Amos is providing the vision he was given by God "two years before the earthquake", as he said yesterday. He gives no further identifying information regarding this earthquake but it must have been so powerful that the memory of it lingered for generations. This is why he doesn't need to explain which earthquake he meant.
I'll provide examples of this from my own lifetime. A very deadly flood occurred in my county of Northeast Tennessee in 1998. Today, if someone from this area made a reference to "the flood", everyone would know which flood they meant. When I was growing up in Southwest Virginia, such a massive flood came through my county in 1977 that almost everything in the closest small town to me was washed away. If I were to mention the "Clinchport flood" to anyone from my hometown, most of the people would know which flood I'm talking about. It wasn't the only time the Clinch River ever flooded, but it was the worst time it ever flooded in the last five decades.
Many Bible scholars believe that the earthquake mentioned by Amos is the same earthquake mentioned in Zechariah 14:5 where we will be told that an earthquake which occurred during the reign of King Uzziah was so terrifying that people fled from Jerusalem into a valley, likely to avoid falling debris from the structures inside the city. We don't know exactly when the earthquake of the book of Amos occurred but we know that the Lord provided him with a message two years before it occurred. The message begins like this: "He said: 'The Lord roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers.'" (Amos 1:2) When we concluded our study of the book of Joel we found the Lord roaring from Jerusalem in Joel's prophecy of the end times. Amos' prophecy involves more immediate judgments of the nations than those Joel foresaw coming in the last days.
Amos is giving the message of the Lord regarding Syria. "This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not relent.'" (Amos 1:3a) It was a common literary practice at the time to phrase a list of things in the way Amos phrases them, as in, "For three, even for four". We will see King Solomon speaking in this manner when we arrive at the book of Proverbs, such as when he says, "There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand." (Proverbs 30:18) This doesn't mean there were only four things in this world that Solomon doesn't understand; the concept here is that of something being multi-layered. Solomon is talking about the things God created and the fact that, in spite of the great wisdom God gave him, there is thing after thing after thing after thing that is too amazing for Solomon to comprehend. In Amos' case, he's saying something like, "The sins of Syria are many: sin upon sin upon sin upon sin. The sins are too many for the Lord to ignore."
What are some of Syria's sins? The Lord says, "Because she threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth, I will send fire on the house of Hazael, that will consume the fortresses of Ben-Hadad." (Amos 1:3b-4) Gilead was part of the promised land given to the Israelites by God. But it was attacked and taken over by the people of Syria who also attacked a number of other regions of the Israelites. Under the direction of King Hazael the Israelites were treated with shocking cruelty. Hazael was formerly the top general of King Ben-Hadad of Syria but he had hidden political aspirations which the Lord revealed to the prophet Elisha. When he came to visit the prophet Elisha, Elisha prophesied that Hazael would assassinate Ben-Hadad and would later come with his forces to set fire to the fortified cities of Israel and put the young men to the sword. He said Hazael would order his soldiers to dash the little children to the ground. I apologize for how graphic this is, but Elisha was probably referring to an ancient practice in which enemy soldiers would grab young children by their feet and swing them headfirst into a stone wall or onto the hard ground, splitting their skulls open and causing their deaths. Elisha also graphically stated that Hazael would have the bellies of pregnant Israelite women ripped open. (This passage can be found in 2 Kings 8:12.)
Hazael denied he had any violent intentions toward his king or toward the Israelites but he ended up doing exactly what Elisha said he would. When we studied the book of 2 Kings we looked at the many attacks Hazael perpetrated upon the people of Israel. Here in the book of Amos the Lord is announcing His intention to avenge His people for the crimes against humanity the Syrians committed.
"I will break down the gate of Damascus; I will destroy the king who is in the Valley of Aven and the one who holds the scepter in Beth Eden. The people of Aram will go in to exile to Kir, says the Lord." (Amos 1:5) Amos lived and gave out this message before the events of 2 Kings 16 took place. In 2 Kings 16 we find Amos' prophecy being fulfilled. King Rezin of Aram (which is Syria) allied himself with King Pekah of Israel and they marched together to attack Jerusalem during the reign of King Ahaz of Judah. (This Ahaz is not to be confused with King Ahaz of Israel who was married to Jezebel.) The kings of Syria and Israel were not powerful enough at the time to take the city of Jerusalem so they turned their attention to the region of Elath and drove the people of Judah out of that area, settling Edomites in their place. The forces of Syria and Israel failed in their attempt to take Jerusalem but while they were attacking cities they were capable of overpowering, the king of Judah appealed to King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria for help, paying him a very large quantity of silver and gold in return for his time and trouble. The king of Assyria responded favorably to King Ahaz by attacking and capturing the Syrian capital of Damascus. Tiglath-Pileser put King Rezin of Syria to death and deported all the citizens to Kir, just as Amos predicted in today's study.
No word of God will ever fail. As I've said time and time again, whenever the Lord says something is going to happen, it's as good as done. It may happen today, a week from now, months from now, or years from now. But it will happen. We can't always trust the word of our fellow man, even though their promises may be sincere at the time they make them, but they are weak and frail mortal creatures who may deliberately go back on their word or find themselves incapable of keeping the promise even though they'd like to. But the Lord is a promise keeper. He promises good things to those who make Him the Lord of their lives. He also keeps His promise to avenge His children against all the wrongs done to them.
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