CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 3:9. Publish] upon (the floor of) the palaces, some; others, over them, to call the princes and inhabitants to hear and see the acts of violence, and testify against Israel. “Ashdod, one of the Philistian capitals, is mentioned by way of example, as a chief city of the uncircumcised, who were regarded by Israel as godless heathen; and Egypt is mentioned along with it as the nation whose unrighteousness and ungodliness had once been experienced by Israel to satiety. If therefore such heathen as these are called to behold the unrighteous and dissolute conduct to be seen in the palaces, it must have been great indeed” [Keil]. Tumults] Heb. denotes a state of confusion and noise in which order and justice are overthrown by open violence.
Amos 3:10. Regard not] Not merely ignorant, but cherish a state of mind hostile to knowledge. Moral corruption blinded the power of discernment, so that the magnates of Samaria had no regard for right.
Amos 3:11.] Whatever was boasted of would be removed.
Amos 3:12.] By an appropriate and pastoral image the prophet declares that if a scanty remnant escape it will only be by miracle, like fragments of sheep left by the lion. Grandees who sit on costly divans and rest in ease will escape with great difficulty (ch. Amos 6:1-4).
HOMILETICS
NATIONAL CALAMITIES.—Amos 3:9-12
The sins of Israel are to be punished, and heathen nations are summoned to witness. This turn in the address indicates the exceeding sinfulness of the sins, such as to surprise the heathen and put Israel to shame.
I. National guilt. Sin brings shame. From the heights around the injustice of Israel is beheld.
1. Moral sensibility impaired. “They know not to do right.” God has planted a sense of right in the breast of every one. This should be cultivated and strengthened. Indulgence in sin blunts this moral sensibility, and men at length become unable to do and perceive good. The love of evil blinds the power of discernment, and brings moral corruption (Jeremiah 4:22). “I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”
2. Public justice perverted. Courts of law were the scenes of injustice, and the rights of the people were neither known nor cared for. The poor were oppressed. God and his law were set at nought, violence and robbery prevailed, and evil customs reigned supreme.
3. Shameless fraud committed. “Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.” One sin leads to another. Riches gained by fraud will never be used as means of benevolence and justice. All oppression is cruel; but to defraud the poor to increase unrighteous wealth is aggravation most insulting to God (Psalms 11:5; Psalms 12:5). Men may store up their treasures, and fill their palaces, to crush the poor and cheapen their luxuries. But “sin pays its servants very bad wages,” says a quaint author; “for it gives the very reverse of what it promised. While the sin of oppression promises mountains of gold, it brings them poverty and ruin. Injuries done to the poor are sorely resented by the God of mercy, who is the poor man’s friend, and will break in pieces his oppressor.” “The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them, because they refuse to do judgment.”
II. National disorder. “Behold the great tumults in the midst thereof.” Injustice and cruelty in the upper will ever bring alarm and confusion in the lower classes. A people intent on gain, turning law upside down, will create great tumults. National honour has been stained, and a reign of terror introduced by national disorders. Tumults have darkened the pages in the history of Greece, lost some of the noblest sons of Rome, and been terrible punishments to France. Let England remember that licentiousness and cruelty, fraud and oppression, will create confusion in the people; that wealth unlawfully gained, and unjustly stored; that mammon and pleasure habitually worshipped, will only “treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
III. National disgrace. It is a shame to any person to have his guilt and punishment revealed to others. “Every nation,” says Ryan, “is ashamed when its disgrace is proclaimed to other nations, and especially if those nations are remarkable for their hostility to it. Of all nations that have ever existed, the Israelites were most vulnerable in this respect. The position which they were taught to maintain, the exclusiveness of that system which was given to them of God, made them conspicuous objects of attention to other people, and exposed them most completely to the language of reproach and scorn in the day of their humiliation.” But God puts men to shame now, to keep them from everlasting shame and contempt.
IV. National invasion. Civil discord would be followed by the ravages of an invading enemy. “An adversary” would hem them in on all sides, encircle the land and assault their habitations.
1. Power which they abused shall be taken away. “He shall bring down thy strength from thee.” They would be bereft of all strength and resources on which they depended (Proverbs 10:15). When God is angry strength will prove weakness, and wealth end in poverty.
