'Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression;
and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after
three years: 5. And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven,
and proclaim and publish the free offerings; for this liketh you, O
ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. 6. And I also have given
you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all
your places; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. 7.
And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet
three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain upon one city,
and caused it not to rain upon another city; one piece was rained
upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. 8. So two or
three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were
not satisfied; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. 9.
I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens, and
your vineyards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-trees increased,
the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto Me,
saith the Lord. 10. I have sent among you the pestilence, after the
manner of Egypt; your young men have I slain with the sword, and
have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your
camps to come up unto your nostrils; yet have ye not returned unto
Me, saith the Lord. 11. I have overthrown some of you, as God
overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked
out of the burning; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the
Lord. 12. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because
I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. 13.
For, lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and
declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning
darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord,
The God of hosts, is His name.'--AMOS iv. 4-13.
The reign of Jeroboam II. was one of brilliant military success and of
profound moral degradation. Amos was a simple, hardy shepherd from the
southern wilds of Judah, and his prophecies are redolent of his early
life, both in their homely imagery and in the wholesome indignation and
contempt for the silken-robed vice of Israel. No sterner picture of an
utterly rotten social state was ever drawn than this book gives of the
luxury, licentiousness, and oppressiveness of the ruling classes. This
passage deals rather with the religious declension underlying the moral
filth, and sets forth the self-willed idolatry of the people (vs. 4, 5),
their obstinate resistance to God's merciful chastisement (vs. 6-11),
and the heavier impending judgment (vs. 12, 13).
I. Indignant irony flashes in that permission or command to persevere in
the calf worship. The seeming command is the strongest prohibition.
There can be no worse thing befall a man than that he should be left to
go on forwardly in the way of his heart. The real meaning is
sufficiently emphasised by that second verb, 'and _transgress_'. 'Flock
to one temple after another, and heap altars with sacrifices which you
were never bid to offer, but understand that what you do is not worship,
but sin.' That is a smiting sentence to pass upon elaborate ceremonial.
The word literally means treason or rebellion, and by it Amos at one
blow shatters the whole fabric. Note, too, that the offering of tithes
was not called for by Mosaic law, 'every three days' (Revised Version),
and that the use of leaven in burnt offerings was prohibited by it, and
also that to call for freewill offerings was to turn spontaneousness
into something like compulsion, and to bring ostentation into worship.
All these characteristics spoiled the apparent religiousness, over and
above the initial evil of disobedience, and warrant Amos's crushing
equation, 'Your worship = rebellion.' All are driven home by the last
words of verse 5, 'So ye love it.' The reason for all this prodigal
ostentatious worship was to please themselves, not to obey God. That
tainted everything, and always does.
The lessons of this burst of sarcasm are plain. The subtle influence of
self creeps in even in worship, and makes it hollow, unreal, and
powerless to bless the worshipper. Obedience is better than costly
gifts. The beginning and end of all worship, which is not at same time
'transgression' is the submission of tastes, will, and the whole self.
Again, men will lavish gifts far more freely in apparent religious
service, which is but the worship of their reflected selves, than in
true service of God. Again, the purity of willing offerings is marred
when they are given in response to a loud call, or, when given, are
proclaimed with acclamations. Let us not suppose that all the brunt of
Amos's indignation fell only on these old devotees. The principles
involved in it have a sharp edge, turned to a great deal which is
allowed and fostered among ourselves.
II. The blaze of indignation changes in the second part of the passage
into wounded tenderness, as the Prophet speaks in the name of God, and
recounts the dreary monotony of failure attending all God's loving
attempts to arrest Israel's departure by the mercy of judgment. Mark the
sad cadence of the fivefold refrain, 'Ye have not returned unto Me,
saith the Lord.' The 'unto' implies reaching the object to which we
turn, and is not the less forcible but more usual word found in this
phrase, which simply means 'towards' and indicates direction, without
saying anything as to how far the return has gone. So there may have
been partial moments of bethinking themselves, when the chastisement was
on Israel; but there had been no thorough 'turning,' which had landed
them at the side of God. Many a man turns _towards_ God, who, for lack
of resolved perseverance, never so turns as to get _to_ God. The
repeated complaint of the inefficacy of chastisements has in it a tone
of sorrow and of wonder which does not belong only to the Prophet. If we
remember who it was who was 'grieved at the blindness of their heart,'
and who 'wondered at their unbelief' we shall not fear to recognise here
the attribution of the same emotions to the heart of God.
To Amos, famine, drought, blasting, locusts, pestilence, and probably
earthquake, were five messengers of God, and Amos was taught by God. If
we looked deeper, we should see more clearly. The true view of the
relation of all material things and events to God is this which the
herdsman of Tekoa proclaimed. These messengers were not 'miracles,' but
they were God's messengers all the same. Behind all phenomena stands a
personal will, and they are nearer the secret of the universe who see
God working in it all, than they who see all forces except the One which
is the only true force. 'I give cleanness of teeth. I have withholden
the rain. I have smitten. I have sent the pestilence. I have overthrown
some of you.' To the Prophet's eye the world is all aflame with a
present God. Let no scientific views, important and illuminating as
these may be, hide from us the deeper truth, which lies beyond their
region. The child who says 'God,' has got nearer the centre than the
scientist who says 'Force.'
