This week we
will begin the study of the Book of Amos
in the Old Testament.
Background
Amos was a contemporary of Hosea as a prophet to the Northern Kingdom, Israel, except that Amos was a resident of Judah. Being a shepherd and a sycamore-fig cultivator of Tekoa, a town twelve miles southeast of Bethlehem, his ministry was far shorter than that of Hosea, if we take 1:1 literally indicating the year he prophesied. Some even think that his ministry lasted only in terms of weeks. However, his message roared like a powerful lion, focusing on Israel’s sins in the social realm and their compromise with paganism, especially the sin of idol worship. As he served during the reigns of Jeroboam II (786-746 B.C.) and Uzziah (785-747 B.C.) with the latter bringing his son into co-regency in 750 B.C., Amos did not act as a prophet beyond 750 B.C. This suggests a prosperous time in the Northern Kingdom, with unprecedented military might (having subdued Israel’s most powerful nearby enemy, the Arameans as recorded in 2 Kings 14:25-28), international peace (including the absence of any Israelite-Judean war) and an economic boom.
1:1-2—Introduction
(1) According to 1:1, which two features about Amos make him least likely to be chosen by God as His prophet to speak words of judgment to the Northern Kingdom?
(2) Many scholars opine that 1:2 serves as the theme of the whole book. See if you agree:
a. Who is the real speaker of the message?
b. Why does Amos describe the Lord as roaring and thundering?
c. Why does he remind his hearers, the people of the Northern Kingdom, of where the Lord is (from Zion and Jerusalem)?
d. Why is the judgment pronounced on both the shepherds’ pastures — which would include his in the south, and the “head of the forest-crowned Carmel” (K&D, 164) — in the north?
1:3–2:5—Seven judgments against Israel’s surrounding nations:
- Damascus in the northeast (1:3-5)
- Gaza in the southwest (1:6-8)
- Tyre in the northwest (1:9-10)
- Edom in the far south (1:11-12)
- Ammon in the east (1:13-15)
- Moab in the southeast (2:1-3)
- Judah to its immediate south (2:4-5)
(3) These judgments follow an obvious pattern, with slight variations. Let’s consider the messages to the first five nations (i.e. 1:3-15).
a. How does each message begin and end?
b. What might be the emphasis of this pattern?
c. In pointing out the sins of each nation and that the Lord will not relent, what does the pattern of “For three sins…even four” mean?
(4) Damascus (1:3-5): It is the capital of Syria.
a. Their wickedness—Gilead to the north-eastern end of Israel, naturally bore the brunt of Syrian attack. What is the sin being highlighted by the Lord? Why is it considered so wicked? (See 2 Ki. 10:32-33; 13:7-8)
b. Their judgment—What, in essence, is the judgment pronounced? (Note that most of the names of cities or places are not certain, except that Kir is the place where the Syrians came from according to 9:7.)
(5) Gaza (1:6-8): Gaza together with Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath are the five major capitals of the Philistines, with the latter probably destroyed by the time of Amos.
a. Their wickedness—What kind of sin is it, to take captive whole communities and sell them as slaves?
b. Their judgment—What is the judgment pronounced? How severe is it?
(6) Tyre (1:9-10): See Ezekiel 28:11-19 to get a sense of the prosperity and beauty of this eastern coastal city of the Mediterranean.
a. Their wickedness—In addition to the sin mentioned against Gaza, what is being highlighted here as Tyre’s particular wickedness?
b. Their judgment — What is the judgment pronounced?
(7) Edom (1:11-12): Edom differs from the above nations in that it is related to Israel (their ancestor, Esau, was the brother of Jacob)
a. Their wickedness—What sins are being pointed out? What particular wickedness is being portrayed by their sins?
b. Their judgment—Teman is the southernmost substantial city and Bozrah is Edom’s capital. What judgment is being pronounced on them? (Note: The judgment does not end with the words, “says the Lord”.)
(8) Ammon (1:13-15):
a. Their wickedness—What is the particular sin being pointed out and why is it such a wickedness to be judged harshly?
b. Their judgment—What is the judgment pronounced?
(9) List the particular wickedness of each of the above nations: Do you see the particular kinds of sin abhorred by the Lord?
(10) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
Note:
In each of the above wickednesses singled out for each nation, there lacks a direct event whether in Scriptures or in secular history to which we can clearly tie the sin.
2:1-3—Moab:
(1) Their wickedness—What kind of wickedness is it to burn to ashes the bones of their enemy?
(2) Their judgment—What is the judgment, as a result?