2. Palaces which they stored shall be destroyed. “Thy palaces shall be destroyed.” Palaces are no defence to fraud and oppression.
3. There would be a general and complete overthrow of the kingdom, with only a remnant of escape. The rulers had been guilty of oppression and robbery; disregarded these evils in others, notwithstanding the tumults and disorders they created; and filled their palaces with the fruits of robbery. But as an appropriate punishment their violence should be broken, and their wealth stolen from them. “The spoilers must themselves be spoiled.”
“To wrong-doers the revolution of time brings retribution” [Shakespeare].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 3:9-10. God’s assessors in judgment. The character assigned to the inhabitants of Philistia and Egypt is virtually that of assessors, who not only take cognizance of, but concur in the judgment executed (cf. Amos 3:13, lit. “Hear ye and testify against the house of Jacob”). From this we learn that in the execution of his righteous judgments God desires to obtain a verdict in the impartial human conscience. What is here figuratively represented by the neighbouring nations taking their stand on the mountains of Samaria takes place inwardly and silently in the minds of men. It is analogous to what in modern times is termed the verdict of public opinion. No institution is in danger until a sentence has been recorded against it in the tribunal of conscience and right reason. And the like may be said of the general stability and independence of nations. In such a case as the present two important ends are served.
1. The witnesses or jurors give a human attestation to the righteousness of the Divine procedure, and thus justify the ways of God. That they are themselves guilty and sinful makes their verdict all the more emphatic.
2. They thus obtain a truer and deeper acquaintance with God and his ways, and what they have seen in others becomes a warning to themselves [The Preacher’s Lantern, vol. 4].
“Heaven gives the needful but neglected call.
What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts,
To wake the soul to a sense of future scenes?” [Young.]
Amos 3:10-11. Righteous requital.
1. Requital from God. “Thus saith the Lord God.” “There was no human redress. The oppressor was mighty, but mightier the avenger of the poor. Man would not help, therefore God would. An adversary there shall be even round about the land; lit. an enemy, and around the land” [Pusey].
2. Requital by means of their own sons. “Man’s sins are in God’s providence the means of his punishment. Their spoiling should invite the spoiler, their oppressions should attract the oppressor; and they, with all which they held to be their strength, should go forth into captivity” [Pusey].
“The cries of orphans and the oppressor’s rage
Doth reach the stars” [Dryden].
3. Requital justified by human testimony. “Publish in the palaces of Ashdod.” The transgressions of which Israel were guilty were to be manifest to others, and attested by the human conscience. “The Lord will be justified in his sayings and in his works, when he executeth judgment on us, and shall be cleared, even by the most unjust judges, when he is judged.”
Amos 3:12. The miserable remnant.
1. A remnant robbed of glory. Bereft of the national glory which once belonged to them, yet just enough to show that they had once been a part of it.
2. A remnant saved. After God’s righteous vengeance had accomplished its end, a remnant only shall be saved (Joel 2:32). “Taken out for the good of others, not their own.”
3. A remnant, injured by violence, rescued from danger, like a sheep almost devoured by the lion; taken at the last extremity, a monument of God’s mercy, and a proof of exposure to violence and risk.
As shepherds, ministers of God have to defend the flock against wild beasts and robbers. Carelessness should not permit one to be lost or injured. The Good Shepherd seeks to rescue all. Let none sit in ease and carnal security, lest they be destroyed by the lion going about seeking whom he may devour.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Amos 3:9. Samaria. The metropolis of the kingdom of Israel was built on a round hill, near the middle of a large valley, surrounded by mountains on every side, by which it was completely overlooked. From these elevations persons might distinctly see what was done in the city [Elzaz].
Amos 3:10-11. They might seem to be secure and at ease in Samaria and Damascus, but vain would every such remedy against fear and sorrow prove. From the strong city, from the soft couch, they would be dragged to misery and destruction. In about 40 years after the time of this prophecy we read (2 Kings 17:3) of a siege of Samaria which lasted three years, at the end of which the city was taken; and after the horrors of war, the spoiling of their palaces and their wealth, the remnant was dragged into a distant land, to endure the miseries of captivity and exile [Ryan].