The Book Of Amos. Day 19, Lighter Discipline Has Not Worked, Part Four

Yesterday's study closed with this ominous warning from the Lord: "Prepare to meet your God!" Depending on a person's spiritual condition, those can be comforting words (as in the case of the believer who looks forward to being in the presence of the Lord forever) or they can be scary words if the person is living in opposition to the Lord. We might even call them "fighting words" because the Lord will soon stop issuing warnings to Israel and will begin taking action. Not everyone in the nation has turned their backs on Him but a majority of them have and, in spite of repeatedly hearing the messages of the prophets and in spite of knowing the Lord's laws and commandments, those who have forsaken Him for false gods are still refusing to turn back to Him. 

After issuing the words, "Prepare to meet your God!", He reminds them of just who He is. "He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals His thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the heights of the earth---the Lord God Almighty is His name." (Amos 4:13) 

This is the Maker of heaven and earth speaking! This is the One who said, "Let there be light!" and caused the universe to spring into existence. Who can fight against Him? Why would anyone want to fight against Him? No other god called light out of darkness. No other deity created order out of chaos. No one but the Lord God Almighty did it; no one else could because there is no other God.

Who else ever spoke to the people except Him? Who but the Lord delivered them from Egypt with great signs and wonders? Who parted the Red Sea? Who provided manna in the wilderness? Who was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them on their journey? Who uprooted the idolatrous nations of Canaan and planted Israel in their place? Who provided the commandments and the laws to live by---the words that reveal "His thoughts to mankind"? Who made their nation prosper while they lived according to His commandments and laws? No one but the Lord God of Israel! 

The One who planted them in the land is able to uproot them for forsaking Him. In approximately thirty years after Amos relays the Lord's message to the people, the Lord will follow through on His threat to uproot them. He will allow the Assyrian army to invade the land, take the people captive, and disperse them to other nations. 

This lesson is one we need to take to heart today. No matter which nation we live in and no matter how prosperous that nation may be, the Lord can overthrow it if we forsake Him. Why should He bless sin? Why should He reward waywardness? He is patient with the nations of our day just as He was patient with Israel and Judah. He issues warnings when He sees us going down the wrong path. He provides many opportunities to turn around and go back in the right direction. If we don't respond to warnings, He begins using corrective action to help us see that our waywardness is the cause of our hardships. But if lighter discipline does not work, as it did not work with the people of Amos' day, the Lord very well may decide to allow a nation to fall. This is why it's imperative for each of us to examine our hearts every day and repent of personal sin and also to pray for the sins of the nation as a whole. Intercessory prayer is a powerful tool that we mustn't neglect. Who knows whether a great revival might break out if we commit to praying for it daily?

The Book Of Amos. Day 18, Lighter Discipline Has Not Worked, Part Three

The Lord is speaking in Chapter 4 about the ways He's tried to get the people's attention. He's warned them that invasion and defeat is coming if they do not repent of their idolatry. In an effort to get them to repent, He's sent lesser disasters than the one which is coming.

Another disaster that has struck from time to time is plague. "I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to Me,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:10) Referring back to Deuteronomy 28 as we have been for several days, the Lord said plague would come if the people turned away from Him. "The Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you." (Deuteronomy 28:59-60) 

He continues, "'I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to Me,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:11) Several times in our study of the kings we found enemy nations laying siege to and taking control of portions of the land the Lord promised to the nation of Israel. Anytime we find the forces of Israel defeated in battle in the Bible it's because some type of sin is standing between the people and God. But so far the Lord has prevented any enemy from conquering the nation. That will not be the case for much longer.

"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God." (Amos 4:12) This is a terrifying statement! As the Apostle Paul solemnly warned in Hebrews 10:31: "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 

The Lord is not to be trifled with. Although He has been patient and longsuffering in the face of the people's idolatry, a point is coming when He will tolerate it no longer. He cannot be holy if He does not judge sin. He cannot be righteous if He does not do everything He's said He will do---and that includes the discipline He's promised in return for disobedience. The Lord cannot be respected if He does not do what He says. When we were little kids, if our parents were continually threatening some form of discipline but were never actually carrying out any discipline, we didn't pay much attention to them, did we? When parents are "all talk" and never follow through with any consequences for disobedience, children tend to feel disrespectful toward them. The Lord is a good Father who wants to raise good, godly children. He mercifully sends warnings before He takes disciplinary action but eventually action is necessary. He is saying to the people of Amos' day, "I'm not 'all talk'. I am a God of action. I have been patient. I have been merciful. I have given you many opportunities to repent. Soon I will stop talking and begin taking action."

The Book Of Amos. Day 17, Lighter Discipline Has Not Worked, Part Two

I want to start today's study by apologizing for not making a post on Monday. I adopted a new rescue dog over the weekend and in trying to get him into a routine I ran short on time Monday morning.

We are picking back up in Chapter 4. The Lord already predicted an enemy invader in Chapter 3 and now He points out that He tried less severe methods first in an attempt to get the people to turn back to Him.

"'I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to Me,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:6) We've referred back to Deuteronomy 28 a number of times in our study of the Old Testament because it contains the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience. One of the curses was that crops would fail. "You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off." (Deuteronomy 28:38-40)

Another warning He issued was that there wouldn't be enough rain if they turned to idolatry. "The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed." (Deuteronomy 28:23-24) We see from the book of Amos that this has begun to happen. "I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:7-8) It's not that He wants to do these things but that these things are intended to cause people to question why they are happening and to conclude that it's because they haven't been faithful to the Lord. Any time hardship comes into our lives we should first ask whether we've done something to cause it.

He foretold swarms of locusts would invade the land. "Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land." (Deuteronomy 28:42) We find locusts mentioned in this next passage from the book of Amos. "'Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to Me,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:9) Disasters like this can strike any nation whose citizens forget the Lord. I wouldn't want it to seem as if I'm pointing a finger at the people of Amos' day as if they did anything worse than the things that go on in today's world. There is no nation on earth too powerful to fall if its people forsake the Lord. 

In modern times the national disasters may take different forms than what we're seeing mentioned in the book of Amos. They might involve economical collapse or political collapse. They might involve weather events. They might involve war. The Bible says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," (Psalm 33:12) but it also says, "Cursed is anyone who makes an idol." (Deuteronomy 27:15) The idols of our age are less overt because we are more sophisticated than the people of ancient times. If someone were to set up a carved image in front of us, most of us would refuse to bow to it, so Satan uses more subtle methods these days. He dresses idolatry up in disguises so that we will replace the Lord with work or with relationships or with hobbies, for example. There's nothing wrong with being a conscientious employee or with loving our families or with having some non-sinful forms of recreation. But when we allow those things to take first place in our lives---pushing the Lord aside---we are committing a form of idolatry. I've been guilty of this myself and perhaps you have too. I'm trying to do a better job at making sure I'm not putting time with God last on my daily list of things to do. I think we will all have more successful and peaceful days if we begin our days with Him while our minds are sharp instead of leaving prayer last on the list when we're tired in the evening. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 16, Lighter Discipline Has Not Worked, Part One

In Chapter 4 the Lord is going to say that He must move on to harsher methods of discipline because milder forms of discipline have not worked. There has been no widescale repentance. Even though He has already begun to allow some of the curses for disobedience to fall upon the nation (the list of curses can be found in Deuteronomy 28), the majority of the citizens have not taken to heart the Lord's corrective actions.

He begins Chapter 4 by painting a picture of a society where many are living in luxury while they oppress the poor and needy. "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, 'Bring us some drinks!'" (Amos 4:1) 

It was insulting, both then and now, to refer to a woman as a "cow". It's intended to be insulting in verse 1 because these wealthy women are so spoiled and coddled that they won't even arise from the couch to make themselves a drink. They have nothing to do all day except indulge themselves. The money with which they fund their lives of excess was gained by defrauding the poor, according to the statement with which the chapter opens. If they'd made their money through honest hard work, we might not find fault with them taking it easy now, but they made it by dishonest means and by mistreating their fellow man. 

One commentary I consulted offered the opinion that a vicious cycle is going on here where the men began providing a more affluent lifestyle by dishonest means and their women applauded them for it, then the women kept asking them for more and more luxuries (for example, in verse 1 when they called for drinks---likely the finest that could be had), so the men felt compelled to achieve more. Since the easiest way to achieve more was to perpetrate more acts of dishonesty or oppression against their fellow man, the men kept sinking further into depravity.

"The Sovereign Lord has sworn by His holiness: 'The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,' declares the Lord." (Amos 4:2) I wouldn't be at all surprised if the men and women mentioned in Chapter 4 were guilty of enslaving their fellow Israelites. To me that makes the most sense in the context of verse 2. They are going to become captives themselves when the Assyrian army comes and attacks the nation, is victorious in battle, puts hooks through the noses of the people with chains attached to the hooks, and forcibly marches them to other regions. This was the way the Assyrian Empire dealt with the citizens of any region they conquered. They deported the natural-born citizens to other lands and settled other conquered people in their place. 

