Amos 4:6-11

The five unheeded chastisements which have passed over Israel. The description of each ends with the pathetic refrain, indicating its failure to produce the desired effect, "Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah" (cf. the refrain of Isaiah 9:12; Isaiah 9:17; Isaiah 9:21; Isaiah 10:4).

"In the ancient world it was a settled belief that natural calamities like those here alluded to were the effects of the deity's wrath. When Israel suffers from them the prophets take for granted that they are for the people's punishment … And although some, perhaps rightly, have scoffed at the exaggerated form of the belief, that God is angry with the sons of men every time drought or floods happen, yet the instinct is sound which in all ages has led religious people to feel that such things are inflicted for moral purposes. In the economy of the universe there may be ends of a purely physical kind served by such disasters apart altogether from their meaning to man. But man at least learns from them that nature does not exist solely for feeding, clothing, and keeping him wealthy … Amos had the more need to explain those disasters as the work of God and His righteousness, because his contemporaries, while willing to grant Jehovah leadership in war, were tempted to attribute to the Canaanite gods of the land all power over the seasons [Hosea 2:5; Hosea 2:8]" (G. A. Smith, p. 162 f.; cf. Geogr.pp. 73 76).