CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 9:11. The booth] The fallen shepherd, hut (not the palace), indicating the feeble condition of the family and nation. Wall up] the rents; the two divided nations should become one. Raise up] Enlarge and finish the building as of old (2 Samuel 7:11-16).
Amos 9:12. They] God’s people possess Edom, the enemies of the Church, as the gift of God: some, “the remnant of Edom and of all the heathen that are or shall be called by My name, shall possess Me, the Lord.” There shall be a grand future restoration.
Amos 9:13.] The land shall be blessed. The plowman overtakes the reaper. One harvest shall scarcely be gathered before preparation shall be made for another; a fulfilment of Leviticus 26:5. Eminences themselves shall drop down in rich juice of grape.
Amos 9:14.] The kingdom shall be prosperous; fallen cities rebuilt; vines planted and enjoyed no longer by the enemy. Reviving activity would be seen everywhere.
Amos 9:15.] All this perpetual. Plant] Firm and lasting establishment of them; trees not torn up, but firmly rooted and eternally flourishing in joy and peace (Jeremiah 32:41). This is a beautiful type of the building up, enlargement, and establishment of the Christian Church through Christ. In Him earth will become an Eden, and the Lord will again dwell with a holy people.
HOMILETICS
THE FALLEN TABERNACLE REARED AND ENLARGED.—Amos 9:11-12
The book which began with dreadful judgments ends in sublime visions. The prophet has bewailed the sins of different cities and denounced the wrath of God against them. Now we find him predicting blessings for the heathen. The funeral dirge is turned into a song of mercy. The prophet is rewarded for faithful service, and is comforted with the thought, that after the destruction of ungodly elements, Divine grace shall rear, enlarge, and prosper a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. Amos 9:11-15 might be taken together as including the vision, but we shall treat them separately. From Amos 9:11-12, we get a description of the restored tabernacle.
I. The fallen tabernacle shall be reared up. “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David.”
1. Raised from its fallen condition. It was not a magnificent palace, but “the fallen but.” It had been rent and ruined by divisions and wars. Sin will cause any kingdom to decay and any Church to fall. It impoverishes royalty, impairs human dignity, and throws into the lowest condition. But Divine grace can build up and beautify what sin has pulled down. In the human heart, the Christian Church, and the heathen world God is building up a holy temple for the perpetual residence of His Spirit (Ephesians 2:22).
2. Repaired in its breaches. “And close up the breaches thereof.” Sin breaks down moral barriers, creates divisions in the family and the fold. God sets up new stones in the walls, heals divisions, and unites men in love and loyalty to himself.
3. Completed in its original design. “I will build it as in the days of old.” God will finish and complete the building according to its ancient grandeur in the days of David and Solomon (2 Samuel 7:11-16); and in harmony with his purpose. The kingdom of David is a type of the kingdom of Christ, the Son of David. The Christian Church may be reduced in circumstances, and almost ruined in prospect; but that is no reason for despair. The humble cot, the shattered tent, may be raised to greater worth and adorned with greater beauty than the temple of old. “Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come.”
II. The fallen tabernacle shall be greatly enlarged. “That they may possess the remnant of Edom,” &c. Formerly the Church was confined in narrow limits, but now it shall spread itself over all nations.
1. The Edomites, near neighbours, yet bitter enemies, shall become peaceful citizens.
2. The heathens, the Gentiles, should be called. The prophet pronounced woe upon these nations at first, but now he speaks of them as called by the name of Jehovah. The most desperate and the most distant may be converted to Christ. We should be glad at the conversion of others, and remember that the promise is unto us and our children, and as many as the Lord our God shall call. There is a bright vision for the future. God is daily increasing the number of his people. Jew and Gentile shall be called, enrolled in one family, and be distinguished by one name. “Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
THE SPIRITUAL GLORY OF THE RAISED TABERNACLE.—Amos 9:13-15
Behold, the days come, there are more blessings in store yet. From the fulfilment of Amos 9:11-12, shall result abundance of produce in the land, Amos 9:13, great prosperity in the nation, and perpetual duration of the kingdom [Keil].
I. The land shall be blessed with the greatest fertility. No more curse, nor failing crops. We have in this scene—
1. Earnest activity. The seedsman, the ploughman, and the reaper are all engaged in their special duties.
2. Abundant crops. So rich and productive is the land, that the mountains drop down sweet wine, and all the hills melt (Joel 3:18).
3. Wonderful rapidity. The harvest lasts unto the vintage, and the vintage continues to the seed-time. There is one continuous produce, one perpetual round of toil and success.
II. The inhabitants shall enjoy the greatest privileges. As the land of Israel shall be no more smitten with drought, so the citizens shall enjoy the rich benefits of their peaceful labour.
