MY SHORT REPORT DANIEL 7 - AMOS 9
The link that brought you to this page and the page title are a bit of a misnomer, because this short report is not long enough to cover so many chapters of the Bible. What the link and the title do, however, is track where we are in our plan to read through the entire Bible in 1 year. May each report pique your interest and help you to draw near to God. The Bible, James 4:8, tells us if we do so God will draw near to us. Works cited are at the end of the report, followed by abbreviations used. Internal links provide additional information.
BIBLE READING—WEEK 38—DANIEL 7 – AMOS 9: Last week’s report looked at Gog, Magog and the nations listed in Ezekiel 38-39 and noted they come from the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. It also showed some of the problems surrounding these verses because of translation and word meaning, and theories based on current events. In this past week’s readings we finished reading Daniel and the short books of Hosea, Joel, and Amos. This week’s Short Report gives consideration to God’s judgment on the nations, Israel’s idolatry, and the Lord’s call for Israel to return to Him, but the main focus is the social injustice described by Amos.
Amos was a shepherd from Tekoa and a dresser of sycamore figs (Amos 1:1; 7:14). Tekoa was south of Jerusalem, in Judah, but the Lord sent him to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to prophesy against Israel and Judah, as well as the surrounding nations, but Amos was also given a prophecy about restoration.
In the first chapter Amos lists the nations that would, in the not so distant future, fall under God’s judgment, including Syria (and Damascus), the Philistines (and their cities), Tyre (the main Phoenician city), as well as the Edomites and the Ammonites. The second chapter starts with Moab, also under God’s judgment, and completes the list of nations that immediately surround Israel and have offended God in various ways. Next, the Southern Kingdom of Judah is mentioned. Their offense is equally true for all nations, but only Judah is said to “have rejected the law of the Lord” (v. 4).
The Northern Kingdom of Israel is listed last. Their offenses are many, but the focus is Amos’ cry for social justice. Verse 2:6 reads, ““For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” Both groups of people are people that God holds near and dear, for who are the righteous if not the children of God (2 Corinthians 5:21) for “The Lord is righteous” (2 Chronicles 12:6, cf. Psalm 116:5; Nehemiah 9:8). And He requires His people to care for the poor among them (Deuteronomy 15:7-8; James 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17).
In his introduction to Amos, Paul E. Eickmann tells his readers, “From Amos’s own writings, we gain a clear picture of Israelite society during the reign of Jeroboam II. The rich lived high at the expense of those who had less: ‘They trample on the heads of the poor as the dust of the ground’ (2:7)” (p. 182).
Indeed, social injustice was everywhere: Amos 2:7 also speaks of sexual immorality that profaned the Lord’s holy name. And verse 8 adds to that, saying these sexual acts are performed in front of every altar on the clothes of the poor, which were held as a deposit on a loan (cf. Deuteronomy 24:10-13), and the acts included wine bought with money taken from the poor by way of fines in corrupt courts.
There is an interesting distinction made in verse 8 with the use of God (uppercase) in some Bibles, such as the ESV, HCSB, and NRSV in opposition to other Bibles that use god (lowercase) like the KJV, NKJV, and the NIV (1984 and 2011). Verse 8a uses the phrase “every altar,” which is not the altar of the Lord. The Lord’s altar, like His Temple, is in Jerusalem, and every adult male is still required to pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year during the major festivals, although the Northern Kingdom stopped obeying that part of the Law of Moses. Verse 8b continues the thought “in the house of their God” (ESV), or “In the house of their god” (NIV).
Either way seems to work. The NIV appears to hold the sexual sin in verse 8 as a single unit performed before the altar(s) of their false god(s), while the ESV, so I guess, looks back to verse 7 where the sexual sin is revealed as profaning the Lord’s holy name and folds it into verse 8. No matter how verse 7 and 8 are joined, it should be understood that the sexual sin on the part of the rich is accomplished at the expense of the poor, and our omnipresent and omniscient God is watching and is offended.
In the same way verses 3:9 and 10 cannot stand alone. Here, too, we see social injustice. Once again there is a particular word that catches my eye. The ESV uses strongholds—a proper word, but the NKJV says palaces, which is more appropriate, because it speaks of wealth and social status. The poor may have a stronghold, even if it is only a cave, which is looked down upon. But the wealthy live in palaces, strongholds we look up to. Within the palaces, Amos says in verse 9, there is confusion and oppression, because, we learn in verse 10, “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.” Here, violence and robbery amount to possessions the wealthy store in their palaces that was gained at the injury of their neighbors, be it through physical violence or the abuse of the courts.
