An Oracle Against The Nations
Introduction
what is unforgivable is such misuse and abuse of helpless people for the profit of the mighty. This theme is reflected in one way or another in all eight oracles in the present passage, and in Amos as a whole
The Setup
Syria
Aram will not merely lose a war. It will be crushed and conquered, its kingship killed, and its people deported—all by Yahweh, working through unspecified intermediary nations in fulfillment of the curses of his implicit international covenant.
Philistia
The Mosaic law required the death penalty for precisely this kind of kidnapping and selling into slavery (Exod 21:16), and it was surely recognized internationally as a cruelty, no matter how frequently it may have been practiced in biblical times
Tyre
Edom
Moab
To burn someone’s bones, i.e., desiccated bodily remains, was an attempt to prevent—at least symbolically—the opportunity for that person to participate in the resurrection, thus to wish for him or her eternal death