1. Joy would be restored. “I will bring again the captivity of my people.” Misfortune and misery should once more be turned into prosperity.
2. Freedom would be reclaimed. “They shall build the waste cities.” Delivered from the fear of the enemy, they are active for God. Men are captives, and only made free in Christ. In the gospel Christian Churches are chartered with liberty of worship and action. Hence they build waste places, and inhabit them with renewed blessings.
3. The fruits of labour would be enjoyed. Wicked men toil for others, and not for themselves. The Jews would no longer sow and others reap. They would build cities, plant vineyards, and make gardens, and enjoy the fruits of their efforts. “My servants shall build houses and inhabit them, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.”
4. Perpetual security would be granted. They would be no longer a homeless, wandering people. God would fix them, perpetually establish them in the land. When God plants, man cannot uproot or destroy. “I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and my whole soul.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 9:12. The restoration was not to be for themselves alone. No gifts of God end in the immediate object of his bounty and love. They were restored in order that they, the first objects of God’s mercies, might win others to God; not Edom only, but all nations upon whom God says my name is called [Pusey].
The call of the Gentiles.
1. The call of a remnant as in Edom; so Scripture everywhere speaks of the converted as a residue.
2. The call of those specially related to God. Those who sincerely invoke his name and seek his covenanted mercy (Acts 15:15-17).
Amos 9:13. Mountains. Symbols of barrenness, idolatry, and difficulty of cultivation set forth the fertility and fulness of the Christian Church.
1. The prosperity of the Church. “I will plant them.”
2. The security of the Church. “Saith the Lord thy God.”
3. The perpetuity of the Church. “They shall no more be pulled up.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Amos 9:11-15. Future days. Nothing good bursts forth all at once. The lightning may dart out of a black cloud; but the day sends his bright heralds before him, to prepare the world for his coming [Hare].
The brightest day has not yet dawned, the widest conquests have not yet been achieved. Is not the Church challenged to nerve herself for greater effort, and to array herself in a more imposing habit? “Put on thy strength, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!”
“O! scene surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scene of accomplished bliss, which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?”
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
ON
OBADIAH
INTRODUCTION
THIS book consists only of twenty-one verses, and is the shortest in the Bible.
The Author. Obadiah (Servant of Jehovah) is a proper name frequently met with, but little is known concerning our Author. Some identify him with the pious courtier in the palace of Ahab (1 Kings 18:3); some with the overseer of the workmen in 2 Chronicles 34:12; but the silence of Scripture is in significant contrast with the anxiety of men to know something of him.
The Time. “In all probability the prophecy was delivered between the year B. C. 588, when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans, and the termination of the siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. During this interval, that monarch subdued the Idumeans and other neighbouring nations” [A. Elzaz]. The contents of the book and its relation to the prophecy of Jeremiah seem to confirm this view.
The Book. “The subjects of the prophecy are the judgments to be inflicted upon the Idumeans on account of their wanton and cruel conduct towards the Jews at the time of the Chaldean invasion, and the restoration of the latter from captivity. The book may therefore be fitly divided into two parts; the first comprising Obadiah 1:1-15, which contain a reprehension of the pride, self-confidence, and unfeeling cruelty of the former people, and definite predictions of their destruction; the latter Obadiah 1:17-21, in which it is promised that the Jews should not only be restored to their own land, but possess the territories of the surrounding nations, especially Idumea” [Elzaz].
The style is original and fresh. “Vividness, connectedness, power, are characteristics of it. As it begins so it continues and ends. It has no breaks, nor interruptions. Thought follows on thought, as wave rolls upon wave, but all marshalled to one end, marching on, column after column, to the goal which God hath appointed for them. Each verse grows out of that which was before it, and carries on its thought. The cadence of the words in the original is a singular blending of pathos and strength. The pathos of the cadence consists in a somewhat long-sustained measure, in which the Prophet dwells on the one thought which he wishes to impress; the force, in the few brief words in which he sums up some sentence” [Pusey]. “Among all the prophets,” says one, “he is the briefest in number of words; in the grace of mysteries he is their equal.”
“The reason why the book occupies its present unchronological position in the Hebrew Bible is supposed to be the connection between the subjects of which it treats and the mention made of ‘the residue of Edom,’ at the conclusion of the preceding book of Amos” [Elzaz]. “The chronological position of Obadiah illustrates an important truth concerning God’s dealings with mankind, viz. that he never executes a judgment, or inflicts a punishment, on a nation or individual, without having given some previous warning as to the hateful character and dangerous consequences of the sins for which the judgments are inflicted. He did not denounce his judgments on Nineveh by Nahum, before he had given warning to Nineveh by Jonah; and he did not denounce his judgment upon Edom by Jeremiah, before he had given warning of the approaching visitation by Obadiah” [Wordsworth].