Amos The Herdsman

4. The Devouring Lion

Amos 3:1‑15

Chapter 3 commences a new section in the prophecy of Amos. The next four chapters.3 to 6, comprise a four‑fold expression of the national failings and sins of Israel which were leading inevitably to the breakdown of their nationhood and their extinction at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, which eventually came to pass just as Amos had foretold. Each of these chapters appears to look at one of the four broad sectors into which the structure of the nation could be divided. Thus chapter 3 looks at, and condemns, the nation’s military power and its trust in warlike abilities. Chapter 4 looks at the commercial and social structure of the community, chapter 5 its religious organisation and its priesthood, whilst chapter 6 directs stern condemnation against the royalty and nobility, the kings and princes of Israel‑Judah. The shortcomings of each are declared and the consequences that will inevitably follow. As a measure of the solemnity and emphasis with which Amos felt he had to invest these declarations he changed his former introduction "Thus saith the LORD" to each of his judgment‑messages of chapters 1 & 2 to "Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you" (v.1) and he reiterates "Hear this word" three times as he proceeds with his denunciation.

These chapters are directed against both kingdoms, that of Israel and that of Judah. This is plain from ch.3:1 "Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt." Although the two‑tribe kingdom of Judah had remained loyal to the Davidic kingly dynasty and more or less so to the Temple worship of God, whilst the ten‑tribe kingdom had frankly and avowedly gone over to self‑styled kings and a pagan worship and priesthood, there was in the Divine sight very little to choose between them. They were both, each in its own way, disloyal to God, and the same condemnation was applicable to both. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth" He says (ch.3:2) "therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." This was the chosen nation, all twelve tribes, ordained at Sinai to be a set‑apart people having a special commission with corresponding special obligations. They defaulted on the obligations and showed themselves unworthy of the special commission. They had undertaken to be set apart and above the surrounding nations, but proved in the end to be no better morally than those nations, wherefore God allowed them to experience the same vicissitudes of fortune as normally befell those other nations. In no sphere was this truer than in that of national defence. Their military prowess, in which they prided themselves and trusted, proved to be no more effective than that of the peoples around them. Sometimes they won and sometimes they lost; at the end, when confronted by a vastly superior military power, they lost completely and the whole nation went into hopeless captivity and their land was left desolate. "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (ch.3:3) demands the Lord. The two, of course, are Israel’s God and Israel. How can they walk together when every act of Israel is in direct defiance of the express commands or pleadings of God? For God does not only command, in those things in which He has a right to command; He also pleads, in respect of those things which lie within the realm of man’s own free will. In both of these respects there was disharmony. It had been said of old time that Enoch "walked with God;" Noah "walked with God;" now Israel no longer walked with God.

So the Lord turns His attention to Israel’s lamentable position, at this moment from the point of view of their military power and effectiveness of their defence, relying on their material weapons but without God. The background to His words is the increasing threat of invasion by the Assyrians, to which Israel was quite heedless. "Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey?" He demands. "Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he hath taken nothing?" (ch.3:4) The lion is Assyria; if the lion roars, it is because he is in the act of springing upon his prey, in this case helpless Israel. If he cries out of his den, it is because he has taken his prey into it, just as the Assyrians would very shortly now be taking the people of Israel captive to a strange land.

Can a bird be caught in a snare if no snare is set for him, or does a trap spring up unless it has taken something, he went on. (ch.3:5) In all this God was stressing the reality of the Assyrian threat but Israel would not listen. "Shall the trumpet be blown in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall evil befall a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" (3:6 RV) This is a military metaphor. The trumpet is blown in the street of the city to signify the approach of the invading enemy; the people run together in a frantic effort to defend themselves. But here the endeavour is fruitless; the invaders are too strong for them and before long the city is captured and the hapless populace subjected to all the horrors of warfare. This is the "evil in a city" of this verse. The expression is a little ambiguous. The A.V. text puts it that the Lord has done it, i.e., caused the evil, but in the marginal note, that the Lord will do something about it. Moffatt has it that "the Eternal is at work" and the N.E.B. "has not the LORD been at work?" It is possible to take the Hebrew text either way, but when looked at in the light of the following verse it is more likely that the sense is that the Lord will take action. Ch.3:7 (KJV/RSV) says "Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing without revealing His secret to His servants the prophets." The Assyrians are on the march and nothing now can save Israel apart from the power of God. The Lord has done something to allow them thus to subjugate Israel and the Lord will do something else later on when the lesson has been learned—He will deliver Israel, that is to come about in a then future day and the only ones who know anything of those future plans of the Almighty are His servants the prophets. Amos was one of those prophets. He knew what the outcome was to be. But he could not proclaim that outcome just yet. He was commissioned now to declare the message of judgment. At the end of his prophecy, he was to be permitted to reveal something of the purposes of God at the End Time when repentant and purified Israel is fully reconciled and restored to God and ready to enter upon their destiny of being a light to the nations.

