Amos 8 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Amos 8

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

8:1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me,

  “The end¹ has come upon my people Israel;
    I will never again pass by them.
3   The songs of the temple² shall become wailings³ in that day,”
      declares the Lord GOD.
  “So many dead bodies!”
  “They are thrown everywhere!”
  “Silence!”
4   Hear this, you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5   saying, “When will the new moon be over,
    that we may sell grain?
  And the Sabbath,
    that we may offer wheat for sale,
  that we may make the ephah small and the shekel⁴ great
    and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6   that we may buy the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7   The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
  “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8   Shall not the land tremble on this account,
    and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
  and all of it rise like the Nile,
    and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9   “And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,
    “I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10   I will turn your feasts into mourning
    and all your songs into lamentation;
  I will bring sackcloth on every waist
    and baldness on every head;
  I will make it like the mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.
11   “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
    “when I will send a famine on the land—
  not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12   They shall wander from sea to sea,
    and from north to east;
  they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
    but they shall not find it.
13   “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
    shall faint for thirst.
14   Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
    and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
  and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’
    they shall fall, and never rise again.”

Footnotes

[1] 8:2 The Hebrew words for end and summer fruit sound alike
[2] 8:3 Or palace
[3] 8:3 Or The singing women of the palace shall wail
[4] 8:5 An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters; a shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams

Commentary

v1-3: The basket of summer fruit, calling the nation to account, and bringing spiritual famine; a single vision, but with multiple meanings. The basket speaks of harvest time, the fruit is ready, and judgment will come, "I will spare them no longer," (7.8).

v4-7: The Lord God calls to account the nation for her injustice.

They skimp the measure, and boost the price, Mic 6.10-11. Where there is desire for material things, that can be easily fed by injustice and dishonesty; the standards of God become an inconvenience, reducing profits. Worse, their injustice brought many others into poverty.

The people hurried through their religious worship, looking forward to making more money. We can so easily treat the things of this world with too great an importance.

The new moon at that time had become day of rest, as well as sacrifice. But in later years a more complex ritual and even superstition grew around the day. See Col 2.16.

The people also think that the Lord does not see. His words here are particularly striking; He expects and demands more of His people.

v8: The judgment of God will fall upon the land as well as upon the people. Israel inherited the best of the land, the land flowing with milk and honey; their sins cost them abundant fruitfulness.

v9-10: See 5.18-20; the Day of the Lord; a day of darkness, not light, of mourning, not rejoicing.

v11-12: Spiritual famine; worse than the famine of 7.1-6; they lose what they reject, God's word; they receive what they want, the promises of selfishness and idolatry.

v13-14: The people pursued idols; and would learn that their rebellion brought its consequences. The Lord God has a frown as well as a smile.