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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Amos delivered another woe. Although most of his messages were directed to Israel, the Northern kingdom, this woe was directed to both Northern & Southern kingdoms. Woe to "those who are at ease in Zion" (Jerusalem in the Southern kingdom) and woe to "those who feel secure on the hill of Samaria." (the capital of the Northern kingdom) The Lord's disgust, though, seems to have been more with the Northern kingdom, Israel. The prominent people of Israel considered themselves to be the most notable people of the foremost nation. They were at the pinnacle and nothing could touch them.

God had a message for them, though. Go to Calneh or to Hamath. Both had been just as great as Israel and were now in ruins. They, too, thought themselves to be impenetrable, but they were not. In their complacency these notables of Israel lay on their ivory inlaid beds in drunken stupors while improvising songs on their harps and shutting out any thought of unpleasantness such as a coming "reign of violence." These notables, the first of the first, would be privileged to also be the first to go into exile.

Israel took pride in what should have been disgusting to them, and the Lord loathed this pride. It drove Him to bring on Israel an unthinkable destruction. The devastation of Samaria would be so complete that any survivors would avoid mentioning the Lord's name for fear it would attract His attention to a survivor He had overlooked.

Israel had done the unimaginable by turning justice into poison. The judicial system, designed to protect, had become a poison. To illustrate how unimaginable it was, Amos had them try to picture horses running on rocky crags or oxen plowing perpendicular cliffs. As preposterous as these were, so was what they had done to the judicial system.

The Lord was raising up a nation against the house of Israel which would tear down everything Israel took pride in. This included territory such as Lo-debar and Karnaim which Israel prided herself in capturing, saying, "Didn't we capture Karnaim for ourselves by our own strength?" The Lord, who had enabled them to capture these territories would take them away and they would see just how strong they really were.