Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.
Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus. In Acts 7:43 it is "beyond Babylon," which includes beyond Damascus. In Amos' time, Damascus was the object of Israel's fear, because of the Syrian wars. Babylon was not yet named as the place of their captivity. Stephen supplies this name, Babylon, which, in Amos' days, was not designed by the Spirit to be specified as yet. Their place of exile was, in fact, as he states, "beyond Babylon," in Halah and Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cites of the Medes (2 Kings 17:6: cf. here Amos 1:5; Amos 4:3; Amos 6:14). The road to Assyria lay though "Damascus." It is therefore specified, that not merely shall they be carried captives to Damascus, as they had been by Syrian kings (2 Kings 10:32-33; 2 Kings 13:7), but, beyond that, to a region whence a return was not so possible as from Damascus. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, therefore God caused them to go captives among idolaters. Compare 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 16:9. "The King of Assyria hearkened unto him (Ahab); and went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir;" Isaiah 8:4, whence it appears Tiglath-pileser attacked Israel and Damascus at the same time, at Ahaz's request (Amos 3:11, "An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled").
Remarks:
(1) Amos takes up, as a mournful burden, a dirge over Israel, as though his country were already dead, and he a mourner at the funeral (Amos 5:1-2). "Dashed down upon her own ground," in the midst of her resources, she is regarded in God's purpose, on account of her sin, as "fallen" to "rise no more" in the then existing order of things. She who, from her capital, used to go forth to battle by thousands, should retain but hundreds. Out of all her multitude only one tithe should remain-the remnant dedicated to God according to the election of grace, the nucleus both of those gathered out into the spiritual Israel, and also of the literal and national Israel, hereafter to be restored (Amos 5:3).
(2) The whole of our duty and our reward is comprised in the four words, as they are in the original, "Seek me, and live." The two things, to seek God and to live, are not mealy cause and effect, but they are one, For to seek God is to find God; and to find God is life. The object of our search is God Himself. We are to seek God, not so much for His gifts as for Himself, who comprises in Himself all that is good. Such a good and all-satisfying One is to be sought with all the earnestness that becomes those who have such a glorious object in view. In Him, by union with Him, we have the life of grace now and the life of glory hereafter; according to the promise in the Psalm, "Your hearts shall live that seek God" (Psalms 69:32); and again, Psalms 84:11, "The Lord will give grace and glory."
(3) In seeking God we must not think that we can at the same time seek idols (Amos 5:5). Men will be at the greatest trouble to carry out their own self-willed service, and yet shrink from the only true service, that of God, whose service is perfect freedom. Jeroboam I alleged to his people: "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." Yet they now thought it not too much to go even as far as to Beersheba in the extreme south of Judea; in fact, four times as far south of Jerusalem as Jerusalem lay from Bethel. While Israel would not accept from Judah the temple-worship of Yahweh, the only legitimate worship, she eagerly sought from Judah the idolatrous worship practiced at Beersheba. In just retribution, Gilgal, where God first had "rolled away the reproach of Egypt" from His people (Joshua 5:9), now that it had fallen into paganism, should itself be rolled away; and Bethel, once the house of God, but now become Bethaven, the house of nought, should indeed "come to nought" (Amos 5:5).
(4) Again and again the prophet urges the people to "seek the Lord," and so to know Him as the source of life, rather than know Him as "a consuming fire" (Amos 5:6). Heretofore, instead of seeking the God of righteousness, they had practiced all unrighteousness, and cast down justice from her throne (Amos 5:7). Now they are invited to serve and love the Personal God, who has made all the hosts of heaven, whom idolaters worship instead of their Creator. He can "turn the shadow of death into the morning," dispelling the darkness of affliction with the brightness of His presence revealed to mourning penitents; on the other hand, He can speedily "make the day dark with night" to those who harden themselves in sin because of their prosperity. He can send a deluge of destruction, or else the fertilizing rain at will "upon the face of the earth" (Amos 5:8). Who, then, can be conceived more worthy to be "sought" with all the heart than this glorious and Almighty Yahweh, whether. we view Him in relation to our fears or hopes? "The fortress" of man's vain confidence can be in a moment laid low by Him (Amos 5:9).
(5) It is a characteristic of the ungodly to "hate rebuke." The prophet had reproved them "in the gate," the most public place of resort, even as they had sinned publicly. The area at the gate of Samaria was very large (1 Kings 22:10; 2 Chronicles 8:9). Therefore it was well suited for being the scene of the prophet's upright denunciations (Amos 5:10). But the more he sought their best interests, the more they abhorred him. Herein he is a type of the Saviour, who testified, "They that sit in the gate speak against me" (Psalms 69:12). And again, "They hated me without a cause" (John 15:23-25). It is of Jesus alone that the words, typically applied to the prophet, can be used in their fullest sense; because He alone "spake uprightly," or perfectly, as the Hebrew expresses. He "spake openly to the world" (John 18:20); and so perfect were His words that His enemies' emissaries had to testify, "Never man spake like this man" (John 7:46).
