They Had Transgressed In Spite Of All That YHWH Had Done For Them (Amos 2:9-12).
YHWH then described how great their debt was to Him. The land over which they were transgressing was the very land which He had graciously given to them, land which had belonged to the Amorites (Canaanites) whom He had destroyed before them, and it was in order to give them this land that He had brought them out of Egypt. How careful then they should have been to see that they used that land in accordance with His commandments. Furthermore they had no excuse for he had given them prophets and Nazirites to guide them in the right way. But what had they done? They had forbidden the prophets to prophesy, and had made the Nazirites break their vows (Numbers 6:3). Thus they had misused all YHWH's gifts, and scorned His provision.
We also have been given both physical and spiritual provision by God, and the question also for us is as to whether we use it generously and sincerely, or whether we misuse our material possessions and neglect our spiritual provision.
“Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks, yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.”
YHWH now describes how it was He Who had destroyed ‘the Amorite' from before them. In this context ‘Amorite' is parallel in use to ‘Canaanite' and includes all the inhabitants of Canaan. Those whose height had been ‘like the height of cedars' were the sons of the Anakim which they had come across in Hebron and the mountains of Judah (Numbers 13:32-33; Joshua 15:14). And God had given Israel victory over them (the whole of Israel including Judah is in mind here), attacking them from every angle, as a tree-specialist attacks both the seed producing flowers and the roots of trees in order to prevent them spreading. He had done a total annihilation job on them.
The Amorites were destroyed when after centuries of gross sin their iniquities had come to the full (Genesis 15:16). There is probably a suggestion here that Israel's iniquities were now similarly coming to a full.
“Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.”
And even before that He had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and had led them for forty years in the wilderness, watching over them and protecting them, feeding them and healing them. And this had been precisely so that they could possess the land of the Amorites. Thus it had been a carefully thought out plan which had been carried through effectively over a long period.
Note the sudden switch to ‘you' to make the words more direct and personal. He does not want them to think of it just in the third person.
“And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O you children of Israel? says YHWH?”
And after that initial period of bringing forth and leading, in order to help them to keep faithful He had raised up from among them numerous prophets and Nazirites. Prophets were those raised by YHWH to bring to them ‘the word of YHWH'. These had included Moses, Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, and many other men of God (described, for example, in Kings and Chronicles). Nazirites were men who were especially dedicated to YHWH, and were thus by their lives witnesses to His holiness (Numbers 6:1 onwards). Examples of such were Samson and Samuel (Judges 13:5; 1 Samuel 1:11).
“But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘Do not prophesy'.”
But instead of benefiting by YHWH's provision they had sought to get the Nazirites drunk in contravention of their vows, and had silenced the prophets, telling them not to prophesy. They had not wanted a good example, nor to hear the true word of YHWH. This applies whether the Nazirites were willing or not. Thus they had deliberately repudiated YHWH by silencing His messengers in one way or the other.