In 3:14 we are reminded that King Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, established places of false worship in the form of golden calves for the Northern Kingdom to devote themselves to at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25-30), for it reads, “On the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.”
More social injustice in verses 4:1-3, specifically from the wives of the rich “who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’” Amos calls them “cows of Bashan.” Eickmann explains, “The land of Bashan, east of the Sea of Galilee, was known for the strong bulls (Psalm 22:12) and fat cows that pastured on its hills. Amos pictures the wealthy women of Samaria as such sleek cattle, concerned only with satisfying their own hunger and thirst at the expense of the oppressed poor” (p. 215). To that I will add, they did not hunger and thirst for righteousness, nor simply for food and drink, but for all the things—fine clothes, jewelry, perfume, servants, etc.—that a rich husband had to offer.
The word Harmon (v. 3) only occurs here in the Bible and the meaning is uncertain. The Holman Bible Dictionary says, “ Whatever the precise reading of the original, Amos' intention was to describe the drastic fate waiting the sinful women of Samaria, a fate using terminology connected with slaughter of animals and exile” (Web).
Amid Amos’ condemnation of the nations and his cries for social justice throughout the book, there is a call to return to the Lord in chapter 5, “For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: ‘Seek me and live’” (v. 4, cf. v. 14). Seeking the Lord is not done through the human will, but by yielding to the Spirit of God (Philippians 2:13; Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 12:3). When our priority in life is to seek money, pleasure and other gods we “show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you [us] to repentance” (Romans 2:4 NIV-84).
In chapter 5, verse 7 Amos quickly returns to his social injustice theme saying, “O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth! The Eerdmanns Bible Dictionary describes wormwood as shrub that has a bitter taste. Furthermore, it says, “All biblical references to wormwood are metaphors for bitterness and sorrow” (Myers, 1067). In addition, we can see that to cast down righteousness is to reject the Lord, for “the Lord is righteous in all his ways” (Psalm 145:17).
In verses 11 and 12 we learn of 2 more ways the wealthy in the Northern Kingdom crushed the poor and the righteous. One way was through a grain tax. After water, grain would be the most basic need of a poor man. Eickmann tells his readers, “The rich, perhaps by charging excessive rent in kind, deprive poor farmers of the grain they need to feed their families” (p. 225). Either way the tax came, at the field or the market, the result was the same—hunger. Secondly, through bribes one rich hand washed another rich hand at the expense of the poor and as well as the godly that would not participate in such practices.
These injustices lead to the first “woe” (v. 18) proclaimed against the house of Israel (v. 26), and a promise to exile them beyond Damascus. The first woe is followed by a second and a third woe in chapter 6:1 and 4. The second woe is because they are no different than the other nations. The final woe decries the rich that lavish in their wealth with no concern for the nation God calls His own and comes with a promise to bring a nation against the house of Israel, so “declares the Lord, the God of hosts” (v. 14).
In chapter 7 the injustice in the land reaches a point where God, in two visions, showed Amos His intention to bring judgement on Israel directly from heaven, first through locusts (v. 1), and next through “judgment by fire” (v. 4). Both times the prophet interceded for the people and God relented.
In a third vision, a famous one, God sets “a plumb line in the midst of [His] people Israel” (v. 8). Any builder can tell you a plumb line is used to keep long runs of foundation, walls, pipes, fences, etc. in-line, that is—straight, right, and true. Speaking about this verse, Eickmann writes, “If we live in daily repentance, we will constantly measure what we think, say, and do by the plumb line of God’s law. Such daily self-examination will prevent any kind of self-righteousness, because the outcome will always be the same: our lives are out-of-line like a crooked wall ready to be torn down” (p. 245).
In chapter 8, with the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s fate established, we again hear of Israel’s social injustices: “Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?’” (vv. 4-6)
Chapter 9 is the closing chapter and Amos sees a vision of Israel’s destruction where “the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom” (v. 8). A nation that was destroyed had erroneously thought, “Disaster shall not overtake or meet us” (v. 10).
