TEXT [Commentary]

  C.   Fourth Vision: A Vision of Ripe Fruit (8:1-14)

1 Then the Sovereign LORD showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”

Then the LORD said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. 3 In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!”

4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor

and trample down the needy!

5 You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over

and the religious festivals to end

so you can get back to cheating the helpless.

You measure out grain with dishonest measures

and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.[*]

6 And you mix the grain you sell

with chaff swept from the floor.

Then you enslave poor people

for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.

7 Now the LORD has sworn this oath

by his own name, the Pride of Israel[*]:

“I will never forget

the wicked things you have done!

8 The earth will tremble for your deeds,

and everyone will mourn.

The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime;

it will heave up, then sink again.

9 “In that day,” says the Sovereign LORD,

“I will make the sun go down at noon

and darken the earth while it is still day.

10 I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning

and your singing into weeping.

You will wear funeral clothes

and shave your heads to show your sorrow—

as if your only son had died.

How very bitter that day will be!

11 “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign LORD,

“when I will send a famine on the land—

not a famine of bread or water

but of hearing the words of the LORD.

12 People will stagger from sea to sea

and wander from border to border[*]

searching for the word of the LORD,

but they will not find it.

13 Beautiful girls and strong young men

will grow faint in that day,

thirsting for the LORD’s word.

14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—

who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan

and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba[*]—

they will all fall down,

never to rise again.”

NOTES

8:1 showed me another vision. See note on 7:1.

basket. This was a bushel-shaped harvesting basket most likely made of woven wicker (kelub [TH3619, ZH3990]; cf. Jer 5:27 where the rare word refers to a birdcage).

ripe fruit. This word (qayits [TH7019, ZH7811]) refers to summer fruit like figs, grapes, and olives that are harvested in early fall.

8:2 Israel is ripe. Lit., “the end is coming for my people Israel.” Because of the similarities in their sounds and their related etymologies, the word “end” (qets [TH7093, ZH7891]) forms a wordplay with the expression “ripe fruit” (qayits) in 8:1-2.

8:3 that day. See note on “the day of the LORD” in 5:18. The songs of the harvest festival have been replaced by wailing and silence in response to the “harvest” of corpses left behind by the “grim reaping” of the foreign invaders (cf. Lev 23:39-41).

8:5 Sabbath . . . religious festivals. Commercial activity was prohibited on the Sabbath and New Moon festivals according to Mosaic law (Exod 35:1-3; Deut 5:13-14).

cheating the helpless . . . dishonest measures . . . dishonest scales. All these corrupt business practices were forbidden by Mosaic law because they perverted justice and fairness, aspects of God’s very nature (Lev 19:35-36; Deut 25:13-16; Prov 11:1).

8:6 enslave poor people. The prophet condemns the merchants who are buying poor people as slaves by means of their dishonest business practices (v. 5). As a result of mounting debts, the poor were forced to sell themselves or their children to the wealthy merchants to cover their debts (G. Smith 2001:384). Earlier, Amos condemned selling the poor into slavery (cf. 2:6). As Stuart (1987:384) notes, “the poor have a determined protector in Yahweh” (cf. Deut 24:14-15; Ps 82; Isa 11:4).

8:7 Pride of Israel. Lit., “the pride of Jacob” (so NLT mg). Here the eponymous ancestor “Jacob” represents the people of Israel. This unusual epithet for God is rooted in the mutual pride shared by Yahweh and the nation of Israel as a result of the relationship created by the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants (cf. Ps 47:4).

8:8 rise like the Nile. The heavy seasonal rains and melting snows at the headwaters of the Nile caused annual flooding of the river in Egypt, as much as 25 feet above its normal level during flood-stage. The point of the prophet’s illustration is that, like the rising flood of the Nile River, Israel will be helpless under the “flood” of God’s judgment.

8:9 In that day. The OT describes the day of the Lord as a time of cosmic upheaval, with ominous celestial signs and the disruption of the natural cycles of light and darkness (cf. Isa 24:23; 34:4; Ezek 32:7-8; Joel 2:10, 31). See note on “the day of the LORD” in 5:18.

8:10 funeral clothes. Lit., “every waist will wear sackcloth” (saq [TH8242, ZH8566]). The sackcloth garment was a rough cape or loincloth made of dark goat hair and was worn as a symbol of mourning and grief (cf. NIDOTTE 3.1270).

shave your heads. According to Stuart (1987:385), this was “a practice intended to symbolically disfigure and thus show empathy with those in the sad situation of having lost loved ones” (cf. Job 1:20; Jer 41:5).

8:11 famine . . . of hearing the words of the LORD. Even more essential than the staples of food and water, which are necessary for physical life, “no one could live without the power and guidance of the divine words” (Hubbard 1989:223-224). Jesus indicated as much when he quoted Deut 8:3 in response to the tempter: “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). The “famine of the word of the Lord” calls to mind the bleak days of the Israelite judges when “messages from the LORD were very rare” (1 Sam 3:1). God’s judgment by the withdrawal of revelation is a form of “divine abandonment” associated with covenant trespass (cf. Deut 31:17-18; on the motif of divine abandonment, see Block 2001). Even though God’s abandonment is “momentary,” figuratively speaking (cf. Isa 54:7-8), it is still a frightening prospect to experience this divine rejection—like the one who runs away from a lion only to meet a bear (5:19).

