by the idols at Samaria and Dan, or on the ancestral tradition of Yahweh at Beersheba (see 5:5 and note), but they would find that these pseudo-Yahwehs were no good at all. The Guilt of Samaria might be a mocking wordplay on “Asherah of Samaria,” since the Hebrew for “guilt” (’ashmah) sounds like Asherah. For a similar wordplay, see the transformation of Eshbaal, “man of Baal” (1 Chron. 8:33), into Ish-bosheth, “man of shame” (2 Sam. 2:8).