The Lord's words sound harsh, to be sure, but He doesn't overdo penalties. If He assesses a serious penalty, we can be certain that it fits the crime. We aren't being provided with a detailed list of how the people have sinned against their fellow citizens but if they had not trodden them down and deprived them of their rights and treated them as if they were less than human, I don't think the Lord would allow an enemy army to come in and subjugate them and take away their right and treat them like slaves. If anything, we know that the Lord is more merciful to us than we deserve, so we can be assured that He never overreacts when administering correction. 

Chapter 4 will talk about lesser measures of discipline He's already tried. So far none of these measures have had any effect and next He says something like, "Have it your way, then. Keep on sinning. Just go out and sin more and more. Bow to more idols. Make more offerings to gods that don't exist." The verse reads like this: "Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings---boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,' declares the Sovereign Lord." (Amos 4:4-5) 

We've talked before about how sin reaches a tipping point. The sins of the people of Amos' day are going to reach that tipping point in about 30 years when the Lord allows the nation to fall. But as we continue on through the chapter over the next couple of days we will find the Lord listing the things He's already tried to keep them from reaching a tipping point. He doesn't want to allow the nation to fall but nothing else has taken their focus off of their idolatrous and carnal pursuits. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 15, An Enemy Is Coming

As we conclude Chapter 3 we find the Lord foretelling invasion by an enemy. I cannot say for certain whether the prophet Amos had an inkling as to the identity of this enemy here in Chapter 3. You and I know, looking back through history, that it was the Assyrian Empire to which the northern kingdom of Israel fell. The kingdom fell approximately thirty years after Amos gave the prophecies contained in this book and he very well may have known or suspected that Assyria was the nation to be feared. But he does not specifically say so. 

As we closed yesterday's passage we found the Lord calling upon some of Israel's historically traditional enemies to witness the things going on in the nation. We found Him asking the Philistines and the Egyptians to consider all He had done for Israel and to hear the evidence against those who had turned away from Him. He stated that the people were oppressing their fellow man, which is a theme we will see repeated as we continue moving on through the books of the prophets.

The Lord begins today's text like this: "'They do not know how to do right,' declares the Lord, 'who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.' Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'An enemy will overrun your land, pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses.'" (Amos 3:10-11) To paraphrase these words, He is saying, "The plunderer will become the plundered." 

Who were the Lord's people plundering? According to the prophets of the Old Testament, they were plundering their fellow citizens. They were oppressing the poor and needy Israelites and they were being cruel to peaceful foreigners in their land. Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord accused them of plundering the poor and storing the stolen goods in their houses. He said they were crushing their fellow citizens and grinding the faces of the poor. (Isaiah 3:14-15) He stated they were depriving the poor of their rights and were oppressing the widows and the fatherless. (Isaiah 10:2) He said their clothes were stained with the blood of the innocent poor whom they'd wronged. (Jeremiah 2:34) He said they oppressed the poor and needy, robbed their fellow man, did not return things they borrowed, accepted bribes to shed blood, charged interest to their fellow Israelites (which He had forbidden in the law), practiced extortion, and oppressed the foreigners seeking refuge. (Ezekiel 18:12, Ezekiel 22:12, Ezekiel 22:29) The plundering referenced in the book of Amos and in the other books of the prophets is not the type of plunder a victorious army takes after defeating an enemy army; it's a term used by the prophets to denote unlawful gain. 

An enemy will come in and plunder the nation. By the time the enemy is finished, not much will be left. "This is what the Lord says: 'As a shepherd rescues from the lion's mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued, with only the head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch.'" (Amos 3:12) I'm reminded of a warning given by the Apostle Paul: "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7) Those who plundered the poor and needy, scarcely leaving them anything in their houses, will experience the same fate. An enemy will come and take from them just as they took from others.

The Lord sees how we treat our fellow man. He sees when we oppress those who are weaker than we are, when we take advantage of those who have less than we do, when we mistreat those who aren't in a good position to defend themselves. And He takes action! "He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help." (Psalm 72:12) "The Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy." (Psalm 140:12) 

Chapter 3 concludes: "'Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,' declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty. 'On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall down to the ground. I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,' declares the Lord." (Amos 3:13-15) When the ten northern tribes separated from the two southern tribes and chose Jeroboam I to be their king, Jeroboam I set up golden calf altars at Bethel and at Dan. Bethel was the closest altar to his own palace so he and the kings who came after him brought their offerings to Bethel. Thus began the northern kingdom's slide into idolatry, for although originally the calves were intended to represent the Lord who brought them out of Israel, the Lord had forbidden them to fashion any type of image to represent Him. He knew that was a slippery slope into idolatry and, besides that, no image could do Him justice. Anything man could make would "lessen" His glory. Anything man could make to represent God would be similar to the idols the other nations made to represent gods that don't exist. Soon people would begin bowing to other images as well, which is exactly what happened. Here He vows to tear down these sinful altars along with the fine mansions and palaces built from funds that were gained dishonestly. 

In closing our study of Chapter 3 I can't help thinking of a parable Jesus taught in Matthew 7. It was a parable about a wise man who built his house upon the rock and about a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The man who built his house upon the rock (the rock symbolizes the Lord---the firm foundation) did not suffer the loss of his home when a fierce storm came. But the man who built his house upon the sand (upon the temporary things of this world) lost everything he had. The majority of the people of Amos' day had built their houses upon the sand. They were worldly. They were interested in carnal things. They had forsaken the Lord in favor of false gods who didn't require holy living. Anything that is not built on the firm foundation of the Lord can be shaken---and will be shaken. This is what is being foretold for the nation. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 14, Witnesses Are Called

As we concluded yesterday's study session we talked about how the Lord sent a number of prophets to warn the people of Israel and Judah to repent of idolatry or else disaster would come. Amos is one of the prophets called from the northern kingdom of Israel and his message is primarily for the northern kingdom, although he did speak briefly against the sins that were taking place in Judah in his day. But the northern kingdom fell into idolatry much more swiftly than did the southern kingdom which is why the northern kingdom fell to the nation of Assyria approximately 130 years before the southern kingdom fell to Babylon.

In today's passage we find the Lord speaking about His people's crimes and about their coming judgment for their refusal to repent. He will call to some of the surrounding heathen nations to witness the charges and to witness how spotless His character has been in dealing with His people. Although He's been bringing up the charges He has against the people, and although He's been urging them to acknowledge their sins and repent of them, He knows all things and is aware that the majority of the citizens will not repent. He makes the effort anyway because He is filled with love and mercy toward every person He has ever created and He will not fail to make the offer of forgiveness to everyone. Another reason He must make the effort is because He is holy and righteous and, on the day of judgment, no one can accuse Him of not giving them an opportunity to turn from darkness to the light. The Lord sent not only Amos but many other prophets to the nations of Israel and Judah and no one could claim to be ignorant of what those prophets said. No one could say that the Lord never confronted them with their sins and told them they needed to repent. 

In our modern times, with all the access most of us have to the word of God, we can't claim ignorance either. Certainly there are areas of the world where the gospel has not yet been preached but we can't say that about the United States of America. I was born and raised in this nation and I wouldn't be able to stand before the judgment seat of the Lord and claim I never heard the gospel message because that would be a lie. Even if I'd never had any intention of listening to the gospel message, I would still have "accidentally" heard enough of it to understand that I'm a sinner who needs a Savior. I grew up in the rural South, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, and I can't remember a time when I didn't know at least the basic facts about the gospel message. I would have no excuse for not repenting of my sins and for not trusting in the Lord for salvation. What I knew as a small child was enough to know that I couldn't be holy on my own and that I had to trust and depend on the Lord for what I could not do.

Because the people to whom the Lord has sent Amos know they can't be holy on their own, and because they know what they need to do in order to get their hearts right with the Lord, and because they have not done so, an enemy is coming. The Lord says: "The lion has roared---who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken---who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:8) Previously when we've seen the Lord referring to Himself as a lion roaring, He was roaring against the enemies of Israel and Judah. But this time He's talking about roaring against those who once belonged to Him but who have now forsaken Him. He knows a widescale revival isn't going to break out in the land and (as we discussed yesterday) a cause and effect situation is going to take place: defeat at the hands of an enemy nation is the effect caused by the unrepentant, idolatrous ways of Amos' fellow citizens.

The Lord now calls to some of the nations that have historically been enemies of Israel and Judah to witness the things that are going to happen. "Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: 'Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.'" (Amos 3:9) When the Lord mentions Ashdod the people know He's speaking of the Philistines, for this was one of the cities within Philistine territory. He's calling upon extremely idolatrous nations---nations whose Gentile people are looked down upon by the citizens of Israel and Judah---to come and see the terrible crimes taking place in Samaria (meaning Israel, since Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom). In this sense the Lord is declaring that, at this time, the citizens of Israel are sinning more than the people of Philistia or Egypt! The reason their sins are considered worse is due to something we discussed previously during our study of the book of Amos: they are a chosen and blessed people of God who, like no other nation on earth at the time, had more access to Him and to His laws and commandments than anyone else in the world.

