Reflections on Amos 7

 Amos 07  (Contemporary English Version)

1. The LORD God showed me that he is going to send locusts to attack your crops. It will happen after the king has already been given his share of the grain and before the rest of the grain has been harvested.
2. In my vision the locusts ate every crop in the land, and I said to the LORD, "Forgive me for asking, but how can the nation survive? It's so weak."
3. Then the LORD felt sorry and answered, "I won't let it be destroyed."
4. The LORD showed me that he is going to send a ball of fire to burn up everything on earth, including the ocean.
5. Then I said, "Won't you please stop? How can our weak nation survive?"
6. Again the LORD felt sorry and answered, "I won't let it be destroyed."
7. The LORD showed me a vision of himself standing beside a wall and holding a string with a weight tied to the end of it. The string and weight had been used to measure the straightness of the wall.
8. Then he asked, "Amos, what do you see?" "A measuring line," I answered. The LORD said, "I'm using this measuring line to show that my people Israel don't measure up, and I won't forgive them any more.
9. Their sacred places will be destroyed, and I will send war against the nation of King Jeroboam."
10. Amaziah the priest at Bethel sent this message to King Jeroboam of Israel, "Amos is plotting against you in the very heart of Israel. Our nation cannot put up with his message for very long.
11. Here is what he is saying: 'Jeroboam will be put to death, and the people will be taken to a foreign country.' "
12. Then Amaziah told me, "Amos, take your visions and get out! Go back to Judah and earn your living there as a prophet.
13. Don't do any more preaching at Bethel. The king worships here at our national temple."
14. I answered: I'm not a prophet! And I wasn't trained to be a prophet. I am a shepherd, and I take care of fig trees.
15. But the LORD told me to leave my herds and preach to the people of Israel.
16. And here you are, telling me not to preach!
17. Now, listen to what the LORD says about you: Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will be killed in war, and your land will be divided among others. You will die in a country of foreigners, and the people of Israel will be dragged from their homeland.

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In chapter 7 we see a characteristic in the prophet Amos that we may overlook with the prophets. Since they were often God's messengers of judgment we may view them as judgmental themselves and without mercy or compassion for the people. But we see compassion with Amos in these verses. God allowed Amos to see, through visions, the destruction He planned for Israel. The first was a swarm of locusts that the Lord planned to send at the time the first crop of the spring season began to sprout. In the vision the locusts devoured the vegetation. Israel would be left without food and would starve. But Amos pleaded with the Lord to "please forgive" for Israel could not survive this. The Lord relented and did not send the locusts.

In a second vision, the Lord planned fire to be the instrument of destruction for Israel. This fire is interpreted by some to represent an invasion by an a warring army. Others see it as a drought, and still others as referring literally to a fire that roars across the nation. In this scenario the summer heat is intensified, drying up the streams, and then the fire comes with no barriers of water to stop it, and it rages on unchecked until it devoured the land. Seeing the devastation of fire through the vision, Amos pleaded with God to "please stop" for how will Israel survive? God also relented from using fire as the instrument of destruction.

Then came the third vision. In this one, Amos saw a plumb line used to determine if a wall was truly vertical. A wall that was "out of plumb," or rather was leaning, would be torn down and rebuilt. The plumb line for Israel would most likely have been the covenant law, and against this measure Israel was found to be "leaning." The nation did not measure up and would need to be torn down and rebuilt. The instrument of destruction for this task, according to verse 9, was the sword of an invading army. This would no doubt eliminate an invading army as the instrument of destruction represented by fire in the second vision. Giving Amos no opportunity to plead for mercy on behalf of Israel, the Lord said, "I will no longer spare them."

At some point Amos voiced what he had seen in this third vision and Amaziah the priest of Bethel heard him. Amaziah sent word to the king, Jeroboam, saying that Amos "has conspired against you." In saying this, Amaziah was attributing the message to Amos rather than to the Lord, and he considered a conspiracy rather than a warning as if Amos planned to lead an invasion. Besides alerting the king to Amos' message, Amaziah told Amos to leave, go back to Judah and prophesy there. He was inferring that Amos was self-motivated to give these prophesies and these were his messages rather than from the Lord. But Amos told him it was his idea to prophesy for he was minding his own business, herding sheep and growing figs, when the Lord told him to "Go, prophesy to My people Israel."

Because Amaziah tried to stop him rather than take seriously the message he delivered, he and his family would not be spared from the coming destruction. Amaziah's sons and daughters would fall by the sword, his land divided up among others, his wife driven to survive as a prostitute, and he would be taken prisoner into exile. He would die in exile on pagan soil.