Introduction.
As usual, we find prophecies that have two fulfilments, and the prophecy here in Amos 8 has a contemporary fulfilment, and an end-time fulfilment. Amos had his ministry between 760 and 750 BC. He ministered in Judea. He was a contemporary of Hosea who prophesied to Israel, and Micah and Isaiah who prophesied to Judea. Amos means one who bears burdens.
He was not an educated man according to our understanding of the term, nor was he trained for his mission in the schools of the prophets. When, as in the case of Amos, the comparatively untaught are chosen to do a great work for God, then it is the power of God that works through people and not the power of people that works, (2 Corinthians 4:7). It is primarily what a person is, and not what a person has, that makes him fit for God’s service.
Amos was called to be prophets at a time when both Israel and Judah were prosperous. Under Jeroboam II, Israel was at the zenith of its power. Jeroboam had overcome the Syrians and had enlarged the territory of the northern kingdom to the northern boundary of the original united kingdom. It ran from Hamath, in the extreme north, to the Dead Sea (2 Kings 14:25.28). As for Judah, King Uzziah had subdued the Edomites and Philistines, brought the Ammonites under control, encouraged agriculture and peaceful domesticity, and established a large and powerful army that fortified Jerusalem, (see 2 Chron. 26:1-15).
It was during this period of material prosperity that God raised up Amos to show them that not all was well in Israel and Judea. But it is equally important for us in our time that we take to heart the message of Amos. We also live in a time of prosperity. As a people, we are rich in material things, but the big question is whether we have spiritual wealth. This is what we will be judged by, and as we know from history, Israel, the ten-tribe kingdom, perished about 30 years after this prophecy was uttered. Those who were not killed during the war against the Assyrians were taken captive beyond the river, which is the Euphrates. No one knows today where the remains of the ten tribes are. They simply disappeared into oblivion and were absorbed by the nations to which they were taken.
About 120 years later, Judea was taken away to Babylon, but according to a prophecy by Jeremiah, they were to be allowed to return to Judea after a certain number of years. This happened so that the prophecies about Jesus Christ would be fulfilled as they are written down.
That this chapter tells of a coming judgment is not so strange. The prelude to chapter 8 is chapter 7 which contains the vision of the locusts; the vision of the fire; the vision of the plumbline and Amaziah’s accusation. Regarding the locusts and the fire that is capable of complete destruction, Amos interceded for God’s people, and God answers Amos that He will not completely destroy His people. However, when we come to the plumb line we see that God says enough is enough!
When the priest Amaziah first hears the prophecy that God has given Amos, he accuses the prophet of conspiring against the king and the house of Israel. And he tells Amos to leave the country. But Amos answers the accusation by saying the following: Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I [was] no prophet, neither [was] I a prophet’s son; but I [was] an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit: And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not [thy word] against the house of Isaac. Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land, (Amos 7:14-17).
The answer that Amos gives the priest is a clear call to everyone not to put obstacles in the way of the preaching of God’s word. However, we should reject false prophets and teachers, but we can only do that if we live close to Christ every day and test their teachings with to the law and to the testimony, because if they do not speak according to the law and to the testimony, they are not from God but are false teachers who want to destroy God’s faithful people – the small remnant in the end times.
All Bible texts are from the King James Version 1611/1769 unless otherwise stated.
The vision of the summer fruit.
- Verse 1: This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
- Verse 2: 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.
- Verse 3: In that day, declares the Sovereign LORD, the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies – flung everywhere! Silence, (New International Version 1984).
It is quite interesting that the prophet uses ripe fruit as an image. What do we do with fruit that has ripened? We harvest it, right? And while we harvest the fruit, what do we do? We separate the good fruit from the bad, and we gather the good fruit into the barn, while we do not take care of the fruit that is not good. Maybe we leave it in the field or maybe we burn it. Look at what Jesus said about this in Matthew 13:30: Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Here it is true that we are talking about wheat and weeds, but the principle is the same – only the wheat and good fruit are gathered into the barn, the weeds and bad fruit are destroyed in one way or another.
* The phrase the time is ripe for my people Israel means: The end (has come).
As for the expression ripe fruit, it is especially figs that are thought of in this connection. When the fruit is ripe, it is harvested, and that is why God shows Amos this and says that the time is ripe for my people Israel. When God says that I will spare them no longer, this refers to the fact that when the fruit is ripe, no one can do anything more for it, then the harvest inexorably follows.
There is, as we see, a lot of symbolism in the use of the words ripe and the end. According to the SDA Bible commentary, these two words are formed from the same root word in Hebrew, and here the prophet uses these words in a play on words ripe (qayis) and the end (qes). The symbolism is a basket of ripe fruit that symbolizes the fully ripe sin of the people. The fruit, that is, the peoples sin, is all gathered together, and the end will soon come through the fact that the judgment on the people is imminent. It also happened quite immediately for Israel, the ten-tribe kingdom, and about 115 years later for Judea. So we must not forget that it is a strong warning to us.