The Lord calls as witnesses some of the heathen nations in the region. Even though hardly any of the people in those nations worship the Lord, they can't deny that He exists and that He has protected and provided for and delivered Israel time and time again. They can clearly see that He has been good to all the twelve tribes that descended from the sons of Jacob. From the day He took them out of Egypt until Amos' day, He has prevented them from being overtaken by the enemy and He has given them a bounteous land in which to live. He has supernaturally defended them against invaders time and time again, either by fighting the battle Himself or by fighting alongside the soldiers to give them strength they did not humanly possess. But now, because so many of the people called by His name have turned their backs on Him, He asks heathens to testify in court as character witnesses on His behalf, so to speak. Even the pagans must admit that He exists and that He has done great things for the tribes of Israel. 

In today's text the Lord accuses His people of having committed oppressive acts against their fellow man. Earlier in the study of Amos we talked about how they were bribing judges to rule in their favor. We talked about how they were mistreating the poor and needy, the widow and the orphan. As we look at the remainder of Chapter 3 tomorrow we will see that it deals with more crimes the Lord accuses the people of committing.

The Book Of Amos. Day 13, Cause And Effect

In Tuesday's study the Lord reminded the people that, of all the nations in the world in that era, they had been provided with the most opportunities to know Him and to understand what it means to live godly lives. He then pointed out that, in spite of knowing the difference between right and wrong, they had mostly chosen to do wrong. Today He moves on to a series of questions that are intended to establish cause and effect. Their repeated refusal to repent is the cause; disaster on their nation is the effect if they continue to refuse to repent.

"Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing? Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has the Lord not caused it?" (Amos 3:3-6)

I have chosen to title today's study "Cause And Effect" due to this series of questions. They are rhetorical questions because the Lord does not expect an answer. The answer to each of His questions is clear. It's clear that a cause and effect situation is going on here. Two people are walking along together because they want to enjoy each other's fellowship. A lion roars to lay claim to the prey he caught to warn the other members of his tribe to wait their turn to eat after he does. A lion that's lurking to wait for prey passing by is silent because it doesn't want to alert its prey to its presence. A bird swoops down to check out a trap because the trap has food in it. A trap snaps shut because something has triggered its mechanism. The watchman on a city wall sounds an alarm on the trumpet because he sees an enemy army approaching. The people tremble because they know the trumpet blast is a warning that they are in danger.

Because all these things are true, then what the Lord says in verse 6b is also true: If disaster comes on a city, it is because it is His will for the disaster to come. If the Lord doesn't want a city to be attacked, it's not going to be attacked. If the Lord doesn't want a city to fall, the city isn't going to fall. There are examples of this in the Bible where the Lord took care of the enemy all by Himself without any of His people having to shoot a single arrow. There are also examples in the Bible of the Lord allowing a city to come under attack because it was His will to discipline the inhabitants or, in the cases of the heathen nations who inhabited the promised land before Israel did, because it was His will to destroy a city or to remove a pagan nation or tribe from a region.

The Lord has established the relationship between cause and effect by asking His series of questions and He has reminded the people that nothing can happen anywhere unless He allows it to happen. With that in mind, He points them back to the fact that He has been predicting disaster for Israel and Judah unless a widescale turning away from idolatry takes place. He is threatening to send disaster because so many people have forsaken Him and are bowing down to false gods. If disaster comes, it was caused by their sin. He is not making idle threats. He is fully capable of bringing about the effect their sin has caused. The Lord is righteous and He must judge sin but if the people will repent He can withhold the disaster. He wants to withhold the disaster and that is why He keeps calling prophet after prophet to speak His message to the people. Although He would be within His rights to strike suddenly, since it's not as if the people never had a clear understanding of what He requires of them, He is giving them time to think about their ways and repent of them. This is why He says: "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7)

The Lord is good to us. Even when we deliberately disobey His holy laws and commandments, His heart's desire is to see us repent and get back on the right path. He takes no pleasure in seeing someone ruin their life. His heart breaks when people imperil their eternal souls by rejecting Him as Lord. Discipline is not intended to destroy us but to keep us from destruction. Just as a loving human father would never dream of idly standing still while his toddler wanders into the roadway, our loving heavenly Father isn't going to stand by and do nothing when He sees us walking straight toward danger. He's going to do whatever is necessary to snatch us out of harm's way, and that often means He has to teach us some uncomfortable lessons, but the uncomfortable lessons are the lessons we don't forget.

The Book Of Amos. Day 12, With Much Blessing Comes Much Responsibility

As we begin Chapter 3 we find the Lord reminding the people that they have had more advantages, spiritually speaking, than anyone on earth in those times. They've been blessed with the ability to know the Lord through His commandments and laws. But with this blessing comes a great deal of responsibility---a responsibility that He says they have not faithfully carried out. 

Let's use a more modern-day example to illustrate the point we are trying to make. Suppose a person is still living in a fairly primitive society in 2023, without electricity and without the internet and without easy access to the Scriptures. Perhaps the Scriptures haven't yet been translated into this person's language or the person hasn't been taught to read in the first place. But someone has told them the basic facts of the gospel and they know very little else at this time. The Lord certainly doesn't expect as much of them as He expects of me, for example, who was brought up in church and who has free and easy access to the Scriptures anytime I please, either by reading it in a Bible or online or by listening to it on the radio or on TV or by attending church services. The Lord expects far more of me than He expects from someone who scarcely knows more than, "Jesus loves me." 

Earlier in the book of Amos we found the Lord speaking words of judgment against six pagan nations in the same region of the world where the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were located. The Lord began His prophecies with three nations that had been idolatrous for many centuries. Then He moved on to prophecies against three nations that were closely related to the tribes of Israel and who had knowledge of Him from the not-so-distant past. Then He moved on to speaking prophecies against Judah and Israel. You may recall me saying He was listing the nations mentioned in the book of Amos in the order of bad, worse, and worst as far as how well each of these nations was walking in the light they had been given. The nations that had been idolatrous for the longest amount of time were mentioned first (they were the ones I called "bad") because the current generation had received little to no education about the Lord. The next three (the ones I referred to as "worse") once knew a great deal about the Lord and still had enough knowledge about Him to realize they weren't living according to His laws and commandments. Then He got down to Judah and Israel (who had done the "worst" job of walking according to the light they had been given) because of all the people in the world they should have loved Him the most and should have wanted to honor Him the most.

This is why the Lord begins His speech in Chapter 3 by reminding the people of Israel and Judah of the familial relationship He established with them long ago. "Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you---against the whole family I brought out of Egypt:" (Amos 3:1a) The Lord called these people by His own name. Through His own power He brought them out of Egypt with many great signs and wonders. Through His own power He provided for them in the wilderness for forty years. Through His own power He removed the ancient nations from the land of Canaan and established the nation of Israel in their place. The use of the word "family" here is literal in the sense that He brought all the descendants of Jacob out of Egypt, but the use of the word also reflects the way He considers them His children. Out of all the nations and tribes inhabiting the world at that time, only the people of Israel had this distinction, which the Lord points out below.

"You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins." (Amos 3:2) Their sins against the Lord were more reprehensible than the sins of someone who had never heard of the Lord. Their sins were less excusable than the sins of someone who might have heard of the God of Israel but who knew absolutely nothing about His character or about what He considered to be righteous living. Although the Apostle Paul correctly stated that even the heathen who has never heard of God has no excuse for not believing that there is a God (Romans 1:18-20) because the creation itself testifies to the fact that there must be a Creator, a person raised up in idolatry does not know much more than that someone must have created everything that exists. And that person may not have access to anyone who isn't an idolater and who can tell them anything reliable about the Lord. Certainly the Lord doesn't expect that person to know how to keep from sinning against Him. They might be able to intuitively know that certain things are wrong (such as murder or stealing) but there are many things they cannot know. By contrast, the descendants of Jacob definitely knew the Lord's laws and commandments.  And because they knew, they were accountable for deliberately disobeying Him. 

We've all sinned against the Lord. We sinned against Him before we knew Him and we've sinned against Him since we've made Him the Lord of our lives. Some of our sins haven't been intentional and some of them have been deliberate. As soon as we become aware that we've sinned, whether it was unintentionally or intentionally, we are welcome to come freely to the Lord and confess our sins and receive forgiveness from Him. So we must keep in mind that although the Lord is charging Judah and Israel with sinning against Him, and although He's pronouncing judgments that are coming as a result of those sins, He would have relented if they would have repented. He didn't call prophets to speak to the people because He had no intention of hearing prayers of repentance; He called prophets to speak to them to confront them with their sins and give them an opportunity to acknowledge and repent of those sins. Anytime the Lord tells any of us that there's something in our lives that needs cleaning up, the best thing we can do is repent of it and turn away from it immediately. If we do not, the Lord has no choice but to take whatever corrective action is appropriate for whatever we're doing. He does this because He loves us. He would rather cause us to undergo some unpleasant discipline for a time than for us to keep sinning and ruin our lives. 

