A
M O S
CHAP. VIII.
Sinful
times are here attended with sorrowful times, so necessary is the connexion
between them; it is threatened here again and again that the laughter shall be
turned into mourning. I. By the vision of "basket of summer-fruit"
is signified the hastening on of the ruin threatened (ver. 1-3) and that shall
change their note. II. Oppressors are here called to an account for their
abusing the poor; and their destruction is foretold, which will set them a
mourning, ver. 4-10. III. A famine of the word of God is here made the
punishment of a people that go a whoring after other gods (ver. 11-14); yet
for this, which is the most mournful judgment of all, they are not here
brought in mourning.
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The
Vision of Summer Fruit.
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B.
C. 785.
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1 Thus hath the Lord GOD
shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he
said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said
the LORD
unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by
them any more. 3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in
that day, saith the Lord GOD:
there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them
forth with silence.
The great reason why sinners defer their repentance de die in diem--from
day to day, is because they think God thus defers his judgments, and there
is no song wherewith they so effectually sing themselves asleep as that, My
Lord delays his coming; and therefore God, by his prophets, frequently
represents to Israel the day of his wrath not only as just and certain, but as
very near and hastening on apace; so he does in these verses.
I. The approach of the threatened ruin is represented by a basket of
summer-fruit which Amos saw in vision; for the Lord showed it to
him (v. 1) and obliged him to take notice of it (v. 2): Amos,
what seest thou? Note, It concerns us to enquire whether we do indeed see
that which God has been pleased to show us, and hear what he has been pleased
to say to us; for many a thing God speaks, God shows once, yea twice,
and men perceive it not. Are we in the midst of the visions of the
Almighty? Let us consider what we see. He saw a basket of summer-fruit
gathered and ready to be eaten, which signified, 1. That they were ripe for
destruction, rotten ripe, and it was time for God to put in the sickle of his
judgments and to cut them off; nay, the thing was in effect done already, and
they lay ready to be eaten up. 2. That the year of God's patience was drawing
towards a conclusion; it was autumn with them, and their year would quickly
have its period in a dismal winter. 3. Those we call summer-fruits that
will not keep till winter, but must be used immediately, an emblem of this
people, that had nothing solid or consistent in them.
II. The intent and meaning of this vision is no more than this: It signifies
that the end has come upon my people Israel. The word that signifies the
end is ketz, which is of near affinity with kitz, the word
used for summer-fruit. God has long spared them, and borne with them,
but now his patience is tired out; they are indeed his people Israel,
but their end, that latter end they have been so often reminded of, but
have so long forgotten, has now come. Note, If sinners do not make an end of
sin, God will make an end of them, yea though they be his people Israel.
What was said ch. vii. 8 is here repeated as God's determined
resolution, I will not again pass by them any more; they shall not be
connived at as they have been, nor the judgment coming turned away.
III. The consequence of this shall be a universal desolation (v. 3):
When the end shall come sorrow and death shall ride in triumph; they
are accustomed to go together, and shall at length go away together, when in
heaven there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, Rev. xxi. 4. But here
in a sinful world, in a sinful nation, 1. Sorrow reigns, reigns to such a
degree that the songs of the temple shall be howlings--the songs of
God's temple at Jerusalem, or rather of their idol-temples, where they used,
when, in honour of the golden calves, they had eaten and drunk, to rise
up to play. They were perhaps wanton profane songs; and it is certain that
sooner or later those will be turned into howlings. Or, if they had a sound
and show of piety and religion, yet, not coming from the heart, nor being sung
to the glory of God, he valued them not, but would justly turn them into
howlings. Note, Mourning will follow sinful mirth, yea, and sacred mirth too,
it if be not sincere. And, when God's judgments are abroad, they will soon
turn the greatest joy into the greatest heaviness, the temple-songs, which
used to sound so pleasantly, not only into sighs and groans, but into loud
howlings, which sound dismally. They shall come to the temple, and, finding
that in ruins, there they shall howl most bitterly. 2. Death reigns, reigns to
such a degree that there shall be dead bodies, many dead bodies in
every place (Ps. cx. 6), slain by sword or pestilence, so many that the
survivors shall not bury them with the usual pomp and solemnity of funerals;
they shall not so much as have the bell tolled, but they shall cast them
forth with silence, shall bury them in the dead of the night, and charge
all about them to be silent and to take notice of it, either because they have
not wherewithal to bear the charges of a funeral, or because, the killing
disease being infectious, none will come near them, or for fear the enemy
should be provoked, if they should be known to lament their slain. Or they
shall charge themselves and one another silently to submit to the hand of God
in these desolating judgments, and not to repine and quarrel with him. Or it
may be taken not for a patient, but a sullen silence; their hearts shall be
hardened, and all these judgments shall not extort from them one word of
acknowledgment either of God's righteousness or their own unrighteousness.
