Amo 3:9-15 | KingComments | STEP | After justifying his service as a prophet, Amos now unreservedly announces the verdict that must come over the ten tribes. The command of the LORD to the prophets is: “Proclaim.” They must call Asdod and Egypt to witness the violence and atrocities taking place in the citadels of Samaria. For this they must sit on the mountains of Samaria and see what is going on there. From what they have seen, they have to testify again to Israel. By this action of the LORD the excess of the sins of Israel is presented in a shameful manner (cf. ). What a humiliation it is for the people of God when they have to be judged by heathens. Sometimes the world has a more correct judgment of evil by the people of God than the Christian himself. The Philistines, represented in the city of Asdod, are the people closest to them. Egypt is the known great empire. What God has revealed must be preached, near and far. By making them witnesses to the sins of Samaria, the enemies must understand that God rightly uses them to discipline His people. Ashdod and Egypt are called to bear witness to Israel’s iniquity, which is expressed here in disturbance and oppression. There is general (social) injustice, and the mighty people abuse their position to oppress others. The whole social life is disrupted ( ). By the way, the fact that God uses them to discipline His people should not lead the people around them to think that they themselves are better. To put it in New Testament language, they will have to realize that it is “time for judgment to begin with the household of God”. Then it will affect them and what will be the outcome for them? ( ).

‏ Amos 3:9-15

Proclaim

After justifying his service as a prophet, Amos now unreservedly announces the verdict that must come over the ten tribes. The command of the LORD to the prophets is: “Proclaim.” They must call Asdod and Egypt to witness the violence and atrocities taking place in the citadels of Samaria. For this they must sit on the mountains of Samaria and see what is going on there. From what they have seen, they have to testify again to Israel.

By this action of the LORD the excess of the sins of Israel is presented in a shameful manner (cf. 2Sam 1:20). What a humiliation it is for the people of God when they have to be judged by heathens. Sometimes the world has a more correct judgment of evil by the people of God than the Christian himself. The Philistines, represented in the city of Asdod, are the people closest to them. Egypt is the known great empire.

What God has revealed must be preached, near and far. By making them witnesses to the sins of Samaria, the enemies must understand that God rightly uses them to discipline His people. Ashdod and Egypt are called to bear witness to Israel’s iniquity, which is expressed here in disturbance and oppression. There is general (social) injustice, and the mighty people abuse their position to oppress others. The whole social life is disrupted (Ecc 4:1).

By the way, the fact that God uses them to discipline His people should not lead the people around them to think that they themselves are better. To put it in New Testament language, they will have to realize that it is “time for judgment to begin with the household of God”. Then it will affect them and what will be the outcome for them? (1Pet 4:17).

Why the Judgment Comes

“They do not know how to do what is right” means that doing right is totally strange to them. It is a road they have never taken, they have no knowledge of it at all. What they know and do is the opposite: they accumulate injustice and violence in their citadels.

How expressive is the language of Amos here. Their houses are like warehouses, filled with all kinds of prosperity goods. But by hoarding up these goods they are also hoarding up their social sins, because they owe their stock to violence and oppression. If you look at these piled up goods, you can see their accumulated sins. Their moral sentences are so twisted, that they no longer distinguish between good and evil. Doing injustice has become their nature.

Opposing the oppression of the poor and socially weak by the rich and powerful is an element that Amos keeps coming back to (Amos 2:6 ; Amos 4:1 ; Amos 5:7 ; 10 ; 12 ; 15 ; Amos 6:3 ; 12 ; Amos 8:5).

The Enemy Does Its Work

They will be delighted to see their ever larger piles of goods. But the pleasure in it will disappear. Their luxury homes will be plundered by the enemy. That is the result if God looks at our goods differently than we do. He sees any increase in their possessions as an increase in their sins, because of the unlawful way in which they obtained them.

His judgment of their sins is seen by Amos and what he sees, he passes on. The enemy will invade and take the land from all sides. He will encircle the cities (cf. Lk 19:43) and humiliate the arrogant people by tearing down their “strength”, which are the walls and towers, and destroying their “citadels”, which are their luxurious dwellings. It is most obvious to think of the enemy as Assyria, who in 722 BC will take away the population of the ten tribes empire in the scattering.

Only a Remnant Is Saved

Of the people who live in such wealth and tranquility, hardly anything will remain, comparatively nothing. Only a remnant will be saved (Amos 4:11 ; Amos 5:15 ; Amos 9:8), a miserable little heap, not even a shadow of the former abundance. Yet there is a remnant, as God will always provide for a remnant according to His gracious choice (Rom 11:5). Later we meet an Anna, from the tribe of Asher (Lk 2:36-38). She does not have a winter or summer house (Amos 3:15), but is in God’s house day and night.

This remnant will be characterized by a balanced walk to the honor of God, of which the “a couple of legs” speak, and a listening to Him, of which we may think at “a piece of an ear”. Also in the present time, that of Christianity, in which the decay increases hand over hand and on which God’s judgment has been announced, there is a remnant. It consists of all those who do not resign themselves to the general decline in Christianity as a result of the increasing abandonment of the Word of God.