2:4-5—Judah—Unlike the neighboring nations, Judah, the Southern Kingdom, is held accountable based on their relationship with the Lord:
(3) The wickedness—What are the sins being singled out here? Why are these sins so different from those of the other nations? Are their sins more wicked than the other nations? Why or why not?
(4) Their judgment—What is the judgment, as a result? How is their judgment compared to the rest of the nations above?
2:6-16—Israel—As Amos has been called to speak to Israel, although the pattern of rebuke is the same as those to the forgoing neighbors, the contents are necessarily in greater details:
(5) Their wickedness—How would you label the kind of wickedness that is represented by each of the sins being pointed out below?
a. Selling the innocent and the needy
b. Trampling on the head of the poor
c. Denying justice to the oppressed
d. Father and son having sex with the same girl
e. Laying on pledged garment beside every altar
f. Drinking wine for fun in idol’s temple
(6) What kind of a society is being depicted by the above accusations?
(7) What kind of a people should Israel become, because of the following?
a. God’s extermination of their most-feared enemy, the Amorites
b. God’s miraculous guidance, provision in the wilderness, ending with giving them a land not theirs
c. God’s raising prophets among them
d. God’s raising Nazirites among their youth (See Num. 6)
(8) What kind of wickedness is their sin concerning the prophets and the Nazirites?
(9) Their judgment—
a. What does the picture of the crushing by a loaded cart convey as their judgment?
b. In particular, who does the Lord cite as the people who will not escape?
c. What do these people represent?
(10) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
After the pronouncement of the seven judgments that follow the “three sins…even four” pattern, now the message is focused back on Israel:
3:1-2—Entrusted with much, much more is demanded of all Israel.
(1) How special is Israel to the Lord?
(2) What are the implications of being the only family chosen on earth? (Read Exod. 19:5-6 to see their privilege and mission.)
(3) Should their punishment be more severe? (Lk. 12:48)
3:3-8—Israel cannot play dumb — when faced with questions that leave them without any excuse:
(4) V. 3: Israel was not forced into the covenant: What has led to their rescue from Egypt? (Exod. 2:23-25)
(5) Vv. 4-5: Cause and effect—What do the metaphors of the lion and the bird serve to illustrate?
(6) V. 6: Disasters come from God—How might they explain away all the calamities that befell and will befall them?
(7) V. 7: But they have been forewarned—How have they treated the prophets and their messages? (See 2:12) Why?
(8) V. 8 Amos is compelled to speak—How does the Lord affirm the role of Amos?
3:9-15—Their judgment
(9) V. 9: Why does the Lord call on Ashdod (the Philistines) and Egypt (addressed to their fortresses) to come to Samaria to bear witness to God’s judgment on His people?
(10) V. 10: In their presence, what does the Lord announce (perhaps, as a warning to these witnesses as well) as their sins? In particular, consider these questions:
a. What is meant by “they do not know how to do right?”
b. What is the sin of “storing up”?
c. What is the sin of “plundering and looting”?
d. What is the sin of “oppression”? (v. 9)
(11) V.11: What is the appropriate judgment of these sins?
(12) V.12: What will be the extent of their punishment? Is it too severe? Why or why not?
(13) Vv. 13-15: The Lord calls upon these pagan witnesses to see beyond Samaria's sins of greed, injustice and violence (of vv. 9-10), but as sins committed as “the descendants of Jacob”:
a. What is the significance of referring them as Jacob’s descendants?
b. What are the two sins mentioned by the Lord?
c. The sin at Bethel has often been mentioned: Read 1 Kings 12:25-29 and see how wicked is this sin which goes beyond simply idol-worship.
d. While we understand God’s hatred of their sin at Bethel, why is their sin of luxury and comfort being singled out by the Lord?
(14) Pause and reflect on the way the Lord presents His judgment in this chapter. What is the main message to you today and how can you apply it to your life?
After calling the Philistine and Egyptian rulers to be His witnesses against Israel’s sins of greed, injustice, violence, idol worship and luxury, the Lord now addresses the wealthy women among them:
4:1-3—The sins of the wealthy women
(1) We read earlier in 3:15 the charge against luxury, and here the wealthy women are being rebuked:
a. Is living in luxury necessarily a sin?
b. What, in particular, are the sins of these women? (See Ps. 22:12 to get a sense of the meaning of cows of Bashan.)
(2) Why does the Lord use fishhooks to describe their fate of captivity (apart from prophesying the breakdown of the walls of their fortresses and their being carried away to a faraway place, denoted likely by the name Harmon)?
