CRITICAL NOTES.] Bones] An act of cruelty revenged; others, an insult to the remains of a dead king, probably the king joined in alliance with Jehoshaphat and Jehoram (2 Kings 3:9).
Amos 2:2. Kir.] A principal city of Moab, the plural form indicates the acropolis and town (cf. Jeremiah 48:24; Jeremiah 48:41). Tumult] These expressions describe the city taken by storm. Trumpet] The signal for assault.
Amos 2:3. Judge] Supreme magistrate (Deuteronomy 17:9).
Amos 2:4. Judah] condemned for idolatry and despising the law, i.e. the instructions and revelations given by God to his people. Command.] Separate precepts. Lies] Their idols, which not only deceive, “but as fabrications and nonentities, having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them” [Keil]. Fathers] Forefathers generally.
HOMILETICS
THE JUDGMENT ON MOAB.—Amos 2:1-3
I. The punishment of Moab. Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and its palaces to be destroyed.
1. A tumultuous destruction. “Moab shall die with tumult.” The sound of the trumpet would stir up the assailants. Noise and commotion would be heard in the streets, and as they had raised tumults themselves so they would perish by tumults. “Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise.”
2. An entire destruction. God will cut off its rulers. The chief magistrate, the princes and the rulers of all ranks, shall be taken. Those who are high in rank and authority are bound to do justice to the people. Judges should learn that there is one above them, from whose judgment they cannot escape.
II. The reason of this punishment. “Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.” The king of Moab, either when he sought to avenge himself on Edom (after the raising of the siege, 2 Kings 3:27), or at some other time, let out his fury on the very dead. The malice which vents itself on the insensible corpse is the vindictive rage of one, that would never cease to hurt if possible. “Hatred which death cannot extinguish,” says Pusey, “is the beginning of the eternal hate of hell.” To rage against the living, or to express malignant spite against the remains of the dead, is odious to God. He is Lord of the living and the dead. His dominion and providence extend beyond the grave, and he will avenge insults to heathen or Christian.
THE JUDGMENT ON JUDAH.—Amos 2:4-5
I. The charge against Judah. The guilt here is not as in other cases. Other nations were judged for injuries done to man; but Judah for insults to God. They despised the law, deceived themselves and one another with false excuses and the customs of progenitors. Disregard to God is manifested in two chief forms.
1. Contempt for the law of God. “They have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments.” The law as a rule of life and the commandments in their special bearing were treated with contempt. The wisdom of God was despised by the pride of man. They first neglected, then set aside, the law. If men have no regard for the law, and make no conscience of its authority, they will soon resist it. If we do not keep we virtually despise God’s law.
2. Worship of idols. Man will either worship God or love a lie. If he tries to explain away the claims of God and to justify his sins, he will “err” by his lies and soon lose power to discriminate between good and evil. (a) Idolatry is a lie. The idols themselves are lies. They can do nothing, but lie and deceive. “For an idol is nothing in the world” (1 Corinthians 8:4). The pretences under which men worship them are lies; snares to mislead and cause “to err.” (b) Lies lead men astray. “Their lies caused them to err.” God’s law is the truth, but when the truth is changed into a lie, there is danger of sin becoming hereditary. The word points the way to temporal and eternal safety; but if despised, men wander into darkness and idolatry. (c) Lies are sometimes defended by custom. “After the which their fathers have walked.” Men get accustomed to evils that are common. These evils acquire prominence and authority. “The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. Human opinion is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as God’s truth. The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, and does not excuse it.” Thus children walk in the steps and fill up the measure of the guilt of their fathers. Human opinion must not be exalted above God’s word. Scripture, and Scripture alone, is the law of truth, and the rule of life. False doctrines, delusive rites and idolatries, violate the word of God, perpetuate human tradition in the Church, and cause one generation after another to err from the truth.
II. The calamities upon Judah. In few words and little detail, the destruction by fire is said to extend not only to the cities of Judah, but to the palaces of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was burnt with fire by the Chaldæans (2 Kings 25:9; 2 Chronicles 36:19), and afterwards by the Romans. Two centuries elapsed before the first fire destroyed the city, but God sent it. Let us beware of treating the word with contempt, of thinking because long delayed the judgment will never come. God’s anger will consume dead members in the Church, and purify it from all idolatry and abominations. “Then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
1. A visible Church which does not keep up communion with God, nor improve her spiritual advantages, may fall into provocations nothing inferior in number and heinousness to the iniquities of nations about her.
2. And if God does not spare heathens without law and with but little knowledge of God, far less will he spare his people who are lewd as they [Hutcheson]. “Man first in act despises God’s law (and whoso does not keep it, despises it), and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his god. He first chooses wilfully his own lie, i.e. whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own lie deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves” [Pusey].
Judgments of God compared to fire.
1. Fire consumes (Psalms 18:8; Jeremiah 15:14).
2. Fire breaks out suddenly. The destruction of these cities is certain and inevitable.
3. Fire is violent. Sodom and the great fire in London.
4. Fire refines. The judgments of God are intended to try men, to purify churches and nations. “The Lord’s fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 31:9; Zechariah 13:9).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Amos 2:1-3. Bones burned. “The wickedness appears to have consisted in a wanton violation of the sanctity of the tomb, by the disinterment and burning of the royal remains. It was indicative of an enmity which was not satisfied with inflicting every possible injury upon its victim while living, but pursued him even into the regions of the dead.” To exhume, burn, and disperse the bones of the dead, has often been adopted as a way of showing indignity. The bones of Wycliffe were disinterred and burnt, and Cromwell’s remains were most indignantly treated.
Amos 2:4-5. Evil examples. As companions are the objects of choice, admiration, and affection, the repulsiveness of vice is lost sight of amidst so much that is attractive. In short, though the vices of a companion be gross and palpable to others, yet, as Shakspeare says, “a friendly eye cannot see such faults” [Brewer].
Evil examples are like pestilential diseases—
The virtuous son is ill at ease
When the lewd father gave the dire disease. [Pope.]