Amo 1:3-2:16 | TNotes | STEP | Summary for Amos 1:3-2:16: 1:3–2:16 The eight judgments of this prophecy proceed from the most obvious enemy, Damascus, to the least obvious, Israel itself. The sequence would have engaged Israel’s attention as they heard God’s judgment against their enemies, but Amos eventually confronted the people with God’s judgment on them. Summary for Amos 1:3-5: 1:3-5 Damascus , the capital of Aram , was brutal in its treatment of the people of Gilead , Israel’s territory east of the Jordan. By the time Ahab died (853 BC ), Damascus had captured Ramoth in Gilead (1 Kgs 22:3 ). Around 801 BC , Assyria captured Damascus, and the city never again held the power it had wielded in its prime. 1:3 have sinned again and again: Literally have committed three sins, even four. This expression is used for a repeated act of rebellion against the natural order established by God. The Hebrew phrase does not denote a strict count but a pattern of repeated violations. • beat down my people: Threshing grain involved separating the heads of the grain from their hulls by pulling wooden sledges with sharp teeth over the cut grain (Isa 41:15 ; see Mic 4:13 ). This description provides a graphic picture of the brutality of the people of Damascus.

Summary for Amos 1:3-2:16: 1:3–2:16 ^a The eight judgments of this prophecy proceed from the most obvious enemy, Damascus, to the least obvious, Israel itself. The sequence would have engaged Israel’s attention as they heard God’s judgment against their enemies, but Amos eventually confronted the people with God’s judgment on them.
Summary for Amos 1:3-5: 1:3-5 ^b Damascus, the capital of Aram, was brutal in its treatment of the people of Gilead, Israel’s territory east of the Jordan. By the time Ahab died (853 BC), Damascus had captured Ramoth in Gilead (1 Kgs 22:3 ^c). Around 801 BC, Assyria captured Damascus, and the city never again held the power it had wielded in its prime. 1:3 ^d have sinned again and again: Literally have committed three sins, even four. This expression is used for a repeated act of rebellion against the natural order established by God. The Hebrew phrase does not denote a strict count but a pattern of repeated violations.

• beat down my people: Threshing grain involved separating the heads of the grain from their hulls by pulling wooden sledges with sharp teeth over the cut grain (Isa 41:15 ^e; see Mic 4:13 ^f). This description provides a graphic picture of the brutality of the people of Damascus.
1:4 ^g I will send down fire: In ancient times conquered cities were burned by invading armies (see also 1:7 ^h, 10 ⁱ, 12 ^j, 14 ^k; 2:2 ^l, 5 ^m). The conquest of Damascus would be God’s judgment on them.

• Hazael reigned as king of Damascus (about 843–802 BC) after he seized the throne by assassination. Ben-hadad was Hazael’s son and successor (about 802–792 BC).
1:5 ⁿ Aven and Beth-eden were both connected with Aram and Damascus. Aven (meaning evil, wickedness) refers to the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains or the plain of Damascus. The city-state Beth-eden was north of Aram, elsewhere simply called Eden (2 Kgs 19:12 ^o; Ezek 27:23 ^p).

• The Arameans originally came from Kir (Amos 9:7 ^q), probably in southern Babylonia; Kir was where Assyria deported them when Damascus fell (2 Kgs 16:9 ^r). Just as Egypt was a symbol of captivity for Israel (see Deut 28:68 ^s), Kir represented captivity for Aram.
1:6 ^t The Philistine city of Gaza, on the seacoast at the southwest edge of Palestine, was the gateway for traffic between Africa and Asia. Its sin was slave trading; Philistia had raided Israel or Judah and sold whole villages into slavery to Edom.
1:7 ^u I will send down fire: Uzziah conquered Philistia (2 Chr 26:6 ^v); in 701 BC, the Assyrian invasion all but ended the distinct identity of the Philistines.
1:8 ^w The Philistine cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon were on or near the seacoast, while Ekron lay inland. Gath is not mentioned here, as it had been conquered earlier by Hazael (2 Kgs 12:17 ^x) and then Uzziah (2 Chr 26:6 ^y).