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The
Sin and Doom of Oppressors.
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B.
C. 785.
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4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy,
even to make the poor of the land to fail, 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? 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?
7 The LORD
hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their
works. 8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn
that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be
cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. 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: 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.
God is here contending with proud oppressors, and showing them,
I. The heinousness of the sin they were guilty of; in short, they had the
character of the unjust judge (Luke xviii. 2) that neither feared God
nor regarded man.
1. Observe them in their devotions, and you will say, "They had no
reverence for God." Bad as they are, they do indeed keep up a show and
form of godliness; they observe the sabbath and the new moon;
they put some difference between those days and other days, but they were soon
weary of them, and had no affection at all to them, for their hearts were
wholly set upon the world and the things of it. It is a sad character which
this gives of them, that they said, When will the sabbath be gone, that we
may sell corn? Yet is still the character of many that are called
Christians. (1.) They were weary of sabbath days. "When will they be gone?"
They were weary of the restraints of the sabbaths and the new-moons, and
wished them over because they might do no servile work therein. They
were weary of the work or business of the sabbaths and new-moons, snuffed at
it (Mal. i. 13), and were, as Doeg, detained before the Lord (1 Sam.
xxi. 7); they would rather have been any where else than about God's altars.
Note, Sabbath days and sabbath work are a burden to carnal hearts, that are
always afraid of doing too much for God and eternity. Can we spend our time
better than in communication with God? And how much time do we spend
pleasantly with the world? Will not the sabbath be gone before we have done
the work of it and reaped the gains of it? Why then should we be in such haste
to part with it? (2.) They were fond of market-days: they longed to be selling
corn and setting forth wheat. When they were employed in religious
services they were thinking of their marketings; their hearts went after
their covetousness (Ezek. xxxiii. 31), and thus made my Father's house a
house of merchandise, nay, a den of thieves. They were weary of holy duties
because their worldly business stood still the while; in this they were as in
their element, but in God's sanctuary as a fish upon dry ground. Note, Those
are strangers to God, and enemies to themselves, that love market days better
than sabbath days, that would rather be selling corn than worshipping God.
2. Observe them in their conversations, and you will see they have no regard
to man; and this commonly follows upon the former; those that have lost the
savour of piety will not long retain the sense of common honesty. They neither
do justly nor love mercy. (1.) They cheat those they deal with.
When they sell their corn they impose upon the buyer, both in giving
out the goods and in receiving the money for them. They measure him the corn
by their own measure, and pretend to give him what he agreed for, but they make
the ephah small. The measure is scanty, and not statute-measure, and so
they wrong him that way. When they receive his money they must weigh fit in
their own scales, by their own weights, and the shekel they weigh by is
above standard: They make the shekel great, so that the money, being
found too light, must have more added to it; and so they cheat that way too,
and this under colour and pretence of exactness in doing justice. By such
wicked practices as these men show such a greediness of the world, such a love
of themselves, such a contempt of mankind in general, of the particular
persons they deal with, and of the sacred laws of justice, as prove them to
have in their hearts neither the fear nor the love of that God who has so
plainly said that false weights and balances are an abomination to him.
Another instance of their fraudulent dealing is that they sell the refuse
of the wheat, and, taking advantage of their neighbour's ignorance or
necessity, make them take it at the same price at which they sell the finest
of the wheat. (2.) The are barbarous and unmerciful to the poor: They
swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land to fail. [1.]