But Amos had another principle, that God sent physical calamities
because of moral delinquencies and for moral and religious ends. These
disasters were meant to bring Israel back to God, and were at once
punishments and reformatory methods. No doubt the connection between sin
and material evils was closer under the Old Testament than now. But if
we may not argue as Amos did, in reference to such calamities as
drought, and failures of harvests, and the like, as these affect
communities, we may, at all events, affirm that, in the case of the
individual, he is a wise man who regards all outward evil as having a
possible bearing on his bettering spiritually. 'If a drought comes,
learn to look to your irrigation, and don't cut down your forests so
wantonly,' say the wise men nowadays; 'if pestilence breaks out, see to
your drainage.' By all means. These things, too, are God's commandments,
and we have no right to interpret the consequences of infraction of
physical laws as being meant to punish nations for their breach of moral
and religious ones. If we were prophets, we might, but not else. But
still, is God so poor that He can have but one purpose in a providence?
Every sorrow, of whatever sort, is meant to produce all the good effects
which it naturally tends to produce; and since every experience of pain
and loss and grief naturally tends to wean us from earth, and to drive
us to find in God what earth can never yield, all our sorrows are His
messengers to draw us back to Him. Amos' lesson as to the purpose of
trials is not antiquated.
But he has still another to teach us; namely, the awful power which we
have of resisting God's efforts to draw us back. 'Our wills are ours, we
know not how,' but alas! it is too often not 'to make them Thine.' This
is the true tragedy of the world that God calls, and we do refuse, even
as it is the deepest mystery of sinful manhood that God calls and we can
refuse. What infinite pathos and grieved love, thrown back upon itself,
is in that refrain, 'Ye have not returned unto Me!' How its recurrence
speaks of the long-suffering which multiplied means as others failed, and
of the divine charity, which 'suffered long, was not soon angry, and
hoped all things!' How vividly it gives the impression of the obstinacy
that to all effort opposed insensibility, and clung the more closely and
insanely to the idolatry which was its crime and its ruin! The very same
temper is deep in us all. Israel holds up the mirror in which we may see
ourselves. If blows do not break iron, they harden it. A wasted
sorrow--that is, a sorrow which does not drive us to God--leaves us less
impressible than it found us.
III. Again the mood changes, and the issue of protracted resistance is
prophesied (vs. 12, 13). 'Therefore' sums up the instances of refusal
to be warned, and presents them as the cause of the coming evil. The
higher the dam is piled, the deeper the water that is gathered behind
it, and the surer and more destructive the flood when it bursts.
Long-delayed judgments are severe in proportion as they are slow. Note
the awful vagueness of threatening in that emphatic 'thus,' as if the
Prophet had the event before his eyes. There is no need to specify, for
there can be but one result from such obstinacy. The 'terror of the
Lord' is more moving by reason of the dimness which wraps it. The
contact of divine power with human rebellion can only end in one way,
and that is too terrible for speech. Conscience can translate 'thus.'
The thunder-cloud is all the more dreadful for the vagueness of its
outline, where its livid hues melt into formless black. What bolts lurk
in its gloom?
The certainty of judgment is the basis of a call to repentance, which
may avert it. The meeting with God for which Israel is besought to
prepare, was, of course, not judgment after death, but the impending
destruction of the Northern Kingdom. But Amos's prophetic call is not
misapplied when directed to that final day of the Lord. Common-sense
teaches preparation for a certain future, and Amos's trumpet-note is
deepened and re-echoed by Jesus: 'Be ye ready also, for ... the Son of
man cometh.' Note, too, that Israel's peculiar relation to God is the
very ground of the certainty of its punishment, and of the appeal for
repentance. Just because He is 'thy God,' will He assuredly come to
judge, and you may assuredly prepare, by repentance, to meet Him. The
conditions of meeting the Judge, and being 'found of Him in peace,' are
that we should be 'without spot, and blameless'; and the conditions of
being so spotless and uncensurable are, what they were in Amos's day,
repentance and trust. Only we have Jesus as the brightness of the
Father's glory to trust in, and His all-sufficient work to trust to, for
pardon and purifying.
The magnificent proclamation of the name of the Lord which closes the
passage, is meant as at once a guarantee of His judgment and an
enforcement of the call to be ready to meet Him. He in creation forms
the solid, changeless mountains and the viewless, passing wind. The most
stable and the most mobile are His work. He reads men's hearts, and can
tell them their thoughts afar off. He is the Author of all changes, both
in the physical and the moral world, bringing the daily wonder of
sunrise and the nightly shroud of darkness, and with like alternation
blending joy and sorrow in men's lives. He treads 'on the high places of
the earth,' making all created elevations the path of His feet, and
crushing down whatever exalts itself. Thus, in creation almighty, in
knowledge omniscient, in providence changing all things and Himself the
same, subjugating all, and levelling a path for His purposes across
every opposition, He manifests His name, as the living, eternal Jehovah,
the God of the Covenant, and therefore of judgment on its breakers, and
as the Commander and God of the embattled forces of the universe. Is
this a God whose coming to judge is to be lightly dealt with? Is not
this a God whom it is wise for us to be ready to meet?