The Lord gave Amos a message to speak to the people not because He wants to destroy them but because He wants them to get back on track. I'm sure there probably were people who took His message to heart but, sadly, the majority didn't. This is why, when we did our study of the kings, the northern kingdom of Israel eventually fell to Assyria and the southern kingdom of Judah eventually fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire. But the Lord did not thoroughly destroy them; He used those defeats as a corrective measure. There is still a nation called Israel in the world today. And we have never again seen the people of Israel falling into idolatry since the time of the kings. The Lord doesn't want to discipline any of us but He's a loving and responsible Father who must step in to correct us when needed. It's better to receive correction and get back on the right path than to keep going down the wrong path and fall off a cliff. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 11, A Prophecy Against Israel, Part Three

The Lord has been laying out the charges He has against the ancient northern kingdom of Israel. Today we will be looking at the remainder of Chapter 2 of the book of Amos. 

When we finished yesterday's study session we found the Lord reminding the Israel that He uprooted the heathen nations who lived in Canaan before them and planted Israel in their place. Yet His people are behaving as if they've forgotten He rescued them from Egypt and settled them in a bountiful land. They are behaving as if His reason for removing the previous inhabitants of the land wasn't due to idolatry, for now they are worshiping the false gods of those very cultures the Lord judged. He warned them long ago, in the book of Deuteronomy, that if they fell into idolatry He would uproot them from the land just as He uprooted those who were there before them.

It's not as if He brought them into the promised land and provided no guidebook for godly living. During the wilderness years between their captivity in Egypt and their glorious freedom in the promised land, He gave them the commandments and the law. And as if those weren't enough to live by, He called prophets to minister to them to guide them in the ways they should go. He says, "'I also raised up prophets from among your children and Nazirites from among your youth. Is this not true, people of Israel?' declares the Lord." (Amos 2:11)

The Lord could say something similar to us, for He has made His holy word accessible to us in a way it has never been accessible before. The Scriptures are at our fingertips at any time of the day or night. If we do not know what they say, it is because we did not consult them; it is not because the Lord didn't provide them to us. Likewise, the people of Amos' day had no excuse for not knowing what the Lord expected of them. They had the commandments. They had the law. Even those among them who were unable to read had the opportunity to hear the word of God read to them by the priests and proclaimed to them by the prophets. 

But many didn't avail themselves of the opportunity to read the word of God or to listen to the priests and prophets. Instead they scorned the word of God and enticed the Nazirites, who lived by a very strict code, into sin. One of the things a Nazirite was forbidden to do was to ingest any products made from grapes (the whole list of regulations can be found in Numbers 6:1-21), but those who went astray from the Lord wanted to drag the Nazirites down with them and this is what they did: "But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets not to prophesy." (Amos 2:12) 

Not only did they interfere with the vows the Nazirites made to the Lord, but they also ordered the prophets to be silent. Breaking this order of silence likely meant a harsh penalty such as imprisonment or death. You'll recall how King Ahab's wife, Jezebel, ordered the prophets of the Lord killed and was successful in executing a number of them. I am sure there were many others who were arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and killed throughout the history of the prophets in Israel. 

The Lord Jesus made mention of just such a thing in Matthew 23:30 when He talked about how the prophets of old were put to death by the ancestors of the Pharisees and teachers of His own time. He also went on to say that the Pharisees and teachers of His day (who He accused of being self-righteous hypocrites) would soon do the same things their ancestors did, even though they considered themselves better than their ancestors. About the prophets and teachers He was going to call, He said: "Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town." (Matthew 23:34b) All these things came true just as He said, both on the pages of the New Testament and during the centuries since.

The Lord gave the people He called out of Egypt everything they needed to be spiritually successful in the promised land. But by Amos' time many of them didn't want to hear the word of God. They didn't want to obey the word of God and they took steps to derail the lives of those who still were obeying the word of God. They tried to prevent others from hearing the word of God, preferring instead to bring up the new generations in pagan religions. The Lord is not going to allow such crimes to go unpunished. It's bad enough that anyone would reject light for darkness, but the people of Amos' day were trying to keep their children in the darkness too. For this the Lord vows to bring destruction upon the nation.

"'Now then, I will crush you as a cart crushes when loaded with grain. The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength, and the warrior will not save his life. The archer will not stand his ground, the fleet-footed soldier will not get away, and the horseman will not save his life. Even the bravest warriors will flee naked on that day,' says the Lord." (Amos 2:13-16) Because the majority of the nation's citizens have embraced spiritual darkness, a day of national and political darkness is on its way. Defeat is coming. Shame will cover the faces of everyone who has rejected the one true God in favor of serving useless idols. Lest we make the same mistake as the Pharisees and teachers of Jesus' era and think that we are any better than sinners in the past, we must keep in mind that the idols of our generation may not look the same as they did during the generation spoken of in the book of Amos. We don't have to bow down before a golden image in order to be idolaters. Anyone or anything we value more than the Lord is an idol. In our day that might be money, or a relationship, or a substance, or a hobby, or a habit. But if our heart belongs to anything more than it belongs to God, we are committing idolatry and there is no glory in idolatry---not for us and not for the Creator who loves us and who wants to help us. 

The only glory mankind will ever experience is in sharing in the glory of the Creator. We have no glory in ourselves. We have no honor in ourselves. The only way we can ever be what we were created to be is by submitting ourselves to our Creator. There are many passages in the Bible that use the word "shame" but in all of those passages it's clear that shame was never intended for anyone but the enemies of God and the enemies God's children. Shame is never intended for the believer; rather, the Lord promises to reward those who trust in Him. On one of the many occasions upon which the Lord delivered David from his enemies, David penned these true and trustworthy words about our God: "Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame." (Psalm 34:5)

The Book Of Amos. Day 10, A Prophecy Against Israel, Part Two

The book of Amos began with the Lord giving him prophecies against the various nations surrounding Israel and Judah. Then the Lord had a word of warning for Judah too and after that He began providing a prophecy against Israel. We began looking at His charges against Israel in our last study session and now we are picking up where we left off.

The last verse we studied mentioned sexual immorality and it is believed by many scholars to have been combined with idolatry, for the very next verse mentions other altars and other gods. "They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines." (Amos 2:8) 

The only altar at this point in the nation's history that is approved for use by the Lord is the altar in the temple at Jerusalem. But when the northern kingdom of Israel split from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the first king chosen by Israel set up a golden calf at Bethel and another golden calf at Dan and insisted they use these sites as substitutes for the temple at Jerusalem in Judah. King Jeroboam declared that these calves symbolized the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, contrary to the Lord's commandment that they were to make no image representing Him. To do so was to begin a slippery slope into idolatry since it's not a very big step to go from bowing to an image that symbolizes the Lord to bowing to other images. 

On top of that, no image could represent Him in all of His glory, His holiness, His righteousness, and His power. Anything that man could make would fall so far short in representing His true nature that the image would lessen the esteem in which the people held the Lord. One image is much like any other and there is no way to really represent Him in an image that causes Him to stand out among all the other idolatrous images of all the cultures of the world. Having any type of representation of Him was bound to cause many people to begin thinking of Him as just one of many gods instead of regarding Him as who He is: the one true God who created everything. 

In verse 8 we find the people not only lying down at idolatrous altars (and this "lying down" is likely to be a reference to the sexual immorality that took place in pagan temples of that era) but they are lying down on garments taken as a pledge (items taken as a promise to repay a debt) when the Lord commanded them in Exodus 22:26-27 to return such a garment by sundown so its owner could sleep in it. Outer cloaks were used as blankets at night and it was important to return them. But in verse 8 not only have the takers of the cloaks not returned them by sundown, they are engaging in sexual immorality on the cloaks while also drinking wine "taken as fines". 

They are drinking wine taken as fines or wine that was bought with money taken as fines. This may be another reference to something from the book of Exodus. The Lord commanded the people of Israel not to charge any interest on loans they made to their fellow Israelites (Exodus 22:25) and the breaking of this law may be what's in view here. There definitely seems to be something dishonest taking place in regard to the fines or else the Lord would not have mentioned the fines. Verse 8 only contains twenty-three words but those twenty-three words paint a picture of excess and debauchery and of having no concern for the needy. 

The people are worshiping the gods of some of the very nations the Lord drove out of the land for idolatry. "Yet I destroyed the Amorites before them, though they were as tall as cedars and strong as the oaks. I destroyed their fruit above and their roots below. I brought you up out of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness to give you the land of the Amorites." (Amos 2:9-10) 

Before the Lord brought the people of Israel into the promised land, He warned them that He was just as capable of uprooting them as He was of uprooting those who had inhabited the land before them. He pulled up the heathen nations of Canaan because they forsook Him long ago and kept on rejecting Him generation after generation. He stated that if the Israelites fell into idolatry, they too would be pulled up from the land of Canaan. The entire passage containing all of His warnings can be found in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 but His specific statement that He would uproot them is in Deuteronomy 28:63b: "You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess."

