May 1, 2011 – Amos 1-2

The introduction gives us some timeline as to when Amos was prophesying. Jeroboam II was king. I was trying to see what the books on Kings and Chronicles might say about him, but it wasn’t much. 2 Kings 15 is the part that describes his reign, but it is pretty brief. I was also looking at maps to get a sense of what things looked like because the introduction says that Amos talks about Damascus (north/northeast of Israel), Philistia (West of Israel), and Edom (south of Israel). It helps to get a feel for the geography. We will get more into that when we get into Joshua and his campaign and the splitting up of the land to the 12 tribes.

Tekoa is 10 miles south of Jerusalem and Bethel, were the introduction says he prophesied, is about 10 miles north of Jerusalem. Just to give you an idea of what we are talking about.

I was looking into the language that repeats itself, this idea of the three things and a forth. It is there way of saying that there were a lot of things, but the one we end on is this. I thought of it, from this description, as the forth is the straw that broke the camel’s back. 3 being a number that describes perfection, it is used here to show that large amount of times the people have turned their back, not necessarily on God, since the nations stated are not all God’s chosen people, but on God’s moral law that everyone is to uphold. Then the forth is what finally tips the balance and God must act. If you read it in this light, it appears to make more sense.

When you read that God will not revoke His word, you get the sense that He is not going to punish them, but then describes the punishment. I think this goes to the understanding of a Perfectly Just God. God cannot stand by and let injustice prevail, so He is saying for all these sins, I cannot revoke my Word (justice) and therefore this is going to happen.