Of course, this vision came to pass. The Northern Kingdom was exiled beyond Damascus by the Assyrian Empire, whose capital city was Nineveh . The Bible records the first wave of this event in 1 Chronicles 5:26: “So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile, namely, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, to this day.”
The book of Amos, however, ends with a promise of hope to restore the nation of Israel, even before any of these events took place, or the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon. “In that day’” declares the Lord, “I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old” (Amos 9:11). This vision also came to pass and is recorded in the book of Ezra.
Amos was a shepherd from Tekoa and a dresser of sycamore figs (Amos 1:1; 7:14). Tekoa was south of Jerusalem, in Judah, but the Lord sent him to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to prophesy against Israel and Judah, as well as the surrounding nations, but Amos was also given a prophecy about restoration.
In the first chapter Amos lists the nations that would, in the not so distant future, fall under God’s judgment, including Syria (and Damascus), the Philistines (and their cities), Tyre (the main Phoenician city), as well as the Edomites and the Ammonites. The second chapter starts with Moab, also under God’s judgment, and completes the list of nations that immediately surround Israel and have offended God in various ways. Next, the Southern Kingdom of Judah is mentioned. Their offense is equally true for all nations, but only Judah is said to “have rejected the law of the Lord” (v. 4).
The Northern Kingdom of Israel is listed last. Their offenses are many, but the focus is Amos’ cry for social justice. Verse 2:6 reads, ““For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” Both groups of people are people that God holds near and dear, for who are the righteous if not the children of God (2 Corinthians 5:21) for “The Lord is righteous” (2 Chronicles 12:6, cf. Psalm 116:5; Nehemiah 9:8). And He requires His people to care for the poor among them (Deuteronomy 15:7-8; James 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17).
In his introduction to Amos, Paul E. Eickmann tells his readers, “From Amos’s own writings, we gain a clear picture of Israelite society during the reign of Jeroboam II. The rich lived high at the expense of those who had less: ‘They trample on the heads of the poor as the dust of the ground’ (2:7)” (p. 182).
Indeed, social injustice was everywhere: Amos 2:7 also speaks of sexual immorality that profaned the Lord’s holy name. And verse 8 adds to that, saying these sexual acts are performed in front of every altar on the clothes of the poor, which were held as a deposit on a loan (cf. Deuteronomy 24:10-13), and the acts included wine bought with money taken from the poor by way of fines in corrupt courts.
There is an interesting distinction made in verse 8 with the use of God (uppercase) in some Bibles, such as the ESV, HCSB, and NRSV in opposition to other Bibles that use god (lowercase) like the KJV, NKJV, and the NIV (1984 and 2011). Verse 8a uses the phrase “every altar,” which is not the altar of the Lord. The Lord’s altar, like His Temple, is in Jerusalem, and every adult male is still required to pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year during the major festivals, although the Northern Kingdom stopped obeying that part of the Law of Moses. Verse 8b continues the thought “in the house of their God” (ESV), or “In the house of their god” (NIV).
Either way seems to work. The NIV appears to hold the sexual sin in verse 8 as a single unit performed before the altar(s) of their false god(s), while the ESV, so I guess, looks back to verse 7 where the sexual sin is revealed as profaning the Lord’s holy name and folds it into verse 8. No matter how verse 7 and 8 are joined, it should be understood that the sexual sin on the part of the rich is accomplished at the expense of the poor, and our omnipresent and omniscient God is watching and is offended.
In the same way verses 3:9 and 10 cannot stand alone. Here, too, we see social injustice. Once again there is a particular word that catches my eye. The ESV uses strongholds—a proper word, but the NKJV says palaces, which is more appropriate, because it speaks of wealth and social status. The poor may have a stronghold, even if it is only a cave, which is looked down upon. But the wealthy live in palaces, strongholds we look up to. Within the palaces, Amos says in verse 9, there is confusion and oppression, because, we learn in verse 10, “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.” Here, violence and robbery amount to possessions the wealthy store in their palaces that was gained at the injury of their neighbors, be it through physical violence or the abuse of the courts.
In 3:14 we are reminded that King Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, established places of false worship in the form of golden calves for the Northern Kingdom to devote themselves to at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25-30), for it reads, “On the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.”