The Lord pulled the heathen idolaters of Canaan up by the roots and planted Israel in their place. To do this, He defeated nations too powerful for the Israelites to defeat on their own. Yet by Amos' day we find many of the people bowing to the gods those sinful nations had worshiped. We find many of the people feeling no gratitude in their hearts toward the Lord for all He has done on Israel's behalf. Certainly there are people in Israel in Amos' day who have never worshiped at a pagan altar; Amos himself is an example of that. But those who are being faithful to the Lord are in the minority and as we continue on in Chapter 2 tomorrow we will see the Lord bringing more charges against those who have forsaken Him and we will find Him predicting disaster.

The Book Of Amos. Day 9, A Prophecy Against Israel, Part One

Earlier in the book of Amos we studied prophecies against six nations that were enemies of Israel and Judah. Then in yesterday's text we found the Lord speaking a prophecy against the southern kingdom of Judah for rejecting His laws and running after the gods of the pagan nations. Today we will be looking at the prophecy against the northern kingdom of Israel and it is the longest of them all. 

You'll recall from our study of the kings that ancient Israel fell to the Assyrian Empire approximately 130 years before Judah fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This is because the northern kingdom fell into widescale idolatry sooner than did the southern kingdom, plus Judah experienced several revivals when godly kings were on the throne. In Amos' day both nations were still standing but he foresaw a day when that would not be the case. 

Amos was a prophet called by the Lord to minister mainly to the northern kingdom of Israel. The majority of what he has to say will be directed at the northern kingdom. Our text begins like this: "This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.'" (Amos 2:6) 

Scholars are divided about what this verse means. The majority of them appear to feel that the Lord is speaking about the appalling practice of taking bribes---that the judges of legal cases were unjustly ruling against the innocent in exchange for money and even for trifling gifts like shoes. If a judge ruled against the innocent party, the innocent party might have to go into the service of his accuser for a period of time in order to pay off whatever debt was assessed to him, thus the use of the word "sell" is used here to indicate the innocent person having to become an indentured servant to the person who claimed he owed them. Other scholars, however, simply view verse 6 as a general expression used to say that the poor and needy were being taken advantage of in many ways by the rich and powerful, that a whole host of inequalities have taken place because so many in the nation have stopped having compassion for those less fortunate than themselves. 

"They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed." (Amos 2:7a) This portion of our text definitely appears to be referring to unfair legal practices. A person who could slip the judge some silver before the trial could be assured of receiving the verdict he wanted. In the book of Isaiah the Lord speaks out again against wicked judges in Israel, saying, "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." (Isaiah 10:1-2) In that passage He vows to bring disaster on everyone in the land who has ruled unfairly. The Lord's laws were intended to protect the rights of everyone, whether rich or poor, but justice was being perverted on a daily basis as rulings came down in the favor of whoever could afford to buy the judge. 

In addition to allowing themselves to be overcome by greed, some were overcome by sexual immorality as well. "Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name." (Amos 2:7b) Earlier in the Old Testament we studied the laws regarding sexual relations. Adultery, of course, was forbidden and the prohibition against adultery is included in the ten commandments. Sex outside of marriage was forbidden too. But there were other laws as well, such as an adult son being forbidden to marry his step-mother if his father died or if his father divorced his step-mother. This was considered an incestuous relationship although there was no genetic link between the young man and his step-mother.

If a young man slept with a wife or concubine of his father, the motive was sometimes political rather than sexual; it was a way to announce his intention of taking his father's place in every way. You may recall that Reuben, the oldest son of Jacob, slept with one of Jacob's concubines in this manner. Another example is when Absalom, the son of David, ordered a tent to be pitched on the roof of the palace so he could have relations with David's concubines in it, thus making a public statement that he intended to take over the throne, the palace, and everyone and everything in the palace. 

In verse 7b I cannot say for certain whether a father and son are sharing a concubine, which would be breaking the law even if they both went through a wedding ceremony to marry the same woman, because the Mosaic law forbade father and son to have a relationship with the same woman. It was considered incestuous even though the woman was not the mother of the son. But I think what may be happening in this instance is something just as immoral: the father and son are engaging in sexual relations with the same prostitute. If either of them had sexual relations with a woman to whom they were not married, this would be a sin in itself, for nowhere in the Bible do we find the Lord blessing sexual relations except those that take place between a married couple. But these two men may have gone together to a prostitute, and probably not to the type of prostitute we have in mind (one that trades sex for money) but a pagan temple prostitute. So what's being exchanged here is not necessarily sex for money, which would be bad enough, but there's idolatry involved. There may be no exchange of money at all but instead this might be a fertility ritual or heathen orgy. I think that's the most likely explanation for verse 7b because when we continue on with the prophecy against Israel in our next study session, we will find the Lord accusing the people of engaging in idolatrous rituals. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 8, A Prophecy Against Judah

Over the past several days we've found Amos providing prophecies against several pagan nations that had interactions with the nations of Judah and Israel. Now the narrative abruptly goes in a different direction as Amos prophecies against Judah and Israel.

When we carefully consider the pattern Amos has been following, we can see that he was heading in this direction all along. The first prophecies were pronounced against people who had no genetic kinship with the people of Judah and Israel, such as the Syrians (called Arameans in the Bible), the Philistines, and the Phoenicians. 

Then Amos pronounced prophecies against people who were related to the Israelites, such as the Edomites who were the descendants of Jacob's brother Esau, and the Ammonites and Moabites who were the descendants of Abraham's nephew Lot. Now Amos is about to pronounce prophecies against those the Lord rescued from Egypt and settled in the promised land. These are those people to whom the commandments and the law were given. Now we can clearly see the pattern that's emerging here, for it progresses from bad to to worse to worst as far as how badly these various groups of people have sinned against the Lord. Or we could put it like this: each of these nations is judged according to how well its people walked by the light they had been given.

The Syrians, Philistines, and Phoenicians had been serving other gods since some time way back in the mists of history. Somewhere so far back that we cannot pinpoint a precise era, though it must have been post-flood, these people decided they did not want to serve the God of generations past. They were living according to their own desires and according to what they believed the gods (whom they had created in their own minds) required. Because they had rejected the Lord long ago, they were stumbling about in the dark, spiritually speaking. Anyone who has lived in this world for any amount of time knows that we cannot expect godly behavior from unbelievers. We cannot expect them to live by the same code as the children of God. We could refer to the Syrians, the Philistines, and the Phoenicians as the "bad" group.

This next group of nations---Edom and Ammon and Moab---could be called the "worse" group because they had more light to walk by and chose darkness instead. The founders of these nations, Lot and Esau, knew about the Lord. They had been brought up in the fear of the Lord. However, both of them seemed to love the ways of the world more than the ways of God. Lot compromised his faith a great deal by living in, working in, and even being a judge in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah. Esau cared about the things of this life more than the things of God and was very nonchalant about the role of spiritual leadership he was supposed to step into when his father passed on. He traded in this privilege for the mere price of a bowl of stew, being far more carnally minded than spiritually minded. Both Esau and Lot made decisions that led to the fall of their descendants into idolatry. 

This third group, Judah and Israel, could be called the "worst" group as far as having no excuse for the sins into which they have fallen by Amos' day. Of all the people in the world at that time, they had the most light shining on their path. They knew more about the Lord than anyone on earth. They were at an advantage like no one else, yet the majority of them forsook Him in favor of the useless idols of the nations around them. 

Because this group was brought out of slavery into a beautiful land by the very hand of the living God, and because the Lord revealed His personality to them in a way no one else had ever experienced Him, and because He clearly told them what was expected of them, the Lord considers their sins far worse than the sins of their idolatrous kinsmen and far worse than the sins of their unrelated heathen neighbors. "This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not relent. Because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept His decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed, I will send fire on Judah that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem." (Amos 2:4-5)

The Lord foretells the same kind of judgment for Judah that He foretold for the other nations. In tomorrow's study He will foretell this judgment for Israel as well. The people of ancient Judah and Israel cannot expect preferential treatment just because they have long been known by the name of God. He will not turn a blind eye to their sin. In fact, He considers their sin far worse than the sins of the pagan nations, for they were given far more spiritual opportunities to know Him and to honor Him than were the people of those nations who were raised up in idolatry. 

A similar thing could be said about the United States of America because here we are free to read the word of God whenever we want. We can hear the word of God being taught at any time of the day or night on the internet or on the radio or on the TV. No one is stopping us from entering the churches and the synagogues to freely worship the God of the Bible. Anyone who wants to know about the Lord can easily get access to as much material about Him as they want. If the Lord judged ancient Judah and Israel for not walking in the right ways by the light they were given, how much more will He judge our modern nations for not walking in the right ways by the light we are given? He could not have made it easier for us to learn about Him and to find out how to live in ways that honor Him. 

The Lord allowed the southern kingdom of Judah to fall to Babylon, as we learned in our study of the kings. He allowed the northern kingdom of Israel to fall to Assyria. We will be provided with more details about this era as we move on through the books of the prophets. But I want to close by saying that our own modern nations of today can't expect to be given preferential treatment in any judgment that may be coming upon the world. We have access to more information about the living God than anyone has ever had since the creation of the world. Even people who don't want to know anything about Him can't help hearing at least some things about Him in an era when instant information is at our fingertips at all times. If we do not learn anything about Him, it's not because we didn't have the opportunity; it's because we chose not to accept that opportunity. The people of the information era could actually be called "the worst of the worst" if we do not walk properly by this amazing flood of light that is shining down on our path.

