Amos 8

This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the LORD said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.” Amos 8:1-2

After his serious confrontation with Amaziah, we might expect Amos to hide out for a while like Elijah did after his confrontation with Jezebel. However, Amos continued right on undeterred with his prophecy. The next vision he saw was a basket of ripe fruit and it had significance for Israel.

A number of commentators have pointed out that verse 2 contains a play on words. Amos saw a basket of summer fruit. Boice says, “The Hebrew words for ‘summer fruit’ (qayits) and ‘end’ (qets). These sound alike. So when Amos replies to the Lord that he sees a basket of ripe qayits, God replies, ‘ Qets’ An end is come upon Israel.” [1]

Meyer says, “What is more fragile than summer fruit! So beautiful, so refreshing, yet so readily corrupted and diseased…When the harvest has come, separation between good and bad is inevitable.” [2] Amos may well be speaking of late summer or early fall fruit that is almost overripe. We think here of Jeremiah 8:20, “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.”

“‘In that day,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies – flung everywhere! Silence!’” (8:3). Jamieson and company say, “The joyous hymns…shall be changed into ‘howlings.’” [3] We quickly realize here that the punishment God is bringing is no light thing. It will usher in an end to Israel’s national existence. People will be slaughtered by the enemy and bodies will be strung everywhere. There will be so many dead and decaying bodies that they cannot all be buried. They will have to be burned. Over the land will hover a great silence of national disaster.

Remembering Israel’s Sin

Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, Amos 8:4

Amos helps us to understand just how much God cares for the poor and the oppressed. We can know from this that God is angry with any people or nation where the poor are put down. The Bible says, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land” (Deut. 15:11).

The Bible also says, “…Happy are those who consider the poor; the LORD delivers them in the day of trouble” (Psa. 41:1 NRS). Israel had not considered the poor and could therefore not be happy or blessed. In fact, she was about to inherit an awful curse.

These greedy merchants were “saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’ – skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales,” (8:5). We can see by this that these folks were not even taking their false religion seriously. Along with their calf idols, they were apparently celebrating some biblical sabbaths and feasts. However, they were so greedy for gain that they could hardly stand to wait till the sabbath was over. The New Moon was a time of Israel’s gathering together and making offerings to the Lord (Num. 10:10; 28:14). We see from this passage that it was also considered a sabbath.

These merchants were anxious to get back to their cheating by “skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales.” The ASV Bible is closer to the Hebrew in saying that they were, “making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit” (Amos 8:5 ASV). The ephah was a dry measure equal to about a bushel (8-9 gallons or approximately 35 liters). They made their measuring baskets a little smaller than normal and their price was a little higher than normal. Church leader Chuck Smith quipped that they were operating without a national bureau of standards of weights and measures. [4]

They may have not had standards, but God certainly did. The Law of the Lord demanded that his people use accurate weights and measures (Lev. 19:35-36; Deut. 25:13-16). It seems incredible but the Holy God was watching each transaction and his heart was grieved with each poor person who was cheated out of food and supplies. It was such little things that brought the Samarian kingdom to ruin.

In addition, they were “buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat” (8:6). Dummelow points out that “Money was not coined, but was weighed on every business occasion (Genesis 23:16).” [5] Poor people were having a difficult time. In the previous verse, we saw that even the balances were deceitful. Perhaps the merchants were sliding their fingers on the scale. I can remember a merchant doing that when I was a child.

In the US there is still some cheating that goes on. All of us have probably bought a big box that ended up having a much smaller amount of content than we thought. However, in our country, the situation has reversed a lot. It is often the shopper who steals from the merchant. As early as 2010, U.S. retailers and small businesses were losing $33 billion a year due to theft. [6] We are now having many instances of staged group thefts (like “flash mobs’) that overwhelm police departments. Also, there are many instances of “smash and grab” thefts where cars are crashed into store windows, loaded up with goods, and then escape with all their loot.

Regarding buying the poor for silver, commentators feel like this is an attempt to overload the poor with debt and then force them into slavery. [7]

God’s Judgment In The Earth

The LORD has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.” Amos 8:7

Meyer says, “It is an awful sentence when God says, ‘I will never forget,’” [8] We may be amazed at how many “I will’s” we see in these verses. God will see and he will remember. He will also recompense what is deserved. In 2 Corinthians 5:10, we read: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” Clearly, we are all included in this judgment.

“Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt” (8:8). We begin to see a picture here that we see many other places in scripture. It is the picture of the Day of the Lord, or that day when God will judge the world and humanity. Motyer says, “Furthermore a truth much emphasized in the Old Testament is that the relationship between God and his people, for good or ill, is reflected in the natural order.” [9] What we do affects other people and it affects the creation as well. Sin is never done in secret.

There are movements seen and unseen all around us that are the effects of sin. Eventually, we see in Revelation that the whole earth will go into convulsions in the last days because of sin and its judgment (cf. Joel 2:2; Matt. 24:29-30). Amos compares this to the rise and fall of the Nile River. Each year the Nile goes up and down an amazing 25 feet or 7.6 meters.

Those convulsions began to come for the northern tribes. After Jeroboam, there were several military coups and much confusion. Soon the Assyrian forces began to close in upon Samaria.

“‘In that day,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight’” (8:9). The Day of the Lord will be a day of darkness for Samaria just as there will be darkness on the final Day of the Lord (cf. Isa. 13:9-10; Rev. 6:12; 8:12). Commentators speak of an eclipse on June 15th, 763 BC that may have been a partial fulfillment of this vision. [10] There was probably a lot more involved than a mere eclipse. It may have had some reference to the hours of darkness when Christ was later crucified.

“I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day” (8:10). It is clear from this verse that God will greatly humble proud Israel. Her great festivals will become times of mourning, weeping, and wearing sackcloth. Their heads will be shaved as a sign of mourning (cf. Isa. 15:2; Jer. 48:37; Ezek. 7:18). All this was a description of intense sorrow (Jer. 6:26; Zech. 12:10). [11]

A Famine Of Hearing

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.” Amos 8:11-12

A famine was certainly on the way for the people of Samaria. The Ten Tribes would be carried away from their land to the Gentile country of Assyria. There the word of God would be scarce. However, the verses here seem to have a much broader meaning. People will go from the north to the east, from sea to sea, or from country to country seeking the word.

Today there is a famine for the word of the Lord in Judaism. There is much tradition but little word available. Phillips says, “The famine began with the rabbis; growing infatuation with tradition…for thousands of years they have tried to feed their souls on religious husks…” [12]

There is even a famine of the word among Christians. Paul Strand says, “Today only 30 percent of Christians read the Bible and less than 10 percent have read it from cover-to-cover. And it shows.” [13]

The famine extends to many young people. Paul Butler says of them, “Thousands and thousands of young people across our land, disillusioned and starved to death on the garbage of the contemporary ‘intellectualism,’ are ‘running to and fro’ seeking a voice of authority, a life which consists of more than ‘things.’” [14]

“‘In that day’ the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria – who say, ‘As surely as your god lives, Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’ – they will fall, never to rise again” (8:13-14). The young people were swearing by the ‘sin’ or ‘guilt’ of Samaria and Beersheba. It is amazing that the people of Samaria traveled all the way to Beersheba and thoroughly polluted that holy site. They had spread their sin from north to south, some 72 miles (115 km.). Much later in history, a very thirsty woman of Samaria met Jesus at the well. Her thirst was quenched and she introduced her whole city to the one who was the Word and the Water of Life.

Here the Bible says that Samaria or the Ten Tribes will fall and never rise again. Samaria or Israel of that day was soon finished and totally destroyed. It would never again be resurrected as a nation. However, as we have mentioned, the remnant of this disbursed people will return home to the land on the last day (cf. Isa. 11:15-16; 27:13; Jer. 3:18).

Footnotes

1. Boice, The Minor Prophets, Vol. 2, p. 218.

2. Meyer, Meyer’s Commentary, Amos, vs. 8:1-14.

3. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, Commentary on Amos, v. 8:3.

4. Chuck Smith, Smith’s Commentary, v. 8:5. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/csc/amos.html

5. Dummelow, Dummelow On The Bible, Amos, v. 8:5.

6. Employee Theft Solutions, http://www.employeetheftsolutions.com/facts.htm

7. Guthrie, Motyer, et. al., The New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 739.

8. Meyer, Meyer’s Commentary, Amos, vs. 8:7.

9. Guthrie, Motyer, et. al., The New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 739.

10. Ibid.

11. Pfeiffer & Harrison, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 836.

12. Phillips, Exploring The Minor Prophets, p. 112.

13. Paul Strand, CBN 700 Club, July 7, 2015, Paul Strand interview with George Barna and historian David Barton in their book U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of Its Roots.

14. Quoted in Coffman, Commentaries on the Bible, v. 8:13.