Amos 8:1-6

CAUSES OF JUDGMENT PROPHESIEDGOD'S LONGSUFFERING HAS EXPIRED

TEXT: Amos 8:1-6

1

Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: and, behold, a basket of summer fruit.

2

And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said Jehovah unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

3

And the songs of the temple shall be wailings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence.

4

Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

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saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

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that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

QUERIES

a.

How does a basket of summer fruit symbolize the end of Israel?

b.

What is the meaning of casting them forth with silence?

c.

How will the ephah be made small and the shekel great?

PARAPHRASE

Then the Lord showed me a vision a basket full of ripe fruit. He asked me, What do you see, Amos? And I replied, I see a basket of summer-ripe fruit. Then the Lord God said to me, So are my people Israel ripe for destruction. I will not defer their punishment again. The songs of joy which the people sing at their riotous feasts in their temple will be turned into weeping and wailing. There will be dead bodies by the thousands where God has cast them down in many places; there will be a deathly silence as those living are overwhelmed at the terrible judgment of God. Listen to this, you who greedily plan to devour the poor man's possessions. You who sigh with impatience for the legal holidays and days of religious worship to be over and done with so you can get on with cheating the poor. You cheat and rob the poor by using short measures and raising prices; you cheat by weighing merchandise on rigged scales; you cheat by selling for grain the sweepings from the floor of your granaries. All this you do to make the poor man so poor he cannot even pay for a pair of shoes and then he is forced to become a slave to his creditors.

SUMMARY

Israel is ripe for destruction. Why? Because of her rebellion against Jehovah and His Law and all that is righteous and just. God's judgment will terrify!

COMMENT

Amos 8:1-2. BEHOLD, A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT. THE END IS COME UPON MY PEOPLE. The prophet is given another vision, What he sees is symbolic of Israel's future. He sees a basket filled with summer fruit, There can be no doubt as to what it symbolizes for God Himself has given the interpretation. Just as a basket of summer fruit indicates the reaper has gone through the vineyard and that the time for growing and developing has ended so God the reaper has passed through Israel and her time has ended (cf. Isaiah 18:5; Jeremiah 24; Hosea 9:10; Joel 3:13; Micah 7:1; Nahum 3:12; Revelation 14:15; Revelation 14:18). The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved (Jeremiah 8:20), could be written over the palaces and homes of Israel! Their last opportunity has come and gone according to the vision given to Amos. Most certainly there comes a time (known only to God, of course) when God's longsuffering runs out. His Spirit will not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3). It was revealed to Amos that this terrible moment was about to come to Israel.

Amos 8:3. THE SONGS OF THE TEMPLE SHALL BE WAILINGS IN THAT DAY. DEAD BODIES SHALL BE MANY. THEY CAST THEM FORTH WITH SILENCE, When that terrible day of the Lord shall come the songs of frivolous joy and merriment sung in their temples (plural in Israel) will be turned into howling shrieks of mourning; they will be weeping and wailing instead of laughing and singing. There will be cries of terror, fear; tears of mourning for the multitudes of dead bodies cast out in many places. Then after the first expressions of mourning there will come the awed silence born of the overwhelming severity of the judgment of God they experience (cf. Zephaniah 1:7; Habakkuk 2:20; Zech. 2:17). There will be the furtive whispers and glances as they literally feel the omnipotent wrath of God in their very presence.

Amos 8:4-6HEAR THIS. YE. THAT. SWALLOW UP THE NEEDY. SAYING, WHEN WILL THE NEW MOON BE GONE, THAT WE MAY SELL GRAIN. MAKING THE EPHAH SMALL. AND SELL THE REFUSE OF THE WHEAT? Israel is a nation of greedy profiteers, Swallowing up the poor. The original text pictures the rich panting after the poor man and his possessions like a wild beast pants for its victim. The greedy rich harassed the poor and literally stalked them. The rich merchants and officials could barely wait while they punctiliously performed religious holidays until they could get back to cheating the poor and powerless. As far as the rich were concerned they only went through the motions of observing religious holidays for the sake of expediency. It helped them maintain control in governmental affairs and gave them a show of being religious. That was as far as religion went in their lives. When they got to their houses of merchandise or judgment seats it was do the other man before he has a chance to do you.

The Chodesh (the new moon) was a holiday on which all trade was suspended just as it was on the Sabbath (cf. 2 Kings 4:23; Isaiah 1:13; Hosea 2:13). (For regulations concerning the Sabbath day see Exodus 20:9-10).

The ephah (in dry measure) is about 3/5 of a bushel. The shekel, in Amos-' day, was probably a hunk of crude, shapeless precious metal, heavy enough so as to approximate the value of the item purchased in actual weight. The buyer usually weighed his money to the seller. The Jewish shekel was sucha weight (shekel literally means weight). Among the Jews the shekel was used for the temple tax, poll tax, and for redemption from the priesthood (Exodus 30:11-16; Exodus 13:13; Numbers 3:44-51). Most historians believe that the earliest money pieces, as such, were struck about 700 B.C. in the small kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor. So in Amos-' day they were probably still using shekels as weights. In Jesus-' day, of course, the shekel was struck in coin form and the value of a shekel then was worth about a day's wages. Now we can begin to see that if the greedy merchants made the ephah basket smaller than usual and increased the weight of the shekel over what it usually was then they were robbing the poor unmercifully. Not only that but they were using scales upon which to weigh grain that were rigged. Furthermore, they were selling the chaff for wheat. The poor were being robbed so thoroughly that they did not even have enough to pay the very smallest debt (a pair of shoes). The poor debtor would either have to sell himself to his creditor (Leviticus 25:39) or wait for the courts (which were also unjust) to hand him over to his creditor for enslavement.

Honeycutt says, One of the most frighteningly disturbing events upon which an individual can contemplate is -the end.-' Whether it be the end of human existence as known in this life, the end of the cosmos as often stressed in some eschatological forecasts, or the end of an era of vitality for an institution; -the end-' is never a pleasant topic of conversation. Consideration of its reality is intensified in its sense of dread, however, when one comes to understand that -the end-' is not just a future event. Amos anticipated this when he spoke of the end as having already come upon Israel. The end of the nation had been so firmly fixed that he viewed it as already achieved. The nature of her character and her reaction to God had been such that Amos could speak of the end of Israel as a present reality.
When current political and religious structures and behaviours are examined, one often has this same feeling concerning the present reality of the end. The seeds of dissolution and destruction have been sown in both political and religious life and the end seems to be upon us now! It seems as though the end has already come!
In the case of Israel social injustice as a principle of life and conduct was cited as characteristic of a nation of whom it could be said the end has come. We firmly believe that whether it be ancient Israel embroiled in the problems of the eighth century B.C. or contemporary America, the principle is the same. Social injustice as an accepted fact of life will bring about the destruction of any society, ancient or modern, The same is true of the manifestations of superficiality in religion.

QUIZ

1.

How are we to interpret the figure of the basket of summer fruit? Why?

2.

How severe will be the judgment of God upon Israel?

3.

How were the rich cheating the poor?

4.

Could Israel's destiny be a lesson for contemporary society? Why?