(3) Why does the Lord pronounce such a judgment in a sworn statement and by His holiness?
4:4-5—False piety exposed
(4) What religious practices have they maintained? In what ways might they be commendable?
(5) Do you think it is the boasting that the Lord abhors, or their basic sins of worshipping in Bethel and in Gilgal or both? Why?
(6) What might be the present-day application?
4:6-11—Restrained judgments ignored: In their affluence and prosperity, the Lord in fact has begun His chastisement in the following ways:
(7) V. 6: Famine—Whom do you think such famine had affected most?
(8) Vv. 7-8: Drought—Why did the Lord choose to withhold rain in one town and not in the other? Did the people see this as God’s reminder of their sins?
(9) V. 9: Vegetation and plantation—In what ways can we see that this represents a more severe judgment than those previously mentioned? Why didn’t the people repent?
(10) V. 10: Pestilence and wars—How do these calamities differ from those mentioned before? Why would they not repent, especially if they cared to read Leviticus 26:25 and Deuteronomy 28:49-57?
(11) V. 11: In spite of their superficial prosperity, what does the Lord say they are really like?
(12) All these disasters did not likely happen at the same time, and some had subsided, but collectively they should have served as a very important warning to Israel. What might be the core problem with not returning to God in spite of these disasters?
4:12-13—The warning to prepare to meet their God
(13) Now, God is ready to pronounce judgment that will be far more serious than anything they have seen:
a. How does God remind them of who He is?
b. What do all these, together with the reiteration of His name, have to do with asking them to prepare to meet Him?
c. What is meant by meeting God in this context?
d. How should they prepare?
(14) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
After the warning to Israel to prepare to meet their God, the Lord now speaks of that “day” when they will meet their God — the Day of the Lord, but He frames it in the form of “a lamentation or dirge for one who is dead” (K&D, 187):
5:1-2—The opening word of the lament:
(1) Who is the lamenter? Who is the one being lamented?
(2) Why does the Lord call Israel, “virgin”?
a. Is it because she has been keeping herself as pure as a virgin? Or
b. Does the Lord mourn for her as one mourns for his precious daughter who has yet to be given to marriage?
c. Have you ever mourned for someone who was still a child or a teenager?
d. Can you identify with the sorrow of the Lord, even though He is the one who would exact the punishment?
5:3—The first of the formula: “This is what the Lord says to Israel”.
(3) Since this, in essence, is a funeral lament, it deals with death:
a. What is the extent of their death toll?
b. What would you call such an extent of death? (Genocide?)
c. How real has it been in the history of Israel even up until today?
5:4-15—The
second of the formula is helpfully divided by the NIV into three segments with
the same idea, each beginning with “There are those”:
(4) 5:4-6—Call to repentance
a. As “final” as the judgment appears to be, why does the Lord still call them to repentance?
b. How should they repent?
c. What is meant by “live”?
d. What if they still would not repent?
(5) 5:7-9—The first “There are those”
a. Who is this charge directed to? the average folks or the leaders?
b. What is the charge? How serious is it?
c. What will be the consequence of their sin?
d. How does the Lord describe who He is and why?
(6) 5:10-12a—the second “There are those”
a. Who is this charge directed to?
b. While the charge appears to be similar to the previous one, it is in greater detail and more direct:
- What are the verbs used to describe their sin against justice and truth?
- The poor likely do not even own their land, but lease it to plant to derive a meager income. What will the additional tax do to them? Why would the rulers do so?
c. What will be the consequence of their sin?
d. How does God look upon those who oppress the poor in similar ways today?
(7) 5:12b-15—The third “There are those”
a. Who is this charge directed to?
b. How do such sins affect the society in general?
c. How should they repent?
d. What will be the consequence, should they repent?
However, v. 15 ends with saying that it does not mean they will not face the temporal punishment of their sins as signified by the term, “the remnant of Joseph". See 5:27.
5:16-17—The third formula of “this is what the Lord says to Israel” :
(8) Why does this lament end with the Lord calling Himself “the Lord God Almighty”?
(9) Where will they be wailing?
(10) Who will be summoned to weep?
(11) Who will cause all these to happen?
(12) How does this chapter echo the call to “prepare to meet your God” in 4:12?
(13) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
After the song of lament, the Lord now addresses the Day of the Lord — the ultimate judgment day for Israel:
5:18-20—A day to be dreaded
(1) In depicting it as a day of darkness, what two analogies does the Lord use?