More social injustice in verses 4:1-3, specifically from the wives of the rich “who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’” Amos calls them “cows of Bashan.” Eickmann explains, “The land of Bashan, east of the Sea of Galilee, was known for the strong bulls (Psalm 22:12) and fat cows that pastured on its hills. Amos pictures the wealthy women of Samaria as such sleek cattle, concerned only with satisfying their own hunger and thirst at the expense of the oppressed poor” (p. 215). To that I will add, they did not hunger and thirst for righteousness, nor simply for food and drink, but for all the things—fine clothes, jewelry, perfume, servants, etc.—that a rich husband had to offer.
The word Harmon (v. 3) only occurs here in the Bible and the meaning is uncertain. The Holman Bible Dictionary says, “ Whatever the precise reading of the original, Amos' intention was to describe the drastic fate waiting the sinful women of Samaria, a fate using terminology connected with slaughter of animals and exile” (Web).
Amid Amos’ condemnation of the nations and his cries for social justice throughout the book, there is a call to return to the Lord in chapter 5, “For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: ‘Seek me and live’” (v. 4, cf. v. 14). Seeking the Lord is not done through the human will, but by yielding to the Spirit of God (Philippians 2:13; Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 12:3). When our priority in life is to seek money, pleasure and other gods we “show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you [us] to repentance” (Romans 2:4 NIV-84).
In chapter 5, verse 7 Amos quickly returns to his social injustice theme saying, “O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth! The Eerdmanns Bible Dictionary describes wormwood as shrub that has a bitter taste. Furthermore, it says, “All biblical references to wormwood are metaphors for bitterness and sorrow” (Myers, 1067). In addition, we can see that to cast down righteousness is to reject the Lord, for “the Lord is righteous in all his ways” (Psalm 145:17).
In verses 11 and 12 we learn of 2 more ways the wealthy in the Northern Kingdom crushed the poor and the righteous. One way was through a grain tax. After water, grain would be the most basic need of a poor man. Eickmann tells his readers, “The rich, perhaps by charging excessive rent in kind, deprive poor farmers of the grain they need to feed their families” (p. 225). Either way the tax came, at the field or the market, the result was the same—hunger. Secondly, through bribes one rich hand washed another rich hand at the expense of the poor and as well as the godly that would not participate in such practices.
These injustices lead to the first “woe” (v. 18) proclaimed against the house of Israel (v. 26), and a promise to exile them beyond Damascus. The first woe is followed by a second and a third woe in chapter 6:1 and 4. The second woe is because they are no different than the other nations. The final woe decries the rich that lavish in their wealth with no concern for the nation God calls His own and comes with a promise to bring a nation against the house of Israel, so “declares the Lord, the God of hosts” (v. 14).
In chapter 7 the injustice in the land reaches a point where God, in two visions, showed Amos His intention to bring judgement on Israel directly from heaven, first through locusts (v. 1), and next through “judgment by fire” (v. 4). Both times the prophet interceded for the people and God relented.
In a third vision, a famous one, God sets “a plumb line in the midst of [His] people Israel” (v. 8). Any builder can tell you a plumb line is used to keep long runs of foundation, walls, pipes, fences, etc. in-line, that is—straight, right, and true. Speaking about this verse, Eickmann writes, “If we live in daily repentance, we will constantly measure what we think, say, and do by the plumb line of God’s law. Such daily self-examination will prevent any kind of self-righteousness, because the outcome will always be the same: our lives are out-of-line like a crooked wall ready to be torn down” (p. 245).
In chapter 8, with the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s fate established, we again hear of Israel’s social injustices: “Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?’” (vv. 4-6)
Chapter 9 is the closing chapter and Amos sees a vision of Israel’s destruction where “the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom” (v. 8). A nation that was destroyed had erroneously thought, “Disaster shall not overtake or meet us” (v. 10).
Of course, this vision came to pass. The Northern Kingdom was exiled beyond Damascus by the Assyrian Empire, whose capital city was Nineveh . The Bible records the first wave of this event in 1 Chronicles 5:26: “So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile, namely, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, to this day.”
The book of Amos, however, ends with a promise of hope to restore the nation of Israel, even before any of these events took place, or the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon. “In that day’” declares the Lord, “I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old” (Amos 9:11). This vision also came to pass and is recorded in the book of Ezra.