Desire for wealth.
- Verse 4: Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
- Verse 5: Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
- Verse 6: That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; [yea], and sell the refuse of the wheat?
- Verse 7: The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
In what way have God’s people developed a desire for wealth? Those of God’s people who are already rich think only of enriching themselves even more, and then at the expense of the poor. On holidays and Sabbaths they just wait for it to be a working day, so that they can start selling and deceiving and making money again. I can’t help but think about what it is like in our day. A new word has been coined in Norway in our day, which is krympflasjon. This word means that a product that used to weigh, for example, a kilo, now weighs 900 grams, and the price that used to be 5$ for a kilo has in many cases been increased to, for example, 5.5$ for 900 grams. This is the same as making the ephah small and the shekel large, (verse 5). The quality of today’s goods is also worse than it was just ten years ago. This is the same as selling the refuse wheat, (verse 6). But those who do this to others will be judged for it by the Lord when the day comes.
Buying the poor for a pair of shoes is a strange expression. It all stems from the fact that shoes were generally cheap, it was something everyone could afford to buy. This therefore indicates how the poor were viewed in society, they were not worth anything, and further this indicates that the poor were denied justice. The SDA Bible Commentary states that covetousness was Israel’s besetting sin. A timely question is whether there is anything better in our time with regard to the poor in our society and people’s greed. Are we at all any better than Israel was when they were chastised and punished by God for this?
- Verse 8: 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.
The first thing we must look at is the use of the word land. Once again this is a deliberate mistranslation of the word. The Hebrew word used here is H0776 ‘erets, (eh’-rets); meaning to be firm; the earth, the land, the field, the ground, the country, the nations, the way, the wilderness, the world. When the King James Version 1611/1769 uses the land (verse 8), the translators remove the end-time aspect of the prophecy and say that the prophecy only applied to Israel and Judea, while in reality it refers to the transition from prophetic time to end-time in verse 9, and an end-time fulfilment in verses 11-14.
Fortunately, there are translations that see and take into account the end-time fulfilment as the New Living Translation: The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The ground will rise like the Nile River at flood time; it will heave up, then sink again.
- Verse 9: And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
What is implied in the expression it shall come to pass in that day? Several times God uses the expression in that day (it shall come to pass) and similar expressions to refer to a specific time in God’s plan, and this time has to do with the end times, and then the end times in the extended sense from the day we entered the end times (October 22, 1844) and until Jesus returns in all his glory.
That the sun to go down at noon is only one of four signs of the transition to the end times. The others was a great earthquake, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, (see Matthew 24:7, 29). The big question is when the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. This verse clearly refers to events that occurred just before we moved from prophetic time to the end times and to the end times in the extended sense, and it happened on May 19, 1780. Based on this, we can say that this prophecy does not deal with Israel and Judea.
- Verse 10: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only [son], and the end thereof as a bitter day.
These three verses 8, 9 and 10 tell of God’s judgment. As surely as the Nile overflows its banks, so will God’s wrath flow forth upon the wicked. Just as Israel and Judea were punished for their evil deeds, so will the people of the end times be punished for the evil deeds they do. But the people of our time are not afraid of the coming judgment, because they have all distanced themselves from God and even many Christians reject God’s judgment.
But there will come a day (verse 9) when the wicked of the end times will understand the seriousness. Then they will mourn and lament, they will figuratively clothe themselves in sackcloth and ashes as people did in ancient times, and they will figuratively shave off all the hair on their heads to express their sorrow, but by then it will be too late. By then the door of mercy has been closed, and they have sealed their own destinies. The great day of the Lord has come.
Famine of the Lords word.
- Verse 11: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of :bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
- Verse 12: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD and shall not find [it].
- Verse 13: In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
- Verse 14: They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall and never rise up again.
Here we clearly see that we are in the time after the door of grace has been closed. For the first time the wicked have a hunger for the Word of God, but they will not find it. The gospel has been preached for the last time before the door of grace was closed, and there is no one who finds peace in the word of God anymore, except God’s faithful remnant, who until the door of grace was closed preached the word of God, and pleaded with the wicked to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. But they were proud of themselves and would not give up the life they were living and would not listen to the pleas of the prophetic movement to turn to God.
What is prophesied here has a double fulfilment, as do many Bible prophecies. What is described here happened to Israel, the ten-tribe kingdom, in ancient times. When they were subjected to tribulations and persecutions and were taken captive by the Assyrians, they began to seek the Lord, but He would not listen to them.
When we come to the time just before the great day of the Lord, which is the day of the return of Jesus Christ, this experience of ancient Israel will be repeated. when the wicked everywhere on earth suffer the seven last plagues, they will try to seek relief from the calamities that befall them, they will be willing to try anything. They will even turn to the word of God, which they had previously neglected to study and obey. But as verse 12 says, they will not find it.