There is much more in that seventh verse. It stands as an expression of a principle. There is never a time in history when no voice is raised to declare the significance of the times and the working of God. God never leaves Himself without a witness. No matter how irreligious the world may have become, no matter to what low ebb faith in God may have shrunk, no matter how much it may seem that God has deserted humankind, there are always those—"watchers," to use our Lord’s term—who are so in tune with the Almighty that they understand in appreciable degree what He is doing and will do. There is never a generation which does not have a witness given to the outworking of the Plan of God. When, as in our day, the state of the world is one of confusion and disintegration, "men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after (to) those things which are coming on the earth," (Luke 21:26) the voice of the prophet is heard more intensively and a louder witness given to "those things which must shortly come to pass." Whenever God makes another move or introduces another factor in the outworking of His redemptive plan for humanity. He tells His prophets and they in turn tell the people, that they might have the knowledge, "whether they hear or whether they forbear."

At this point Amos stops speaking in metaphors and gives his hearers a vivid literal description of the warfare which is soon to afflict their land. History shows that there were three incursions of the Assyrians against the ten‑tribe kingdom, the third culminating in the fall of Samaria and the depopulation of the land. All this is forth shown in the remainder of this chapter. Amos turns himself and looks to the south, calling upon the Philistines and the Egyptians to behold the judgment God is going to permit to befall Israel. "Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults…and the oppressed in their midst…For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces." (ch.3:9‑10) The surrounding nations are bidden to take their stand and view the sad state of rebellious Israel.

Each stage of the three‑fold judgment, the three incursions of the Assyrians, is solemnly introduced by a "thus saith the LORD." These were the Lord’s words, not those of Amos. These were the judgments of the Most High, and only repentance, immediate and complete, could lift them. But Israel did not repent.

"Thus saith the Lord GOD: an adversary shall surround the land, and he shall reduce thy strength, and take spoil from thy palaces." (Author’s own ch.3:11) Ten years after Amos uttered the words, when Menahem was king of Israel, Tiglath‑Pileser of Assyria came with his army and demanded tribute in token of submission and allegiance. Menahem had no option but to give way; he handed over a thousand talents of silver—about a million pounds or two million dollars at today’s values—which he extracted from his unwilling subjects. "Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth...so the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land." (2 Kings 15:20) Truly, as Amos had prophesied, the adversary reduced his strength and took spoil from his palaces.

Five years later came the second judgment, more warlike and more severe. "Thus saith the LORD; as the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken that loll on the corners of divans in Samaria or on the damask cushions of a couch." (ch.3:12 KJV & [Author’s own]) 2 Kings 15:29 and 1 Chron.5:26 tell how, in the reign of Pekah of Israel, Tiglath‑Pileser ("Pul" in some texts is an alternative name for the same Assyrian king) came again and this time took half of the nation, chiefly those inhabiting the lands east of Jordan and in Galilee, captive into Assyria. So Pekah lost half of his kingdom at one blow, rescuing only "pieces" from the "mouth of the lion." And whereas it was only money that was taken on the first occasion, this time it was the fate of many of the wealthy and the noble to be snatched away from their luxurious homes and lifestyles and forced to join the dreary march across the desert to Assyria, never to see their homeland again.

But still the remainder did not repent, and so the final blow fell. Thirteen more years passed, and then Shalmaneser V of Assyria invaded Israel, laid siege to the city of Samaria, and after three years captured and destroyed it, taking all that were left of the ten tribes to Assyria to join the earlier captivity. "Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord GOD, the God of Hosts." (v.13) An especially solemn pronouncement, this, for it betokened the end of the nation. "In the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel...and I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory (marble palaces) shall perish, and the great houses have an end, saith the LORD." (ch.3:14‑15) Bethel was the idolatrous religious centre of the land; that would be destroyed, and so would be the marble palaces of the kings—Ahab was the first to build himself a palace of marble—and the houses of the rich and influential. All was to be swept away and all their occupants transported to serfdom in Assyria.

So, the military power of Israel is shown in this chapter to be as ineffective against the armed might of Assyria as would be an unarmed shepherd against a raging lion. Let the trumpet be blown in the city, it has no effect. The enemy will come and he will have his way. Now Amos turns away from the army of Israel, the generals and strategists and all whose profession is armed force, and looks at the merchants and the commercial magnates, the "idle rich" and the socialites. In chapter 4 he has a message for them.

(To be continued)
AOH