The Book Of Amos. Day 7, A Prophecy Against Moab

We are moving on today to Chapter 2. I was out of town yesterday from very early in the morning until after 7pm and wasn't able to make a post to the Bible study blog. But today we are picking up where we left off in our study of the book of Amos. 

Chapter 2 starts out with a prophecy against Moab. The Moabites, like the Ammonites from our last study session, were related to the Israelites through Abraham's nephew Lot. But this familial relationship never inspired the Moabites to extend the hand of friendship to Abraham's descendants. The Moabites, along with many Midianites, were afraid of the Israelites after the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt. They were concerned about their number and about whether they might seek to take over the entire land, regardless of the fact that the Israelites made no move to harm them in any way and were simply camping nearby on their route to the promised land. But one of the strategies the Moabites (in league with the Midianites) attempted to use was to entice the men of Israel into idolatry. They reasoned that if they could get the Israelites to worship gods other than the God of Israel, the God of Israel would destroy the Israelites in anger. In Numbers 25 we found the beautiful and exotic pagan women of Moab and Midian using their powers of sexual attraction in order to lure young Israelite men to their heathen festivals. The men who unwisely went with them went so far as to eat foods sacrificed to idols, to bow down before idols, and to engage in sexual immorality with the women. This incident resulted in a plague that took the lives of 24,000 men of Israel. But the entire nation did not fall into idolatry and the plot of Israel's enemies failed.

That's just one example of Moab's reluctance to be on good terms with Israel but what's interesting is that the prophecy of judgment against Moab in today's text is not about anything the Moabites did to the Israelites. It involves instead an incident regarding the Edomites, who were descended from Jacob's brother Esau.

"This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Moab, even for four, I will not relent. Because he burned to ashes the bones of Edom's king, I will send fire on Moab that will consume the fortresses of Kerioth. Moab will go down in great tumult amid war cries and the blast of the trumpet. I will destroy her ruler and kill all her officials with him,' says the Lord." (Amos 2:1-3)

The Bible does not describe this particular happening for us anywhere in the Old Testament. But we know that there was war between Moab and Edom during the era of the book of 2 Kings. During that time the nation of Moab was subject to the nation of Israel but King Mesha of Moab revolted against paying tribute to Israel. King Ahab of Israel had just died and King Mesha thought Ahab's successor, Joram, might be caught off guard by the rebellion and might not be able to command the army as well as his father in order to put down the revolt. 

King Joram called upon King Jehoshaphat of Judah to come to his aid, which he did, and they allied themselves with an unnamed king of Edom along the way and he joined them with his troops. The Moabites decided to attack the camp of the forces of Joram and Jehoshaphat but the Lord defended the men of Israel and Judah. The Moabites then turned their attention to attacking the capital city of Edom but were foiled in this attempt too, leading to the shocking incident at the end of 2 Kings 3 in which the king of Moab took his firstborn son (who must have been an adult since he was with the army) and sacrificed him to the Moabite gods on top of the wall before going back to his own country, presumably to make a statement such as: "I'll be back!" We do not know whether he returned and was successful in capturing the king who had allied himself with Joram and Jehoshaphat, or whether he came back at a later date and dug that king's bones up from his grave and desecrated them, but it's clear that the Moabites at some point in time sinned so horribly against the people of Edom that the Lord had to take action against them. The Moabites must have perpetrated far more evil against the Edomites than they did against the Israelites since it is for whatever they did to Edom that the Lord speaks the words of our text today. 

There is no doubt that the Moabites were exceedingly evil, for a person who would sacrifice their own son in hope that "the gods" would give him victory over another king is a person whose soul is utterly depraved. Not only did he have no pity on his own child, but this son was the crown-prince of Moab---his successor---and was almost certainly second-in-command of the army or even the top general of the army. So we find Mesha caring nothing about his son and not taking into consideration the security of his nation (ensuring a smooth transition of power should he himself be killed in battle) and not taking into consideration the morale and safety of his troops (by slaughtering a top commander in front of them). 

Where are the Moabites today? There is no nation of Moab on the earth and no distinct group of people known as the Moabites. When the Assyrian Empire rose to power, Moab became subject to Assyria as did many other nations of the region at that time. When the Neo-Babylonian Empire rose to power and conquered Assyria, they also conquered or absorbed Moab, at which time Moab as a nation appears to have disappeared from history. It was common practice for both Assyria and Babylon to deport the majority of the citizens from any nation they conquered. The Moabites who survived being subjugated and conquered by these ancient superpowers must have been dispersed throughout other lands. There are probably people on earth today who are genetically related to the Moabites of the Old Testament but their genetic material is mixed with that of many other cultures into which the Moabites were assimilated. When the Lord said He would destroy Moab, He did not necessarily mean that every Moabite would be wiped from the face of the earth. But He meant that the nation would cease to exist and that there would come a time when no separate culture known as the Moabites would exist in the world. We can clearly see that this prophecy has come true.

The Book Of Amos. Day 6, A Prophecy Against Ammon

The remainder of Chapter 1 deals with a prophecy against the Ammonites. As we noted in yesterday's study, the first portion of these prophecies involved judgments against nations whose citizens were not related to the people of Israel. The second half of these judgments regard nations who had a familial connection to Israel. Yesterday we looked at the prophecy against the Edomites, who were the descendants of Jacob's brother Esau. Today we will be talking about the Ammonites who were related to the Israelites through Abraham's nephew Lot. You'll recall from our study of Genesis that Lot had two sons: Moab and Ben-Ammi. Moab was the ancestor of the Moabites and the Bible tells us that Ben-Ammi was "the father of the Ammonites". (Genesis 19:38) 

You'll also probably recall from our study of Genesis that these two sons were the result of shameful, drunken encounters between Lot and his two daughters. Lot and his two daughters were the only people who escaped from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and when his daughters viewed the smoke rising to the heavens, they thought the whole human race was being wiped out. These young ladies had been raised in a pagan society and they didn't have the faith to believe that the whole world wasn't on fire, for the only world they had ever known was on fire. In their fear and confusion, before they clearly saw the situation as it actually was, they concluded that their father was the only man left on earth and that the human race would die out unless they took action. If they had been raised in a godly culture they would have believed the words of the angels who visited them before the Lord rained fire and sulphur from the heavens. They would have known the Scriptures that the Lord had plans for the human race and that a Redeemer was coming someday. But because Lot had unwisely raised them among sinful idolaters, they devised a sinful plot. They got their father so drunk that he had no idea what he was doing and they each had incestuous relations with him, resulting in the conception of Moab and Ben-Ammi. This sin had far-reaching consequences because by Amos' day, which was approximately 1,500 years after the lifetimes of Abraham and Lot, the descendants of Lot had been plaguing the descendants of Abraham so horribly and for so long that the Lord vows to return their violence upon their own heads. Today we are viewing the prophecy against Ammon and tomorrow we will be viewing the prophecy against Moab. 

"This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Ammon, even for four, I will not relent. Because he ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to extend his borders, I will set fire to the walls of Rabbah that will consume her fortresses amid war cries on the day of battle, amid violent winds on a stormy day. Her king will go into exile, he and his officials together,' says the Lord." (Amos 1:14-15) Gilead was part of the territory the Lord gave to Israel but other nations kept wanting it for themselves. King Hazael of Syria (referred to as the land of Aram in the Bible) attacked Gilead and struck down with the sword the men who were defending the city and then struck down the children and ripped the pregnant women open. Hazael sought to wipe out not only the current generation of people in Gilead but also to prevent new generations from coming up. The Ammonites behaved in the same manner. They wanted Gilead for themselves and they committed the same type of genocide against its inhabitants. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord accuses the Ammonites of attacking and occupying Gad (another name for Gilead) and the Lord tells them their punishment will be: "I will bring terror on you from all those around you...Every one of you will be driven away, and no one will gather the fugitives." (Jeremiah 49:5)

The incident referred to here, in regard to the Ammonites and the people of Gilead, may have occurred during the time of the judges. In Judges 10 we learned that the Ammonites, in league with the Philistines, attacked Gilead and "shattered and crushed" the people there and that "for eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead" and that the Ammonites even crossed the Jordan to attack the people of Israel within the territories of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. Under the leadership of Jephthah, the Israelites defeated the Ammonites in Judges 11 and they devastated twenty towns of the Ammonites and subdued this enemy. However, the era of the judges is not the only time the Ammonites attacked the region of Gilead during Old Testament times, so their acts of cruelty against the Israelites in Gilead may have taken place on more than one occasion. 