They valued themselves so much on their wealth that they looked upon all that
were poor with the highest contempt imaginable; they hated them, could not
endure them, but abandoned them, and therefore did what they could to make
them cease, not by relieving them to make them cease to be poor, but by
banishing and destroying them to make them cease to be, or at least to be in
their land. But he who thus reproaches the poor despises his Maker, in
whose hands rich and poor meet together. [2.] They were so eager to
increase their wealth, and make it more, that they robbed the poor to enrich
themselves; and they fastened upon the poor, to make a prey of them,
because they were not able to obtain any redress nor to resist or revenge the
violence of their oppressors. Those riches that are got by the ruin of the
poor will bring ruin on those that get them. They swallowed up the poor by
making them hard bargains, and cheating them in those bargains; for therefore
they falsify the balances by deceit, not only that they may enrich
themselves, may have money at command, and so may have every thing else
(as they think) at command too, but that they may impoverish those about them,
and bring them so low that they may force them to become slaves to them, and
so, having drained them of every thing else, they may have their labour for
nothing, or next to nothing. Thus they buy the poor for silver; they
bring them and their children into bondage, because they have not
wherewithal to pay for the corn they have bought; see Neh. v. 2-5. And there
were so many that they were reduced to this extremity that the price was very
low; and the oppressors had beaten it down so that you might buy a poor man to
be your slave for a pair of shoes. Property was first invaded and then
liberty; it is the method of oppressors first to make men beggars and then to
make them their vassals. Thus is the dignity of the human nature lost in the
misery of those that are trampled on and the tenderness of it in the sin of
those that trample on them.
II. The grievousness of the punishment that shall be inflicted on them for
this sin. When the poor are injured they will cry unto God, and he will
hear their cry, and reckon with those that are injurious to them, for, they
being his receivers, he takes the wrongs done to them as done to himself,
Exod. xxii. 23, 24.
1. God will remember their sin against them: He has sworn by the excellency
of Jacob (v. 7), by himself, for he can swear by no greater; and
who but he is the glory and magnificence of Jacob? He has sworn by those
tokens of his presence with them, and his favour to them, which they had
profaned and abused, and had done what they could to make them detestable to
him; for he is said (ch. vi. 8) to abhor the excellency of Jacob.
He swears in his wrath, swears by his own name, that name which was so
well known and was so great in Israel. He swears, Surely I will never
forget any of their works, but upon all occasions they shall be remembered
against them, for more is implied than is expressed. I will never forget
them is as much as to say, I will never forgive them; and then it
proclaims the case of these unjust unmerciful men to be miserable indeed,
eternally miserable; woe, and a thousand woes, to that man that is cut off by
an oath of God from all benefit by pardoning mercy; and those have reason to
fear judgment without mercy that have shown no mercy.
2. He will bring utter ruin and confusion upon them. It is here described
largely, and in a great variety of emphatic expressions, that, if possible,
they might be frightened into a sincere repentance and reformation. (1.) There
shall be a universal terror and consternation: Shall not the land tremble
for this (v. 8), this land, out of which you thought to
drive the poor? Shall not every one mourn that dwells therein?
Certainly he shall. Note, Those that will not tremble and mourn as they ought
for national sins shall be made to tremble and mourn for national judgments;
those that look without concern upon the sins of the oppressors, which should
make them tremble, and upon the miseries of the oppressed, which should them
mourn, God will find out a way to make them tremble at the fury of those that
oppress them and mourn for their own losses and sufferings by it. (2.) There
shall be a universal deluge and desolation. When God comes forth against them
the waters of trouble and calamity shall rise up wholly as a flood,
that swells, when it is dammed up, and soon overflows its banks. Every thing
shall make against them. That with which they thought to check the progress of
God's judgments shall but make them rise the higher. Judgments shall force
their way as the breaking forth of waters. The whole land shall be
cast out, and drowned, and laid under water, as the land of Egypt is every
year by the overflowing of its river Nile. Or the expressions may allude to
some former judgments of God. Their ruin shall rise up wholly as a flood,
as Noah's flood, which overwhelmed the whole world, so shall this the whole
land; and the land shall be cast out, and drowned, as by the flood of
Egypt, as Pharaoh and his Egyptians were buried in the Red Sea, which was
to them the flood of Egypt, both which judgments, as this which is here
threatened, were the punishment of violence and oppression, which the Lord is
the avenger of.
