Having Failed To Respond To All God's Pleadings By Judgment There Could Only Be One Inevitable End. Like Pharaoh Before Them They Would Have To Find Out The Severity Of His Judgment When All Else Had Failed (Amos 4:12-13).
It is made apparent that God had done all that He could to win them back to Himself, for that had been the aim of all His past judgments. But now they were coming to the end of the road. Chastening had failed, now they must face the final climax, His final judgment which would include all the above in overflowing measure. God would not be mocked. In the end, if they did not repent, men would reap what they had sown. Thus Israel must now be prepared to meet their God, the One Who turns light into darkness (a grim prospect), Who tramples on the most exalted, and Who rules over all, Whose Name is YHWH, the God of Hosts (of heaven and earth).
“Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”
As they had failed to respond to a judgment here and a judgment there, now all His judgments would be piled upon them, and by this they would be brought to meet face to face with God in all His holiness and wrath (His antipathy against sin). Compare Exodus 19:17, which resulted in their pleading for ‘no more' (Exodus 20:19). Thus in view of their continuing disobedience they must prepare to meet their God as He is, face to face with no restrictions. All the judgments of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-29 would come upon them, and more. This would include therefore destruction and exile.
“For, lo, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth YHWH, the God of hosts, is his name.”
Furthermore let them consider Who it is Who will do this thing. There may well in these words be a reflection of their festal worship formulae, or of some hymn, of which he is reminding them (see excursus on Amos 9:6). The One of Whom he speaks is the One Who forms the mountains and creates the wind, Who is in control of the most powerful forces of nature, the One Who can turn morning into darkness so that there is no light (without which there is no life), and who strides like a Colossus over the highest places of the world, trampling on both ‘gods' and men. And His Name is YHWH, the God of the hosts of heaven and earth. Similar ideas occur again in Amos 5:8-9.
The prophetic warning gives the appearance of finality as if there was no hope. And so it would be if they did not repent. But God had not sent Amos simply as a harbinger of Doom, His hope was always that men would repent. And as, Amos will now make clear, if they did so they would find life. (But let us remember that the majority did not repent, and that all that Amos had warned of came upon them. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God unless we do so with repentant hearts).