• the few Philistines still left: The Philistines maintained their ethnic identity through the Assyrian period, but this distinction faded by the time of the Persians (Zech 9:5-7 ^z).
1:9 ^aa Tyre and Sidon were the principal seaports of Phoenicia.

• Tyre’s crime, like Philistia’s (1:6-8 ^ab), was selling whole villages of Israelite captives to the Edomites as slaves, a captivity made more bitter by a sense of betrayal (see 2 Sam 5:11 ^ac; 1 Kgs 5:1 ^ad, 11 ^ae; 16:30-31 ^af). Tyre’s reputation was “anything is for sale”; Isaiah portrayed the city as a prostitute peddling her wares (Isa 23:15-17 ^ag).
1:10 ^ah fire on the walls: The main part of Tyre was built on an island, making it almost impossible to capture (see Ezek 26:1–28:19 ^ai).
1:11 ^aj Edom was another betrayer (see 1:9 ^ak; Gen 36 ^al; see also Gen 25:23-30 ^am; 27:39-40 ^an).

• The NLT adds the Israelites to make explicit what relatives (literally brother) means (see Gen 25:25-30 ^ao). “Brothers” can also refer to parties to a treaty (see Amos 1:9 ^ap). Apparently Edom exerted constant pressure on the borders of Israel and Judah, raiding and plundering at moments of weakness (Jer 49:7-22 ^aq; Obad 1:1-9 ^ar).
1:12 ^as With the destruction of the major cities of Teman and Bozrah, Edom lost its capacity for continual warfare. Babylon destroyed Edom shortly after Judah in 553 BC (see Jer 27 ^at; 49:7-22 ^au; see also study note on Obad 1:18).
1:13 ^av Israel regarded the people of Ammon as kin who also betrayed them. The Ammonites (like the Moabites, 2:1 ^aw) were descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Gen 19:37-38 ^ax). Ammon had been a constant threat to Gilead (see Judg 10:7-9 ^ay).

• In ancient times, conquering armies commonly ripped open pregnant women (2 Kgs 8:12 ^az; 15:16 ^ba; Hos 13:16 ^bb); they also raped the women and slaughtered the children of the towns they seized (Isa 13:16 ^bc, 18 ^bd; Lam 5:11 ^be; Hos 10:14 ^bf; 13:16 ^bg; Nah 3:10 ^bh; Zech 14:2 ^bi).
1:14 ^bj Rabbah was the chief city of the Ammonites (2 Sam 12:26 ^bk).

• Ammon (Amos 1:13 ^bl) was crushed by the Assyrians in the 800s BC, then attacked and depopulated by the Babylonians in the 700s.
1:15 ^bm their king: The Hebrew term malkam may be a reference to the Ammonite god Molech. In ancient times, people believed that a conquered nation’s god or gods went into exile together with them (see 5:26-27 ^bn; 1 Sam 5:1-2 ^bo; Isa 46:1 ^bp).

‏ Amos 2

2:1 ^bq desecrated the bones: In some past skirmish, the Moabites had captured Edom’s king. Cremation was considered a form of desecration; if the ashes (literally lime) of the king were used in plaster, the insult would be compounded.
Summary for Amos 2:2-3: 2:2-3 ^br Kerioth, a major town (Jer 48:20-24 ^bs), is mentioned on the Moabite Stone as a shrine to Chemosh, Moab’s god. Perhaps the Moabites burned the remains of Edom’s king or offered him as a human sacrifice at this site. Because of the desecration of the Edomite king’s corpse, God would destroy the king of Moab and his officers. This fate probably came upon them through an invasion by Sargon II of Assyria (715/713 BC; cp. Isa 15–16 ^bt). Josephus (Antiquities 10.9.7) implies a further destruction in 582 BC (see also Jer 48 ^bu; Ezek 25:8-11 ^bv; Zeph 2:8-11 ^bw).
Summary for Amos 2:4-5: 2:4-5 ^bx The southern kingdom of Judah was closest to the northern kingdom of Israel in blood ties and geography, but bitterness existed between the nations. The north regarded the descendants of David in the south as abusive kings who had caused the schism by their forced labor and heavy taxes. 2:4 ^by rejected the instruction (Hebrew torah) of the Lord: The pagan nations listed to this point had committed atrocities that violated a general sense of human decency, but Judah had gone further; they held the word of God and yet had rejected its teachings (see Hos 4:6 ^bz; 8:1 ^ca). God holds people responsible in proportion to the privilege they have received (see Amos 3:2 ^cb).