3. It shall surprise them, and come upon them when they little think of it (v.
9): "I will cause the sun to go down at noon, when it is in its
full strength and lustre, at their noon, when they promise themselves a long
afternoon, and think they have at least half a day good before them. The earth
shall be darkened in the clear day, when every thing looks pleasant and
hopeful." Thus uncertain are all our creature-comforts and enjoyments,
even life itself; the highest degree of health and prosperity often proves the
next degree to sickness and adversity; Job's sun went down at noon;
many are taken away in the midst of their days, and their sun goes down at
noon. In the midst of life we are in death. Thus terrible are the
judgments of God to those that sleep in security; they are to them as the
sun's going down at noon; the less they are expected the more
confounding they are. When they cry Peace and safety then sudden
destruction comes, comes as a snare, Luke xxi. 35.
4. It shall change their note, and mar all their mirth (v. 10): I
will turn your feasts into mourning, as (v. 3) the songs of the
temple into howlings. Note, The end of the sinner's mirth and jollity is
heaviness. As to the upright there arises light in the darkness, which
gives them the oil of joy for mourning, so on the wicked their falls
darkness in the midst of light, which turns their laughter into mourning,
their joy into heaviness. So great, so general, shall the desolation
be, that sackcloth shall be brought upon all loins, and baldness upon every
head, instead of the well-set hair and the rich garments they used
to wear. The mourning at that day shall be as mourning for an only son,
which denotes the most bitter and lasting lamentation. But are there are no
hopes that when things are at the worst they will mend, and that at evening
time it will yet be light? No, even the end thereof shall be as a bitter
day, a day of bitter mourning; that state of impenitent sinners grows
worse and worse, and the last of all will be the worst of all. This shall
you have at my hand, you shall lie down in sorrow.
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Spiritual
Famine Threatened; Judgments Threatened.
B. C. 785.
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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:
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. 13 In that day shall the fair
virgins and young men faint for thirst. 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.
In these verses is threatened,
I. A general judgment of spiritual famine coming upon the whole land, a famine
of the word of God, the failing of oracles and the scarcity of good
preaching. This is spoken of as a thing at some distance: The days come,
they will come hereafter, when another kind of darkness shall come upon that
land of light. When Amos prophesied, and for a considerable time after, they
had great plenty of prophets, abundant opportunities of hearing the word of
God, in season and out of season; they had precept upon precept and line
upon line; prophecy was their daily bread; and it is probable that they
surfeited upon it, as Israel on the manna, and therefore God threatens that
hereafter he will deprive them of this privilege. Probably in the land of
Israel there were not so many prophets, about the time that their destruction
came upon them, as there were in the land of Judah; and when the ten tribes
went into captivity they saw not their signs, there were no more any
prophets, none to show them how long, Ps. lxxiv. 9. The Jewish
church, after Malachi, had no prophets for many ages; and some think this
threatening looks further yet, to the blindness which has in part happened to
Israel in the days of the Messiah, and the veil that is on the heart of the
unbelieving Jews. They reject the gospel, and the ministers of it that God
sends to them, and covet to have prophets of their own, as their fathers had,
but they shall have none, the kingdom of God being taken from them
and given to another people. Observe here,
1. What the judgment itself is that is threatened. It is a famine, a scarcity,
not of bread and water (which are the necessary support of the body, and the
want of which is very grievous), but a much sorer judgment than that, even a famine
of hearing the words of the Lord. There shall be no congregations for
ministers to preach to, nor any ministers to preach, nor any instructions and
abilities given to those that do set up for preachers, to fit them for their
work. The word of the Lord shall be precious and scarce; there
shall be no vision, 1 Sam. iii. 1. They shall have the written word,
Bibles to read, but no ministers to explain and apply it to them, the water in
the well, but nothing to draw with. It is a gracious promise (Isa. xxx. 20)
that though they have a scarcity of bread they shall have plenty of the means
of grace. God will give them the bread of adversity and the water of
affliction, but their eyes shall see their teachers; and it was a common
saying among the Puritans that brown bread and the gospel are good fare. But
it is here a threatening that on the contrary they should have plenty enough
of bread and water, and yet their teachers should be removed. Now, (1.) This
was the departure of a great part of their glory from their land. This made
their nation great and high, that to them were committed the oracles of
God; but, when these were taken from them, their beauty was stained and
their honour laid in the dust. (2.) This was a token of God's highest
displeasure against them. Surely he was angry indeed with them when he would
no more speak to them as he had done, and had abandoned them to ruin when he
would no more afford them the means of bringing them to repentance. (3.) This
made all the other calamities that were upon them truly melancholy, that they
had no prophets to instruct and comfort them from the word of God, nor to give
them any hopeful prospect. We should say at any time, and shall say in a time
of trouble, that a famine of the word of God is the sorest famine, the
heaviest judgment.