What happened to the ancient Ammonites? King Saul and King David won several victories over them. But they were not destroyed as a people by Saul or David. It appears that they became subject to Assyria when the Assyrian Empire was the dominant empire of the region. The Assyrians did not destroy the nation, although they may have laid siege to and destroyed some of the cities, but forced the people to pay tribute to them. King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria bragged in the records of his reign that the king of the Ammonites had kissed his feet in humility and subservience. It appears that Ammon then became subject to the Neo-Babylonian Empire when it conquered Assyria. Ammonites were also mentioned during the era of the Medo-Persian Empire, which conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The book of 1 Maccabees, which is not included in the Biblical canon of most Christian denominations but is contained in the Jewish Apocrypha, states that the Ammonites teamed up with other neighboring tribes to resist the revival of Jewish power that occurred during the era of Judas Maccabeus which took place during the time period of 170 to 134 BC. Judas Maccabeus was a Jewish military leader who successfully defended Judah from invasion by Antiochus Epiphanes IV of the Seleucid Dynasty of Greece. He also put down the uprising of the Ammonites. In today's world they do not exist as a nation or as a distinct group of people. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 5, A Prophecy Against Edom

In the first half of Chapter 1 the Lord pronounced judgments against pagan nations that had made themselves the enemies of the Israelites. In the remainder of Chapter 1 and at the beginning of Chapter 2 the Lord will pronounce judgments against nations that are related to the Israelites. 

This next prophecy regards Edom and in it we will find the Lord referring to Edom as Israel's "brother" because Edom was founded by Esau, the brother of Jacob. The Edomites took every opportunity in the Old Testament to oppose the people of Israel despite being so closely related to them. They never had any interest in being at peace with them in spite of their ancestor Esau having made peace with his brother Jacob. You'll recall from our study of Genesis that although Jacob impersonated his brother in order to steal the blessing of the firstborn (which entailed a number of spiritual responsibilities as well as a material inheritance), Esau greeted Jacob in a loving spirit when Jacob returned from Haran. A number of years had passed and Esau was no longer angry. Esau realized during those years that Jacob was cut out to be the spiritual leader of the family and he wasn't. When he saw Jacob approaching him, this is what he did: "But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept." (Genesis 33:4) 

Jacob had brought many animals from the flocks and herds he'd acquired in Haran and he wanted to give a number of these as a peace offering to Esau. But Esau had prospered during those years too and was happy with the way his life had turned out. He said to Jacob, "I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself." (Genesis 33:9) It was only because Jacob kept insisting that Esau finally relented and agreed to accept this gift because he could see how much it meant to Jacob to be able to give him something. The next time we saw Jacob and Esau together it was at their father's funeral and they were still at peace with each other. As far as we can tell from the Biblical account, there were never any further disputes between the two brothers.

But there were many disputes between Edom and Israel and in each case it was because Edom was the aggressor. Because of this the Lord has harsh words for the Edomites. "This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Edom, even for four, I will not relent. Because he pursued his brother with a sword and slaughtered the women of the land, because his anger raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked, I will send fire on Teman that will consume the fortresses of Bozrah.'" (Amos 1:11-12) 

The anger of Esau against Jacob was a fleeting thing. Esau was a worldly-minded man, as we learned in our study of Genesis, and he soon found he was quite content with concerning himself with the things of the world. He was satisfied with the prosperity he found in the world and he maintained no animosity toward his brother. Being the spiritual leader of the family (which in those days involved acting as high priest for the family by making offerings on their behalf and interceding with God for them) was not something that appealed to him. Making big decisions for the entire family was not a responsibility he wanted either. The birthright that he considered less valuable than a bowl of stew in Genesis 25 involved far more than just receiving the larger portion of his father's estate; it was an inheritance of a spiritual duty and, sadly, Esau was not up to the task. Esau married six pagan women rather than taking a godly wife from within his own culture and it wasn't long after he passed away that the nation which sprang from his descendants gave itself wholly up to idolatry.

When the Lord led Israel out of Egypt, the Edomites didn't welcome them with open arms as their ancestor Esau welcomed Jacob. Instead they refused to allow the Israelites to pass through their territory on the way to Canaan. They said to Moses: "You may not pass through here; if you try, we will march out and attack you with the sword." (Numbers 20:18) Moses tried to reason with them, stating that they would be no trouble to anyone---that they would stick to the main road and not ask for anything from anybody but would eat their own food and drink their own water and clean up after themselves along the way. In response, "Edom came out against them with a large and powerful army." (Numbers 20:20b) This meant the Israelites had to take a longer, more dangerous route around the nation of Edom. 

Yet the Lord warned the Israelites not to retaliate against the nation of Edom. He commanded them to "be the bigger man", so to speak, and to treat the Edomites not as the Edomites had treated them but as the Edomites should have treated them. In the book of Deuteronomy the Lord commanded the Israelites to regard the the nation of as their brother and not to infringe on its territory. He said: "Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own." (Deuteronomy 2:5) Esau was long dead by this time but the Lord referred to the nation of Edom as "Esau" to remind the people of Israel of their familial connection. He made it clear that if the Israelites made war with Edom, He would not allow them to win. The Israelites obeyed this order but that didn't persuade the Edomites to regard them with brotherly love.

The Edomites were not powerful enough to come and attack the nation of Israel by themselves but time and time again they joined in with other nations that were launching attacks against Israel. Matthew Henry, who was a British minister and the author of a six-volume commentary of the Bible, said in regard to Edom: "They had not strength and courage enough to face them (the descendants of Jacob) in the field of battle, but, whenever any other enemy had put Judah or Israel to flight, then the Edomites set in with the pursuers, fell upon the rear, slew those that were half dead already, and (as is usual with cowards when they have an enemy at an advantage, they did cast off all pity." This is exactly what the Lord is accusing the Edomites of: of having no pity toward their brother. They pursued the people of Israel with the sword, not even having mercy on the women, as the Lord stated in His charges against the Edomites in today's text. Long ago Esau willingly let go of his anger toward his brother and accepted him home with open arms but his descendants were unwilling to follow his example. This is why the Lord says that Edom's anger "raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked". 

Not only did the Edomites viciously attack the Israelites when they were not in a good position to defend themselves, but they also enslaved some of the Israelites who fell into their hands. We've already seen references to that in the book of Amos. We learned in Amos 1:6 that the Philistines "took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom" and we learned in Amos 1:9 that the Phoenicians "sold whole communities of captives to Edom". Rather than allying themselves with Jacob's descendants, the Edomites bought and sold them. Instead of standing with them in battle against enemies, they joined in with Israel's enemies and cut down the wounded and the weak, even striking down unarmed women. 

The other books of the prophets will contain more information about the Edomites and why the Lord brought judgment against them. They ceased to be a distinct nationality when they were conquered by the Nabatean Arabs about five hundred years before the birth of Christ. Some of the Edomites remained in the land but were subject to their conquerors and had to live according to the cultural customs and laws of their conquerors. Others fled the region and assimilated into the mixed cultures who lived along the western side of the Dead Sea. These refugees from Edom later became known as the Idumeans and they continued to cause conflict with the nation of Judah during the period of time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but lost the fight to the Jewish people and were forced to be subject to them. The Roman Empire effectively put an end to Idumaea and any national identity of a distinct people known as the Idumeans in around 68BC. There is no nation of Edom (or Idumaea) in the world today and although they were never wiped from the earth entirely as a group of people, their descendants became a mixture of so many other cultures that even with DNA testing there is no way to determine whether a person's family tree actually originated with Esau. As both a people and as a location on the earth, Edom has been essentially destroyed just as the Lord said it would be. 

The Book Of Amos. Day 4, A Prophecy Against Tyre

The Lord has been pronouncing judgments upon the various nations who have mistreated His people. Today we look at a prophecy against the Phoenician city of Tyre.

When we did our study of the book of Joel we noted that the Lord accused Tyre, along with Sidon and Philistia, of selling some of His people into slavery. He talked about how these people traded captive Israelites for goods and services, such as trading young males for prostitutes and trading young females for wine. They treated people like they were nothing, as if they were merchandise instead of living souls. In yesterday's study we saw the Lord pronouncing judgment against Philistia for taking Israelites captive and selling them to other nations. Today we find Him issuing a dire prophecy against Tyre for the same crime.

"This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Tyre, even for four, I will not relent. Because she sold whole communities of captives to Edom, disregarding a treaty of brotherhood, I will send fire on the walls of Tyre that will consume her fortresses.'" (Amos 1:9-10) In contrast to the Philistines we studied yesterday, who had made themselves the enemies of Israel ever since the Israelites came into the promised land, the people of Tyre had a longstanding alliance with the nation of Israel. This is why the Lord says the Tyrians disregarded "a treaty of brotherhood".