• led astray by the same lies: Having discarded God’s true instruction, Judah turned to a substitute found in pagan syncretism (the combining of elements from different belief systems) and idolatry (see 1 Kgs 14:22-24 ^cc).
2:5 ^cd Judah’s paganism brought the same punishment as the sins of its pagan neighbors: fire (1:4 ^ce, 7 ^cf, 10 ^cg, 12 ^ch, 14 ^ci; 2:2 ^cj) that would destroy Jerusalem. The Babylonians burned Jerusalem when they captured it in 586 BC (see 2 Kgs 25:9 ^ck; Neh 2:17 ^cl; 4:2 ^cm).
Summary for Amos 2:6-16: 2:6-16 ^cn Israel: After leading the people through a litany of sins committed by Israel’s neighbors, Amos arrived at his real point: The Israelites would suffer a similar fate (cp. Nathan’s use of prophetic rhetoric to induce self-indictment, 2 Sam 12:1-13 ^co). 2:6 ^cp Honorable people are the “righteous,” those who enjoyed a right relationship with God and other people. The parallel with poor people creates the idea of the “righteous needy.” The law of Moses urged those who had much to help those in need by lending freely (Deut 15:7-11 ^cq). As a last resort, those too poor to pay their debts could become bond servants to repay their debts through labor (Lev 25:39-43 ^cr). These righteous needy were being sold into bond servitude for a pair of sandals, a hyperbole for the pittance they owed (see Amos 8:6 ^cs). The sandals were a pledge given for the debt or a token used to seal a bargain (see Ruth 4:7 ^ct).
2:7 ^cu To trample ... people was to treat them ruthlessly (see also 8:4 ^cv).

• The helpless and oppressed were people exploited by a socio-economic system that denied them the justice guaranteed by law (Exod 23:6-8 ^cw).

• That father and son sleep with the same woman demonstrated the moral destitution of the Israelites; the law of Moses prohibited this practice (Lev 18:7-8 ^cx, 15 ^cy; 20:11-12 ^cz).

• corrupting my holy name: In worshiping various fertility gods, Israel and surrounding nations engaged in “sacred prostitution” (see Hos 4:10-14 ^da). Sexual relations with a shrine prostitute were thought to ensure plentiful crops and thriving herds of livestock. This verse suggests that these acts were performed in the name of the Lord. When performed as religious rituals, these corrupt actions treat God’s name as worthless.
2:8 ^db The irony is that the oppressors of the poor flaunted their sins at religious festivals.

• The Torah allowed a lender to take a poor man’s cloak as security for a debt, but it was not to be kept overnight, because the nights were cold (Exod 22:26-27 ^dc; Deut 24:12-13 ^dd). A widow’s clothing was never to be taken as security for a debt (Deut 24:17 ^de).

• unjust fines: The wealthy bribed judges and used their influence to keep the poor, who could not defend themselves, from obtaining a fair hearing (Amos 5:12 ^df).
2:9 ^dg Amorites is used here as a general term to denote the inhabitants of Canaan (see Gen 15:16 ^dh; Judg 6:10 ^di).
Summary for Amos 2:11-12: 2:11-12 ^dj In addition to priests, God provided prophets to speak his word and will (Deut 18:15-19 ^dk) and holy men called Nazirites, who were dedicated to the Lord by vows that included abstention from fermented drinks (Num 6:1-21 ^dl). Israel showed its disregard for God by telling both the Nazirites and the prophets to ignore and violate God’s calling (see Amos 7:12-13 ^dm).
Summary for Amos 2:14-16: 2:14-16 ^dn The chapter concludes with a description of the battle in which Israel would be defeated and would flee (see Ps 33:16-17 ^do).
2:15 ^dp The archers stood in the last ranks. If they fled, it meant the forward ranks had collapsed.
2:16 ^dq Amos later calls that day the “day of the Lord” (5:18 ^dr); both expressions indicate the time of judgment on Israel (see also 8:3 ^ds).