7). YHWH's Judgment On Judah (Amos 2:4-5).
But while ‘YHWH's people' no doubt prided themselves on being superior morally to those round about, they were now to discover to their horror that they too would be subject to YHWH's judgment. Thus the seventh of those who came under YHWH's judgment (not including Israel) was Judah. Their crime is totally different from those that have gone before because they were an especially privileged people. But that did not mean that they would escape judgment. They saw themselves as different in that they had the Law of YHWH, and even boasted of the fact. But the truth was that it was this privilege that condemned them. They may not outwardly have sunk as low as the other nations, but their privileged position gave them a huge responsibility which they had failed to fulfil. They would be punished because they had rejected the Law of YHWH, had not kept His statutes, and had allowed themselves to be led astray by the lies in which their fathers had walked, the lies that had excused syncretistic worship and a softening of God's requirements.
In the same way nominal Christians need to recognise that God requires more of them than He does of non-Christians. By taking the name of Christ they are committing themselves to a higher level of morality, the standard by which they will be judged.
“Thus says YHWH.
For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four,
I will not turn away their punishment,
Because they have rejected the law of YHWH,
And have not kept his statutes,
And their lies have caused them to err,
After which their fathers did walk.
But I will send a fire on Judah,
And it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”
So seventhly YHWH has spoken to Judah. Judah, like Israel, were the people who had been delivered out of Egypt and given the land of the Amorites (Amos 2:9-10), and who had been given the Law of YHWH. Their crime, more heinous than all the rest, was that they had rejected that Law (Instruction) and had not kept His statutes. They had had great privilege and had failed. They had spoken lies and listened to lies, and those lies, which they had inherited from their fathers, had caused them to go astray. It is a reminder to us of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ that we must hear His words and DO them (Matthew 7:21; Matthew 7:24; Matthew 7:26). We especially have been privileged to receive His instruction. If we do not obey them we too will face judgment, for it will be a sign that, whatever our claims, we have not accepted Him as our LORD Jesus Christ.
Thus while Judah had the Law of YHWH, and even the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem, they shared the condemnation of the nations round about because their gross sin was their unwillingness to observe His revealed Law and obey it, and to worship truly in His holy Temple. Great privilege brings great responsibility. In consequence they also would similarly suffer the fires of judgment, and the wealth of Jerusalem would be devoured.
It will be noted again that Judah shares the shortened form previously followed in the cases of Tyre and Edom. In the case of Tyre and Edom that had been in order to link them with Philistia in their joint slave-trading operation. Here with Judah it may well have been in order to avoid any suggestion of the cessation of the house and sceptre of David which YHWH had promised would be ‘forever'.
Making Judah the seventh in the list alongside the foreign nations was a brilliant move. It demonstrated that disobedience to the covenant was equally as appalling as the other sins described and paralleled Israel's own position in a way in which none of the other nations could. Moreover an Israel who probably felt that Judah saw itself as superior in that it had the YHWH approved Central Sanctuary and the house of David, would be only too willing to condemn their southern neighbour without thinking too much about what it involved for themselves. As Amos' message was basically to northern Israel there is nothing incongruous in speaking of Judah here as separate from Israel, even though, as with all the prophets, in the end Amos saw Israel and Judah as one. As we shall see he can moves smoothly from the one position to the other to suit his convenience.