Amos 8

vv1-3

The Hebrew word for summer fruit (or ripe fruit) is qayis. The word for end is qes. God is playing on words like he did in Amos 6:13 “13 You who rejoice in Lodebar, And say, “Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?”” Ripeness is also an indication that time for judgement has come, like a cup of wrath being full.

This reminds me of the plumb line from last week: a visual proof of the time of God’s judgement. The plumb line indicates the need, the fruit indicates the time.

God transforms the songs he hates into wailing. Amos 5:23 “23 “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.”

“Hush” or “be silent” could be God telling the Israelite singers to shut up, it could reference the Day of the Lord in chapter 5 when people were scared to say God’s name, or it could refer to God himself no longer speaking to Israel, as we’ll see in a minute.

vv4-8

poor and needy: Amos 2:6–7 “6 This is what the Lord says: “For three offenses of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke its punishment, Because they sell the righteous for money, And the needy for a pair of sandals. 7 “These who trample the head of the helpless to the dust of the earth Also divert the way of the humble;”

The new moon comes once a month Numbers 28:11 “11 ‘Then at the beginning of each of your months you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord: two bulls and one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect;”

They are slavishly obeying the bare minimum of God’s laws, but their hearts are dedicated to making money.

They seek new ways to be deceitful in trade.

God is sarcastic in Amos 8:7 “7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.” It’s also possible that God’s calling himself the pride of Jacob. Maybe he intends both meanings.

Verse 8 invites us to look at the Day of the Lord for Israel in terms of a flood. Destruction, then heart-wrenching aftermath.

vv9-10

The Day of the Lord will appear repeatedly from here.

Amos 8:9 “9 “And it will come about on that day,” declares the Lord God, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, And make the earth dark in broad daylight.” Darkness happened in judging Egypt and when Jesus died. Eclipses happened during the Assyrian siege.

Feasts into mourning and songs into lamentation repeats what God said earlier. But highlight how God enjoys flipping our plan on their heads. Money leads to expensive problems, comfort can cause illnesses.

vv11-12

Again, the day is symbolic of the Day of the Lord. This judgment specifically refers to the lack of prophets for Israel from the time of their exile until the coming of Jesus. Judah had a few prophets, but they also had prophets predict this famine of the Word: Micah 3:4 “4 Then they will cry out to the Lord, But He will not answer them. Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time Because they have practiced evil deeds.” Also Micah 3:7 “7 The seers will be put to shame, And the diviners will be ashamed. Indeed, they will all cover their lips Because there is no answer from God.”

The obvious NT parallel here is Matthew 4:4 “4 But He answered and said, “It is written: ‘man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ””

A wild thought I had was that God’s silence is worse than God’s judgmental prophets.

This is a huge difference between OT and NT. We’ve already discussed the Day of the Lord, but here is the Word of God. Now God’s promise is that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on us all to, among other things, remind us of what Jesus taught. In other words, we always have God’s Word in us with circumcised hearts in the new covenant. So, just because no new scripture is being written now does not mean we have a famine of the Word.

vv13-14

Israel’s young will suffer because of the sins of their parents. If nothing else in Amos had captured my attention, this would have been it. “If you continue down this path, your children will suffer” is a pretty compelling argument to change.

Ashimah means guilt and was also a false God. 2 Kings happened after the Assyrian exile of Israel. Assyrians began to live in Israel, but lions wiped them out, so the Assyrian king ordered a Israelite priest to go back. 2 Kings 17:29–30 “29 But every nation was still making gods of its own, and they put them in the houses of the high places which the people of Samaria had made, every nation in their cities in which they lived. 30 The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,”

I’m not really sure what the god of, or way of Beersheba, refers to, but Dan to Beersheba was a common way of saying from East to West. Amos 5:5 “5 “But do not resort to Bethel And do not come to Gilgal, Nor cross over to Beersheba; For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity And Bethel will come to nothing.”

Key Themes

Day of the Lord

Famine of God’s Word

Justice and Righteousness

False worship

Reversal of fortunes

Applications

As always, justice and righteousness

Ways our hearts might be more aligned to financial gain than to worshiping God: fundraising, working, business. Dangerous when we think of pride in ministry, which came up from Amos 6:8 “8 The Lord God has sworn by Himself, the Lord God of armies has declared: “I loathe the arrogance of Jacob, And detest his citadels; Therefore I will give up the city and all it contains.”” All of these could be combined with deceit in fundraising, work, or business.

Fasting could be an application that combines refusing gain and seeking the Word of the Lord.

Other ways to love God’s Word: reading, meditating, memorizing, teaching it to others, journaling, obeying. Maybe Read Psalms 119 this week. In fact, we may take a break next Sunday and just have a group reading of Ps 119 to refresh our love of God’s Word.

Another potential application could be to love your kids this week. Do something nice. Or, more specifically, if something you’re doing is damaging them, then stop it. Of course, that would probably be called sin and you should stop it all the time.

Justice and righteousness

Love God more than work/fundraising/business/ministry

Fasting

Love God’s Word

Love your kids