Another 8th century BCE prophet--relatively contemporaneous with Hosea and even Isaiah. Amos follows Joel in our Old Testament most likely because of phrases (Joel 3:16 and Amos 1:2) that are virtually identical.
Amos was a farmer from the Southern Kingdom of Judah who was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel--and not very welcome there because of the message God sent him with. His message was pretty negative. It sometimes took the form of a judicial declaration of guilt. His words were hard to take.
Chapters 1-2 The LORD is, from the beginning of this prophetic scroll, NOT a comfortable figure. He roars (1:2) like a lion. His breath is like a hot wind.
There follow a series of condemnations of the enemies of Israel that take a specific form:
"For three transgressions of ___ and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have ________[commited the following evil]
So I will [send the following punishment]"
The objects of God's punishment are Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and Judah.
What? JUDAH?!? then ISRAEL?!?
Lumped in with all those enemy states and cities?
God accuses Judah of "rejecting the law of the LORD" (2:4).
God accuses Israel in even more specific terms:
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals--
they who trample the head of the poor
into the dust of the earth,
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same girl,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed. (2:6-8)
It's important to note that Israel's sins are social: failing to care for the poor, the widow, the sick; and they are ritual. The sexual acts cross the line both ways: sexual acts with girls by father and son are about self-aggrandizement rather than commitment, and the following phrases imply that the venue may be temple prostitution. But again, the ritual sin and the social sin are tangled together, each making the other worse. The Torah prohibited taking a garment in pledge for a debt and keeping it overnight. A poor man used his coat at night as a blanket.
The LORD's response to all this sin is to "press down" the one who tramples the poor (2:7,13).
Chapter 3 develops the idea of the LORD as the Lion roaring in the forest. Pay attention to the syntax. These are all rhetorical questions.
Chapter 4 gives us the magnificently offensive description of narcissistic Israelites as "cows of Bashan" and describes all the ways that God tried to get their attention--by famine, drought, blighted crops--and in every case concludes: "..yet you did not return to me."
Chapter 5 develops the metaphor of Israel as a maiden who has fallen "no more to rise." The form is a funeral lament. And the familiar prophetic language about the coming "day of the LORD" appears as well, and another reference to lions (5:19). The climax of the chapter is passage that was made so familiar to Americans in the speech of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (5:21-24).
Chapter 6 takes up a lament for the wealthy, leisured class of Israelites. (Amos wrote in a time of relative political stability when Israelites were accumulating wealth.)
Chapter 7 is in the form of visions that Amos has of the future. Amos is appalled:
O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!
Then Amos says: "The LORD relented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the LORD.
This chapter contains King Amaziah of Israel's encounter with Amos. Basically, he says that Amos's words are not good for the morale of the country and he should just head south to his own part of the world and leave Israel alone.
Chapter 8 has another vision which really only makes sense in the Hebrew language, because it's based on what you might call a visual pun. Amos sees a basket of fruit (qayits in Hebrew) and God tells him that he is about to see the end (qets in Hebrew) of Israel.
Another very familiar and beloved passage is in this chapter.
In 8:11 we read:
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
Chapter 9 closes with an oracle of hope and restoration. As in the prophet Isaiah, the idea of a righteous remnant being preserved is expressed here.
The time is surely coming, says the LORD,
when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps,
and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine
and all the hills shall flow with it.
I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
I will plant them upon their land,
and they shall never again be plucked up
out of the land I have given them,
says the LORD your God. (9:13-15)
How do we responsibly read these prophetic books in our own day? It can be simply a case of reading the promise parts when things get difficult, and looking at other people's wicked behavior and applying the threatening parts to them. "Our country is about to suffer because of the terrible sins of those (fill in the blank) who live in our midst." I don't think that's the best way to read, because usually God wants to call the reader and the hearer to repentance for our own sins and complicity in the big communal/social sins of our day. I'm reminded that the beloved hymn does not say: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you."
No comments:
Post a Comment