Reflections on Amos 6

Amos 06 (Contemporary English Version)


1. Do you rulers in Jerusalem and in the city of Samaria feel safe and at ease? Everyone bows down to you, and you think you are better than any other nation. But you are in for trouble!
   
2. Look what happened to the cities of Calneh, powerful Hamath, and Gath in Philistia. Are you greater than any of those kingdoms?
   
3. You are cruel, and you forget the coming day of judgment.
   
4. You rich people lounge around on beds with ivory posts, while dining on the meat of your lambs and calves.
   
5. You sing foolish songs to the music of harps, and you make up new tunes, just as David used to do.
   
6. You drink all the wine you want and wear expensive perfume, but you don't care about the ruin of your nation.
   
7. So you will be the first to be dragged off as captives; your good times will end.
   
8. The LORD God All-Powerful has sworn by his own name: "You descendants of Jacob make me angry by your pride, and I hate your fortresses. And so I will surrender your city and possessions to your enemies."
   
9. If only ten of you survive by hiding in a house you will still die.
   
10. As you carry out a corpse to prepare it for burial, your relative in the house will ask, "Are there others?" You will answer, "No!" Then your relative will reply, "Be quiet! Don't dare mention the name of the LORD."
    
11. At the LORD's command, houses great and small will be smashed to pieces.
    
12. Horses can't gallop on rocks; oceans can't be plowed. But you have turned justice and fairness into bitter poison.
    
13. You celebrate the defeat of Lo-Debar and Karnaim, and you boast by saying, "We did it on our own."
    
14. But the LORD God All-Powerful will send a nation to attack you people of Israel. They will capture Lebo-Hamath in the north, Arabah Creek in the south, and everything in between.
    

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Chapter 6 brings us to the fifth and final message detailing the sins and punishment of Israel. The first message highlighted her unparalleled oppression of people comparing this to her unique relationship with God who had delivered them from oppression. In the second message the upper-class women (cows of Bashan) were the target as was the religious hypocrisy of the nation and her refusal to repent despite repeated chastisements. Message three addressed Israel's injustice, especially to the poor and needy, while message four again drew attention to Israel's religious hypocrisy. Now, in message five, Amos charges Israel with boastful complacency and luxurious indulgence.

Israel's complacency was due to her military and economical dominance and her attitude that she had accomplished this status on her own. She was strong and had nothing to fear, so she thought, leading her to this complacency. But Amos tells the leaders (verse 2) to go over to Calneh and from there to Hamath and then to Gath. These were major cities of nations that had also been considered great and were now fallen. Amos asks, "Are you better than these kingdoms?" If they fell, so also could Israel fall, and this fall was surely coming. But did these haughty leaders of Israel take this advise and heed this warning? Not at all. And what did they do to avoid thinking about this and the numerous other warnings? They did what people typically do to avoid thinking unpleasant thoughts - they "lived it up." To avoid thinking about something unpleasant people typically get involved in things that draw their attention away from these thoughts. Things that either pump the adrenaline or dull the senses. Excitement and booze. These will ward off unpleasant thoughts. The problem is that they do not ward off the cause of those thoughts. Instead they keep one from doing anything that might ward off those causes. The elite of Israel gorged themselves on 'fine dining', improvised songs, and got drunk on wine rather than think about these messages of warning.

Israel's luxury and complacency are then contrasted in the last verse of the chapter with the devastation that is to come. God was going to "hand over the city and everything in it" and none would escape. Even if there were 10 men in one house who escaped the sword, they would die of pestilence. By this time their complacency would be gone. Should relatives coming to this house to burn the bodies discover a survivor in the house they would beg him not to even mention the Lord's name for fear that the mention of His name would draw His attention to those He had overlooked and He would slay them too.

Israel had done the unimaginable by turning "justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood." Now God was going to do the unimaginable by raising up a nation against Israel that would oppress their entire land. God had delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt and given her the territory she now inhabited and of which she boasted as hers. Now God was turning her back over to slavery to this invading nation and the territory of which she boasted would be held by another nation.