8:12 sea to sea . . . from border to border. The expression signifies the totality of the vacuum of God’s word in Israel.

8:14 idols of Samaria. Lit., “Samaria’s shame” (’ashmath [TH819, ZH873]), an obvious foil with the “Pride of Israel” in 8:7 and probably refers to the Baal-Asherah idols of the shrines in Samaria.

god of Dan. This is a reference to the golden bull-god worshiped at the shrine in the city of Dan (cf. 1 Kgs 12:25-30; see note on 3:14).

god of Beersheba. Lit., the “way” (derek [TH1870, ZH2006]) or the “power” (cf. HALOT 1:232 §7) of Beersheba. It is possible the expression refers to some rite of pilgrimage to a pagan shrine in Beersheba. Hubbard’s (1989:225) comment that the epithet “‘Beersheba’s way’ could well be a succinct expression for all that the pilgrimage stood for” is cogent. Dan was the northernmost city in the territory of Israel and Beersheba was the southernmost city of Judah, so Amos makes reference to “the whole circle of gods worshiped everywhere in Israel (and Judah), from Dan to Beer-sheba” (Andersen and Freedman 1989:830).

COMMENTARY [Text]

The fourth vision (8:1-3) shown to Amos by the Lord needs no interpretation. The “fruit” is ripe for picking: The fate of Israel is now sealed. The death sentence has been announced and nothing can avert it. Previously, Amos had pleaded with the people to “come back to the LORD and live” (5:6). “Now all he could say was, ‘It’s too late; you must die.’” (Craigie 1985:182). The cluster of judgment oracles (8:4-14; described as anywhere from three to five distinct speeches depending on the source consulted) following the fourth vision rehearse the earlier indictments levied against Israel and further vindicate Yahweh’s decision to punish his people (8:2). God’s judgment is as terrifying as it is decisive (cf. 5:18; 6:1, 4). A series of four catastrophes associated with phenomena from the natural world will overtake Israel including earthquake (8:4-8), solar eclipse (8:9-10), famine (8:11-12) and drought (8:13-14). Whether these events are actual natural disasters or symbolize the devastation of the Assyrian onslaught is unclear. The most crushing news in Amos’s report is the death of the young (8:13). “They carried the hope for a coming generation, so their deaths would reinforce all the more the death of future hope” (Craigie 1985:187). Andersen and Freedman (1989:802) note that the judgment speeches address social injustice (8:4-6) and religious hypocrisy (8:7-14) and “together they combine the ethical and theological aspects of covenant violation.” God is true to his word; he remembers his covenant (Ps 111:5), whether for blessing or for cursing (Deut 30:19).

The several judgment oracles (8:4-14) appended to the fourth vision recall aspects of God’s character highlighted in Amos’s call to repentance (ch 5). God loves justice (5:24) and hates the callous greed that spawns social injustice and economic oppression (5:10-11, 15). This brings us to an interesting theological observation. According to Motyer (1974:183), there is one thing God cannot do (among others): “he cannot bestow mercy on those who do not show mercy.” The prayer Jesus taught his disciples instructs the Christian to forgive those who have sinned against us because God has forgiven our sin in Christ (Matt 6:12). Jesus also told the parable of the servant who forfeited mercy because he failed to show mercy to a fellow servant indebted to him (Matt 18:28-35). God is the source of every mercy (2 Cor 1:3), and Jude’s exhortation to show mercy to others is no doubt based on the example of God’s mercy to the world in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 1:21-23). This can be done only by means of the wisdom that comes from heaven—“full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds” (Jas 3:17).

The prophetic ministry of Amos to the kingdom of Israel was the culmination of a series of warnings sent by God to the divided monarchies by his prophets and seers (2 Kgs 17:13). As Craigie (1985:182) sadly observes, the destruction of Israel had been determined and fixed by a long history of sin—namely the sin of idolatry (cf. 2 Kgs 17:9-12). God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai gave the Hebrew people the choice of life or death, based upon their love for God and obedience to his laws and decrees (Deut 30:19). Failure to choose life by walking in God’s ways would result in certain destruction (Deut 30:15, 17-18). Hebrew wisdom tradition applies this general principle broadly to all of life: “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death” (Prov 14:12).

The New Testament confirms this basic theological understanding of fallen human behavior—evil desires lead to evil actions and evil actions lead to death (Jas 1:15). The Bible only knows two paths: the way of the godly and the way of the wicked (Ps 1:6; or the broad highway to hell and the narrow road to life as taught by Jesus, Matt 7:13-14). The path that leads to life leads to God himself, the source of Israel’s life (Ps 68:26). As a result of the Incarnation, the path that leads to life leads to Jesus the Messiah and the triune God of the new covenant (John 1:4; 6:35). What a glorious message of hope for our world, which perpetuates a culture of death!