In Revelation 2-3 the decline in Christianity is presented in the seven epistles to the seven churches. All those who do not go along with the evil mentioned in the letter in question are called ‘overcomers’. They form the remnant in the midst of the whole. Their characteristics are: they walk in allegiance to the Lord and to His Word and they have an ear to hear.

This remnant contrasts sharply with the people on their beds and couches. These are the people of whom Peter says: “They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you” (2Pet 2:13). They bathe themselves in opulence and laziness and surround themselves with everything that can satisfy their carnal pleasures.

An Interruption

For a moment the announcement of judgment is interrupted. For a moment a pause to let what has been said sink in. That rest is used to make a serious appeal to the people. May the people hear! The Speaker is indicated in a grand and impressive way. The words “hear and testify” come from none other than “the Lord LORD, the God of hosts”. He introduces himself here as their “Lord”, Adonai, their Commander. He is the “LORD”, Yahweh, Who has brought Himself into a covenant with them. He stands at the head of all heavenly and earthly army forces, He is “the God of hosts”.

To whom this “hear” is addressed, is not said. One possibility is that it is addressed again to the heathens of Amos 3:9. They have seen what Samaria does. They have also heard the punishment that God announces about it. Now they have to warn the house of Jacob. “Testify” is the solemn assurance of what has been said and warning that what has been said will come.

Judgment on the False Religion

The judgment on the altars of Bethel recalls the word of the man of God from Judah in the days of Jeroboam I (1Kgs 13:1-5). The word spoken at that time will be performed by Josiah one hundred years after Amos (2Kgs 23:15-16).

The horns are an important part of the altar (Exo 27:2 ; Exo 30:2). They symbolize the power of the altar. If the horns are cut off, the altar is destroyed and powerless in its workings. They are no longer there to hold on to in order to possibly escape judgment (1Kgs 1:50; cf. Exo 21:12-14).

This judgment on the altars is in fact the judgment on all idolatry that takes place in Bethel. Because this sin of idolatry is the basis for the other sins, Amos, in between the judgments about wealth and oppression, pronounces this judgment about the false religion. In fact, every sinful behavior a member of the people exhibits stems from a sinful service to God. It is also possible to see the horns of the altar as a symbol of everything to which a person thinks he can take refuge in the (false) certainty that it is all right there.

Houses Are Destroyed

When ‘the house of God’ – that is the meaning of the name ‘Bethel’ – perishes, there can no longer be a right to exist for any house. Bethel no longer honors his name. God has been replaced by idols. The judgment of Bethel was announced in the previous verse. As prosperity is pursued, God disappears from sight. The luxury in which the people bathe is an annoyance to the peasant Amos. Several times he bursts out against it with a justified indignation (Amos 3:12 ; 15 ; Amos 5:11 ; Amos 6:1 ; 4-6).

The prosperity of the time of Amos can easily be translated to the time in which we, Christians of the twenty-first century, live. The economy is running at full speed. Everyone, we are told, is increasingly prosperous. As long as this is repeated often enough and becomes palpably true, the enormous danger looms up that we, too, will allow ourselves to be carried away by what someone once called the ‘belief in progress’.

Are the ‘winter house’ and the ‘summer house’ mentioned by Amos not close to us even in a literal sense? After all, many Christians own two houses. One in the Netherlands for the summer, one in Spain to spend the winter there. To have only one copy of something is not always enough anymore. Two cars, twice a year on vacation, two smart phones and so on.

We have to have everything double, because often we have two incomes. And if that does not quite work out, we take out a personal loan. Well, you do not want to lag behind. The money is within reach. One signature and the matter is settled. We profess to be Christians, but don’t we live in the meantime as calculating and egocentric as the people around us? Where in all this is the dependence on God?

This word also applies with all its force to us if we only have one house and one car and if we only go on vacation once a year. We can decorate our house in such a way that it can serve as a place in which we think we can survive in all possible situations. We are prepared for anything and have covered ourselves against all possible calamities. And that one vacation must and will come. We need it and we are entitled to it. And our one car has the place of an ‘altar of Bethel’. What sacrifices are made to idol car! And clean up, guys; be careful not to scratch or dent it. It is our status symbol.

Do we know who also has a winter house? King Jehoiakim, the wicked son of the God-fearing King Josiah. What is he doing there? Cutting the Word of God to pieces (Jer 36:16-26). We should think about how much we have already ‘cut away’ from the Word of God with all our luxury. And Ahab, the most wicked king of Israel, has an ivory house (1Kgs 22:39).

All that wealth will be taken away by judgment and ultimately disappear. The judgment that Amos announces about these houses may have been carried out by the earthquake we read about at the beginning of his prophecy. In any case, it will have happened at the conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser (2Kgs 17:5-7).

The application to our time we see on the housing market. People with towering mortgages are totally grounded. Mandatory housing sales result from people in great financial distress.