(6) The burdensome oppression of the poor by the rich, who "trod" them under foot, in order to minister to their own luxury, provoked God to threaten they should not "dwell" in the houses built by wrong, nor "drink wine of the pleasant vineyards" planted in injustice. The transgressor flatters himself that God knows not, or at least takes no special cognizance of, his "mighty sins." But such transgressions as are the offspring of proud strength are those which especially are noted by God for judgment. The poor oppressed are God's clients; and He vindicates "their right" (Amos 5:12). And however earthly judges may be influenced by a "bribe," no ransom can rescue the haughty wrong-doer from his deserved doom.
(7) There are times when silence is the greatest prudence on the part of the godly. Instead of impatient murmurings against irremediable evils, and also instead of casting pearls of godly counsel before those who are self-willed and grovelling as the swine, the pious should meekly and in silent submission wait for God's time of deliverance (Amos 5:13). Such is the example that our blessed Master hath set before us.
(8) In order to "seek good" effectually and savingly, we must seek it consistently and perseveringly. We must not seek good by fits and starts, and seek evil in the interval. We must "cease to do evil," if we would, "learn to do well," and so have "the Lord with" us indeed (Amos 5:14). For this end we must positively "hate the evil, and love the good" (Amos 5:15). Nothing so effectually deters us from evil as that we hate it; nor does anything more powerfully draw us to follow earnestly that which is good, as that we love it.
(9) They who had cast down justice to the ground (Amos 5:7) are exhorted now, to "establish justice in the gate," if so be that "the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph" (Amos 5:15). Though God is always gracious to the truly penitent, He does not always deliver them from the temporal consequences of their sins. Whatever may be their portion in this world, God will save finally all who belong to the "remnant according to the election of grace."
(10) But as to the unhumbled oppressors, the sentence of God is, "Wailing shall be in all streets" (Amos 5:16). The scene of the wailings of the oppressed was to be the scene of the wailings of their oppressors. All should join in the one universal dirge over their fallen country. For God would no longer pass over the nation in sparing mercy, but would "pass through" them in judgment (Amos 5:17).
(11) How awful was the presumption of those who affected to "desire the day of the Lord," as if the judgments foretold by the prophets in connection with it were a fable! What they said in derision should prove to them a dreadful reality. Their desire for the coming of the day of the Lord should be gratified. But it should prove to them, not what they affected to expect, a day of "light," but a day of "darkness" (Amos 5:18). Thus many who, because of present calamities, wish for death and eternity, though not at all prepared to meet God, shall find that, escaping comparatively trifling ills, they plunge into the worst, and those never-ending (Amos 5:19-20). If they would hear the voice of conscience and the Word of God, they would see at once that "the day of the Lord" hath "no brightness" for them, but the blackness of "darkness" forever.
(12) When love and obedience are wanting, the costliest offerings are hateful to God (Amos 5:21-22). The most harmonious "melody" of "songs" and church music are an unmeaning "noise," which God desires to be taken away as a burden pressing upon Him, so long as the heart does not make melody in concert with the voice and the instrument. Let us each resolve, by God's grace, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also" (1 Corinthians 14:15). Without the sincere desire to fulfill righteousness, the worshipper's service is hateful to God (Amos 5:24). Let it, as a "mighty stream," "roll" on steadily, sweeping away every sinful obstacle, and then God will accept the humble prayers and praises of the worshipper for His own mercy's sake.
(13) But Israel's worship was a vain attempt to serve God, and all the while to serve their favourite idols (Amos 5:25-26). The two are incompatible. He who serves his lusts, or combines any will-worship with service offered to the Lord, the true King, does not really render worship unto the Lord. For God, if not served wholly and alone, or not in the way that He hath appointed and revealed, is not served at all. The grand fault of Israel's worship was, it was one that they made to themselves. Whereas God has made us for Himself, carnal men make for themselves a religion of their own imagination, not the religion of the Bible.
(14) Such a self-chosen worship does not save, but deceives, to men's everlasting ruin. It caused Israel's "captivity beyond Damascus" (Amos 5:27). Nothing seemed more unlikely in Amos' time. The Assyrian king, Shamasiva (Rawlinson, 'Herodotus,' 1: 466), had just aided Israel against Syria allied with Babylon, and had defeated the armies of the latter. None but a prophet inspired by God could have foreseen the event, which, though so unlikely then, yet in due time came to pass. As Abraham was brought by God out of Chaldea and its idolatries, in order to serve God alone, so Israel, by lapsing into idolatry, in just retribution, forfeited the good land, and was carried by the enemy back to the original idolatrous birthplace of their ancestor. Truly God is righteous in all His judgments!