Sometime about 760 B. C., when Jeroboam II was reigning over Israel and had succeeded in restoring a temporary prosperity to the kingdom, public interest was aroused by the appearance of an unusual prophet. It seemed that he was not a subject of Israel, but came from the neighboring kingdom of Judah. This did not prevent him from denouncing the sins of the Israelite’s and predicting their national ruin. Not surprisingly his activities were resented and when tidings of him reached Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, the latter told the king about him. The monarch does not seem to have taken any action and the priest himself took the matter up. He interviewed the prophet and suggested that his prophesying in Israel was disrespectful to the king and that his message might be more fittingly addressed to his own people. In reply the prophet, named Amos, protested that what he said was spoken at the behest of Jehovah, the God, whom both peoples professed to worship, and that he was impelled to speak by a power which he could not resist;
I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel” (Amos 7:14, 15)
God not only inspired Amos with words for Israel. He added to his message by showing him visions which were really parables and which, by lending picturesqueness to his words, made them far more forceful. Four of these are described in chapters 7 & 8, and they are clearly four parts of a whole, designed to show both the goodness and severity of God.
The Locusts
“Thus hath the Lord showed unto me, and, behold he formed grasshoppers (locusts) in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth: and lo it was the later growth after the king’s mowing’s. And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, 0 Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? (i.e. how shall Jacob stand?) for he is small.” ch 7:1,2)
The dread nature of the vision here would be well understood by the prophet’s hearers. Too often they had seen the devastation caused by the swarms of locusts, which devoured everything and left desolation behind them as they advanced in waves. The choice of the time of the visitation was significant. The latter growth was the late spring grass brought on by the late spring rain, the latter rain of Joel 2:23 and James 5:7. First the king took his mowings, or tribute, and then the husbandman hoped to have the remainder or the aftermath. The words translated, “When they had made an end of eating the grass” really mean “when they would have wholly devoured the herbage of the land” i.e. when they were beginning to make havoc. Then it was that the prophet made his plea for Jacob in his smallness. It was successful. “The Lord repented for this. It shall not be, saith the Lord”. Albeit, the respite was allowed for repentance.
The fire
“Thus hath the Lord showed unto me: and behold the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep and did eat up a part. Then said I, cease, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small” (ch. 7:4, 5)
Once again the message was graphic. Plagues of locusts are often associated with fire by the prophets. In this case, the conflagration would be intense, so that it would seem that even the great deep was being licked up by the flames. It appeared to the prophet that part of the land was already devoured, and he cried out again for pity on the littleness of Jacob. Again God repented. “This also shall not be.” Yet the scope for repentance was smaller now.
The Wall
“Thus he showed me; and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall, made by a plumbline, with the plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? I said, a plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people, Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” (ch. 7:7-9)
The long-suffering of God, shown by the first two parables, was unavailing. The people persisted in their evil ways. Hence it was impossible for God to pass by them any more. The time had come for judgment to begin. The wall of Israel had once been perpendicular, tested by the plumbline. Now it was to be tested again, with the plumbline of the Lord. The result was disastrous. The wall was seen to be anything but upright. Hence it must be overthrown.
The prophet Isaiah also uses the idea of the plumbline in a way which enlarges our view. In his 28th chapter, he speaks of the scornful rulers of Judah and Jerusalem, who had made an agreement with hell and a covenant with death, which they thought would stand them in good stead when the scourge of God passed over them. They had made lies their refuge and trusted in falsehood.
This was at a time when their country was threatened with invasion by the Assyrians, and they imagined that compacts with the Egyptians would enable them to obtain security against the menace. The word of God they eschewed. They were not learned; they could not read it; it was too involved they said and thus it was sealed against them (Isaiah 29:11). Alternately, it was too childish. They did not proceed line upon line and precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:9-12). On either count they rejected it.
God was not to be mocked in this way. He would lay His own foundation stone in Zion and would test his people with a plumbline. Judgment would be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet. Both Israel and Judah, when tried in this way, were found to be out of true. In Israel troubles multiplied rapidly. Jeroboam’s death led to a period of anarchy and bloody strife for the throne. The whole culminated in the bringing to an end of the Isarelitish kingdom by the Assyrians. The high places of Isaac, at Beer-Sheba, which was closely associated with the patriarch (see Genesis 26:23, 28:10) were made desolate and Israel’s sanctuaries were wasted. The royal dynasty was destroyed. In Judah a few years later the folly of flouting Jehovah was equally clearly demonstrated. The Egyptian refuge of lies, which was to provide so secure a hiding place was swept away by the hail and floods of Assyrian invasion. The covenant with death was disannulled and the agreement with hell did riot stand, for those who made it were swallowed up when the overflowing scourge passed through, even though the city of Jerusalem escaped for a time, owing to Hezekiah’s faithfulness. The plumb-line test had dire consequences for both houses of Israel.
The Fruit Basket
“Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me: and behold, a basket of summer fruit. 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 Israel: I will not again pass by them any more. 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” (ch 8:1-3).
This parable is designed to show the rapidity of Divine action once it is inexorably decided upon. The fruit in the basket was ripe, to be eaten as soon as gathered. So Israel, unmoved by God’s long-suffering, were ripe for destruction. This truth is brought out more clearly in the original, where there is a characteristic Hebrew pun. The word translated “sumer fruit is QAYITS and the word for end is QETS. Thus the passage might be translated, albeit freely, “A basket of ripe fruit. My people are ripe for judgment”. In the event Israel was consumed like fruit; the songs of the royal palace (rather than temple) were turned to wailing’s; and, as the Assyrian troops departed, the dead bodies were left in the dark and silent desolation.
So Amos returned to Judah to his home at Tekoa, a high-lying town six miles south of Bethlehem. There he tended his short-legged and ugly-faced sheep, which were characteristic of the region, and lived by the sale of their excellent wool and of gathered sycamore fruit, a kind of mulberry, which had to be nipped or punctured to release an insect to make it eatable. There, probably, he committed to writing the speeches which he had made during his sojourn in Israel, and what he wrote has been Divinely preserved until we are able to read it in this far-off land. What is its value to us? Much, every way. As far as the four vision parables are concerned, it teaches us the long suffering of God, but warns us that we must not tempt the Lord our God by presuming on His reluctance to punish ill-doing. We may, in His mercy escape the locusts and the fire, but the plumb-line of righteousness is always there, and God will continually test us by it. If we are persistently not straight and true, the time will come when He will not pass by any more and, in the day of judgment, we shall be consumed like summer fruit. We have, however, an advantage, which Israel and Judah of the days of Amos and Isaiah lacked. We know the foundation stone, the tried stone, the precious corner stone, the sure foundation which God has laid in Zion in the person of Jesus. In him judgment was laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet, and his conformity to the Divine standard was without flaw. On his we rest in quietness. There is no need for us to make haste, to rush about making false entanglements and alliances to stave off the evil of the present or the future. Our covenant with Him is of life and peace. It is a covenant which is all-embracing, for it speaks not only of happy individual relations with him and with our God, but also of the sure passing of the present night of doubt and sorrow for so many, and the dawning of the perfect day. Let us keep our life compact, and, with it, our ideals!
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One