Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Amos 8:8-14
The Consequences Of The Judgment (Amos 8:8).
For these people there would be a heavy price to pay because of their sins. The land would tremble and all its inhabitants mourn. For YHWH was about to bring about earth shaking events which would turn everything upside down.
‘Will not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt.'
The trembling of the land might have in mind the coming earthquake (Amos 1:1), but it certainly also included the trembling of the inhabitants of the land in the face of what was coming. All concerned would be in mourning. The situation is likened to the rise and fall of the Nile in its devastating effects when it rose beyond the norm, bringing much destruction and increased unpleasant consequences. It engulfed the land, and then withdrew leaving unpleasant consequences in its wake. While the plagues of Egypt had been exceptional, many of them were amplifications of what the Nile waters regularly brought on Egypt, although to a more limited extent. This was quite apart from the benefit that it brought which was not in mind here. It may also be that Amos specifically had in mind the judgments of Exodus, and was here reminding the people of them.
“And it will come about in that day,
Says the Lord YHWH,
That I will cause the sun to go down at noon,
And I will darken the earth in the clear day.
And I will turn your feasts into mourning,
And all your songs into lamentation,
And I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
And baldness on every head,
And I will make it as the mourning for an only son,
And the end thereof as a bitter day.”
‘In that day' or ‘about that time' refers to any fixed time of YHWH's judgments. This is not specifically referring to ‘the end times', even though the end times may follow this pattern. The catastrophic events relating to the sun could at various times arise as a result of the effects of a severe earthquake causing dust storms, or a volcano seriously erupting with its debris darkening the sky, or be the results of invasion, with the smoke of the destructive fires blotting out the sun. An eclipse of the sun, one of which occurred in 763 BC, may also have been indicated. It portrayed exceptionally severe judgment, which would result in deep mourning (compare Deuteronomy 28:29). Thus the feasts that they had treated so lightly (Amos 8:5) would now become feasts of mourning, their joyous songs would become lamentations, they would clothe themselves with sackcloth (compare Isaiah 22:12; Joel 1:8; Joel 1:13; Jonah 3:5) and shave their heads (compare Job 1:20; Deuteronomy 21:12; Jeremiah 41:5; Jeremiah 48:37), all as an indication of their complete misery. Indeed the mourning would be so bitter that it would be similar in depth to that of mourning the premature death of an only son. It would be a bitter day for them all.
“Behold, the days come, says the Lord YHWH, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of YHWH.”
And the land which had been so much the land where people could hear the word of YHWH through priests, preachers and prophets, would be bereft of such priests, preachers and prophets. People would not know where to look in order to feed on the word of God (they had no copies of the Scriptures of their own. They were dependent on those who were taught in the word or received YHWH's revelation). This too would be a consequence of the destruction of Samaria and its repopulation by foreign peoples, and of their own exile.
“And they will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east. They will run to and fro to seek the word of YHWH, and will not find it.”
The picture is of people searching desperately for the word of God. When they had had it they had despised it. Now that they were bereft of it they sought it desperately, but usually in vain. The word of God would no longer be available in what had been God's inheritance.
The reference to north and east may suggest that ‘sea to sea' indicated west (the Great Sea) and south (the sea of Egypt or the Dead Sea). But the phrase usually indicates ‘worldwide' (Psalms 72:8; Zechariah 9:10), and north and east may have indicated places where they might have expected to find wisdom.
“In that day will the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst.”
And those among them who were usually so full of life, the beautiful virgins and the stalwart young men, would instead be fainting for thirst and desperate to cling onto life. All joy and pleasure would have been taken from them. It would be a dreadful day indeed when hope was taken away from those who were of an age when life should have been full of hope.
“Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, O Dan, lives,' and, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives'. They will fall, and never rise up again.”
And all this would in the end be because of ‘the sin of Samaria', in other words their false basis of worship, their syncretism of Yahwism with Baalism, and their watering down of the requirements of YHWH (compare 1 Kings 15:26; 1 Kings 15:34 and often in Kings). Their folly is brought out in supposed words of the worshippers. Instead of worshipping the living, eternal Creator of heaven and earth, they had worshipped what they saw as a local god limited to Dan or a watered down teaching connected with Beersheba which was idolatrous (Dan and Beersheba may be mentioned because they represented the northernmost and southernmost parts of the land outside of which YHWH was not worshipped. But even this they had defiled and despoiled). The ‘they' may refer to the gods in question or to the worshippers. Both would fall and never rise again (interestingly in contrast to One Who did die and rise again, our Lord Jesus Christ and all who are His).