We learned of this treaty when we studied the kings of Israel and Judah. King Hiram of Tyre was quick to extend the hand of friendship to David when David became king of Israel. Tyre was a city of Lebanon and Lebanon is mentioned often in the Bible in regard to the fine lumber it produced. It was considered the best that could be had in that region of the world. King Hiram sent envoys to David with enough of this fine lumber to build him a beautiful palace. Hiram not only sent the lumber but also sent workers to build the palace for David. "Now Hiram king of Tyre sent envoys to David, along with cedar logs and carpenters and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David." (2 Samuel 5:11)

When Hiram heard that Solomon had been crowned king to succeed David, he immediately let Solomon know that he intended to be just as good of a friend to him as he had been to David. In 1 Kings 5 we found him sending envoys to Solomon. Hiram and Solomon made a deal with each other in which Hiram would send fine lumber and skilled workers to help Solomon build a palace. In return Solomon would pay whatever price Hiram asked for the cedars and the labor. Hiram wanted to be paid with a large quantity of fine goods from Israel, such as wheat and olive oil. This was an acceptable and friendly arrangement for both men and the Bible said, "There were peaceful arrangements between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty." (1 Kings 5:12b) 

At no time did Israel make itself an enemy of Tyre. No king of Israel or Judah ever launched an attack against Tyre. But Tyre behaved toward Israel like an enemy by selling to the Edomites those Israelites who somehow fell into their hands. The Bible does not make it clear exactly when or how this transaction came about. It could be that some of the Israelites fled to them for safety during a time of war, such as when the Assyrians were attacking cities in Israel and Judah. We don't know the circumstances that led to the Israelites falling into the hands of the Tyrians but we can be sure they expected help from Tyre and not betrayal. Amos and Joel are not the only prophets who predicted doom for Tyre. As we move on through the Old Testament we will be studying more words of woe for that city. 

You may recall from our recent study of Joel that the Lord told the people of Tyre He would return their sins upon their own heads and that, just as they sold His people to foreigners, His people would sell the Tyrians to foreigners. Tyre began losing its powerful status when it fell subject to the rising power of Assyria. Then, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire rose to world dominance and conquered Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for thirteen years until the city finally fell to him. The city was mostly destroyed by the time Nebuchadnezzar was finished with it. After the Neo-Babylonian Empire was replaced by the Medo-Persian Empire which was replaced by the Greek Empire, Alexander the Great used most of the old building blocks to build a causeway into the sea, thus completing the destruction of what was left of the city. Alexander set free the people who had been taken captive by the Tyrians and in turn allowed these freed captives to sell the Tyrians to other nations. So the Lord's prophecy against Tyre in Joel came true: "See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done. I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away." (Joel 3:7-8) There is a modern-day city where ancient Tyre used to be but the ruins of ancient Tyre were never rebuilt. 

The crimes of the Tyrians against the Israelites were especially despicable because the Israelites had been at peace with them. There was a long tradition of mutual respect between these people. It's not particularly shocking when someone who hates us treats us badly, although it's never right for someone to bear animosity toward us for no fault of our own, but it's a devastating and unexpected experience when someone we trusted betrays us. David found himself confronted by an experience like this and wrote about it in Psalm 55:12-14, saying, "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers." David said to his friend-turned-enemy, "We were like brothers! I would have trusted you with my life and you could have trusted me with yours. Of all people, you were someone I would never have imagined turning against me." 

The people of Israel and the people of Tyre had enjoyed a longstanding brotherhood with each other that was based on mutual respect and on a beneficial trade agreement. But the people of Tyre betrayed the Israelites for monetary gain and sold them to their enemies, caring nothing about the treaty their Tyrian forefathers had so highly valued. Because the Tyrians "burned" (deceived, betrayed) Israel, the Lord caused the walls of Tyre to be burned, the city destroyed, and the people sold into slavery.

The Book Of Amos. Day 3, A Prophecy Against Gaza

Amos has been called from the sheepfold to be a prophet of the Lord. He is pronouncing prophecies against the nations that have mistreated the Israelites. In yesterday's study he foretold disaster for Damascus, the capital city of Syria, and we looked at how this prophecy was fulfilled in the book of 2 Kings. In today's text Amos speaks out against Gaza, which was a city of the Philistines. 

The Philistines vexed the Israelites time and time again in the Old Testament. They were known by other ancient cultures as the "Sea People" and were successful in attacking several regions until they attempted an invasion of Egypt. The Egyptians repelled the Philistine forces, after which the Philistines settled along the coast of what is now Palestine. They were not Arabs, however, but are believed to have originated somewhere in the Aegean or Mediterranean region. The territory they occupied in Old Testament times stretched from what is modern-day Tel Aviv to Gaza. The five major cities of the Philistines were Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath. We will see all these cities, with the exception of Gath, mentioned in today's text.

The Philistines weren't content to occupy just the territory between Tel-Aviv (known as Joppa in Biblical times) and Gaza so they began expanding outward, encroaching upon other tribes in Canaan and even taking by force what they wanted. They also began encroaching upon and taking control over regions belonging to Israel. Being excellent iron workers, the Philistines possessed weaponry that was superior to that of most of their neighbors who were mainly still using bronze weapons. This allowed the Philistines to take over portions of the Judean hill country and they managed to prevent anyone in the areas they subjugated from working as a blacksmith, which is why we were told in 1 Samuel 13:19 that, "Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, 'Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!'" The Philistines had gained such an upper hand that they were forcing the Israelites to come to their own blacksmiths to have their farm implements sharpened and they were charging exorbitant prices for this service. Because of the way the Philistines had taken control of metalworking, on the day of a major battle in the book of 1 Samuel, only King Saul and his son Jonathan---out of the entire army of Israel---had swords in their hands.

The Philistines continually threatened the nation of Israel for a period of about two hundred years. The Lord began subduing the Philistines during Samuel's tenure as chief prophet to Israel. After regaining the Ark of the Covenant, which the Philistines had stolen in a battle with the Israelites, the people rededicated their hearts to the Lord and the Lord provided them with successful battle strategies through the prophet Samuel so that during the remainder of Samuel's lifetime the Philistines were not able to regain the upper hand over Israel. This doesn't mean the Philistines didn't try to reestablish dominance; it was in a battle with the Philistines that King Saul was mortally wounded. But this event set the stage for the Lord to fulfill His promise to David that He would make him king of Israel. After David became king, the Lord enabled him to defeat the Philistines soundly enough that they were unable to continue being a threat to the nation.

But the Lord has not forgotten the many acts of cruelty the Philistines perpetrated upon His people. "This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not relent. Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom, I will send fire on the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses.'" (Amos 1:6-7) We don't know the precise details of the incident in which the Philistines captured and sold Israelites to the Edomites but it appears that the Philistines were among those nations the Lord accused of selling His people when we studied the book of Joel. He said He would judge the nations who had traded young Israelite males for prostitutes and who had exchanged young Israelite women for wine. (Joel 3:3) The very next verse in the book of Joel named Philistia along with Tyre and Sidon as some of the nations involved in this slave trading. 

There was also an incident that occurred during our study of the kings when the Edomites, who had been subject to Judah since the days of David, rebelled against King Jehoram of Judah. Jehoram was not able to quash the rebellion and the Edomites, along with the people of Libnah, continued to refuse to pay tribute to him. When the Philistines learned that the Edomite forces had fought off Jehoram's forces, they decided it was a good time to attack, and they captured and carried away all of King Jehoram's wives and all of his children except his youngest son. We don't know how many wives and children he had but it was typical in those days for a king to have as many wives as he could afford to support; this was especially true of idolatrous kings, which Jehoram was. Some scholars believe the Philistines sold Jehoram's wives and sons to the Edomites and that this is the incident spoken about by Amos the prophet.

The Lord said in verse 7 that He was going to send fire on the walls of Gaza that would consume the fortresses. He goes on to pronounce judgment against three other major Philistine cities. "'I will destroy the king of Ashdod and the one who holds the scepter in Ashkelon. I will turn My hand against Ekron, til the last of the Philistines are dead,' says the Sovereign Lord." (Amos 1:8) 

The fifth major city of the Philistines, which was Gath, isn't mentioned here but this doesn't mean any of the cities of Philistia were exempt from judgment. Gath's claim to fame was that it was the hometown of that great champion of the Philistine army: the giant known as Goliath. Many archaeologists and historians believe that Gath was destroyed by King Hazael of Syria. You'll recall that Hazael was mentioned in yesterday's portion of Amos' prophecy. Hazael was an evil man who was either the top general or the second-in-command (sort of like a vice-president) to King Ben-Hadad of Syria but he assassinated him and took the throne. Yesterday we briefly talked about the heinous crimes against humanity that Hazael committed against the Israelites. So sometime before the prophecy against ancient Syria (called Aram in the Bible) came true, the Lord must have used the wicked Hazael as an instrument of judgment against the city of Gath. 

The Philistines lost their independence to the Assyrian Empire when it began attacking and subjugating various nations of the region and then, when the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Philistia was one of the nations absorbed into the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Philistia was never again a sovereign nation after it came under the control of Assyria, for it then came under the control of Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, then Rome.

The Philistines lost their identity as a people, just as the Lord said they would when he stated He would turn His hand against them until "the last of the Philistines are dead". This does not necessarily mean there are no people in the world today who are genetically related to them but that there is no group of people with this national identity. This is in contrast to the fact that there is still a nation of Israel and a distinct group of people who can trace their lineage all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.