2. What will be the effect of this (v. 12): They shall wander from
sea to sea, from the sea of Tiberias to the Great Sea, from one border of
the country to another, to see if God will send them prophets, either by sea
or land, from other countries; since they have none among themselves, they
shall go from the north to the east; when they are disappointed in one
place they shall try another, and shall run to and fro, as men at a
loss, and in a hot pursuit to seek the word of the Lord, to enquire if
there be any prophets, any prophecy, any message from God, but they shall
not find it. (1.) Though to many this is no affliction at all, yet some
will be very sensible of it as a great grievance, and will gladly travel far
to hear a good sermon; but they shall sensibly feel the loss of those mercies
which others have foolishly sinned away. (2.) Even those that slighted
prophets when they had them shall wish for them as Saul did for Samuel, when
they are deprived of them. Many never know the worth of mercies till they feel
the want of them. Or it may be meant thus, Though they should thus wander from
sea to sea, in quest of the word of God, yet shall they not find it. Note, The
means of grace are moveable things; and the candlestick, when we think it
stands most firmly, may be removed out of its place (Rev. ii. 5); and those
that now slight the days of the son of man may wish in vain to see
them. And in the day of this famine the fair virgins and the young
men shall faint for thirst (v. 13); those who, one would think,
could well enough have borne the toil, shall sink under it. The Jewish
churches, and the masters of their synagogues, some take to be
meant by the virgins and the young men; these shall lose the
word of the Lord, and the benefit of divine revelation, and shall faint away
for want of it, shall lose all their strength and beauty. Those that trust in
their own merit and righteousness, and think they have no need of Christ,
others take to be meant by the fair virgins and the choice young
men; they shall faint for thirst, when those that hunger and
thirst after the righteousness of Christ shall be abundantly satisfied and
filled.
II. The particular destruction of those that were ringleaders in idolatry, v.
14. Observe, 1. The sin they are charged with: They swear by the sin of
Samaria, that is, by the god of Samaria, the idol that was worshipped at
Bethel, not far off from Samaria. Thus did they glory in their shame, and
swear by them as their god which was their iniquity, thinking that could help
them which would certainly ruin them, and giving the highest honour to that
which they should have looked upon with the utmost abhorrence and detestation.
They say, Thy god, O Dan! liveth; that was the other golden calf, a
dumb deal idol, and yet caressed and complimented as if it had been the living
and true God. They say, The manner, or way, of Beer-sheba liveth;
they swore by the religion of Beer-sheba, the way and manner of worship
used there, which they looked upon as sacred, and therefore swore by and
appealed to as a judge of controversy. Thus the papists swear by the mass, as
the manner of Beer-sheba. 2. The destruction they are threatened with.
Those who thus give that honour to idols which is due to God alone will find
that the God they affront is thereby made their enemy, so that they shall
fall, and the gods they serve cannot stand their friends, so that they
shall never rise again. They will find that God is jealous and will
resent the indignity done him, and that he will be victorious and it is to no
purpose to contend with him.
Contents
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Next
Section