(2) What is the common theme of the two analogies?
(3) Read Matthew 24:15-22 to get a sense of the urgency and inescapability.
(4) Why
then do they long for such a day?
5:21-24—Israel has aroused the hatred and scorn of the Lord
(5) What does the Lord hate and despise?
(6) What has Israel done to arouse such hatred by the Lord?
(7) What are justice and righteousness? Should they not be the marks of all who belong to the Lord?
a. What has happened in Israel that has led to such a pitiful situation in society? (5:10-13)
b. In our rightful emphasis on the gospel and its proclamation, we seem to downplay the importance of justice and righteousness in the society: Do you think it is in tune with the gospel? Why or why not?
5:25-27—It is in the g _ _ _ _?
(8) I have not put a complete heading to these final verses: what might be an appropriate heading to this section?
(9) If I say the heading should be “It is in Israel’s genes.”, what would you think?
(10) What is their judgment?
(11) Hengstenberg says, “All this [the acts of worship enumerated in vv. 21-23] can no more be called a true worship, [any more] than the open idolatry in the wilderness. Therefore (v. 27) as in that instance the outwardly idolatrous people did not tread the holy land, so will the inwardly idolatrous people be driven out of the holy land” (K&D 194). Do you agree with his comment? Why or why not?
(12) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
The last message in chapter 5 deals with the hypocrisy of Israel and their erroneous view of the Day of the Lord. Here, the sins of injustice and unrighteousness are mentioned again, adding complacency as the theme, and are aimed at the rulers and the wealthy:
6:1-3—The rulers of Zion (Judah) and Samaria (Israel) rebuked
(1) To whom in the two nations is this message addressed?
(2) How does the Lord remind them of the blessings He has bestowed upon them? (Note: Kalneh is in the land of Babylon, Hamath is the capital of Syria and Gath is one of the major cities in Philistia.)
(3) Surely, Judah and Israel could not put off their days of disaster. What then does v. 3 mean?
(4) What does the contrast between “put off” and “bring near” serve to highlight?
6:4-6—The sin of complacency exposed
(5) What kind of lifestyle of the elites is being depicted in vv. 4-6a? (See note below.)
(6) What makes such debauchery an even greater sin? (For the meaning of "the ruin of Joseph", see reflective questions of Year 3 Week 41 Day 284 on Amos 4:6-11.)
(7) While v. 1 highlights their sin as one of complacency, based on vv. 4-6, what might you call this kind of wickedness?
6:7-11—Severe judgment awaits them, solemnly declared by the “Sovereign Lord” and the “Lord God Almighty”: While their particular sin of complacency (and pride) invites the judgment of being the first to go into exile (before Judah), the horror of their destruction is detailed in vv. 9-11.
(8) How does v. 9 adds to the severity of the judgment declared in 5:3?
(9) Normally, the Israelites do not burn their dead, so what will cause them to burn the bodies of their dead?
(10) Why would the sole survivor in the house ask not to mention the name of the Lord?
6:12-14—The end of Israel
(11) In pronouncing their destruction as a nation, the Lord uses two similes to depict their wickedness:
a. What do horses depict and how does this simile fit their sin of turning justice into poison?
b. What does the plowing by oxen either along the sea or rocky crags (depending on the manuscripts used) fit their sin of turning the fruit of righteousness into bitterness as a simile?
(12) Apart from the sin of injustice, the Lord rebukes their sin of pride (in their military might). Read 2 Kings 14:25, 28 for the conquest of Jeroboam referred to in v. 13:
a. What does the Lord try to show them by “deliberately misspelling the first town as Lo Debar to mean ‘nothing' "? (TOTC, 199)
b. And what about the choosing of the remote north eastern town of Karnaim (meaning double-horned) to mock their strength?
c. What is the result of their pride, self-reliance and injustice?
(13) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
Note:
“The lavish use of wine and oil (i.e. unbridled pleasure) condemned by Amos, is documented in a set of inscriptions on potsherds discovered at Samaria in the Harvard Expeditions of 1908-10. These potsherds…contain records of the delivery of jugs of old wine and purified olive oil…they provide clear evidence of the wasteful opulence of Samaria’s ruling class; both the old wine, having been stored for long periods of time, and the oil, described as purified by repeated and careful straining, would be especially expensive goods, a fact that Amos recognized in the phrase ‘the first-fruit of the olive oils’ (the finest oils) with which the wealthy smeared themselves for refreshment and fragrance.”
(TOTC, Joel & Amos, 194)