Amos 6-9

[wolfpurplemoon]

God is not impressed with the rich people in Israel, he says that they are the ones bringing disaster on everyone else but are too comfortable to do anything about it.

God shows Amos some visions and Amos is shocked and begs him not to do those things, and God says he won't but he will punish Israel.

Amos says he's not a prophet by trade, were there really people who were trained to be prophets? That seems to go against the whole God just picking someone to have visions thing, I guess these professional prophets weren't true ones.

God is threatening to bring natural occurrences like an earthquake and an eclipse as well as no more divine revelations, that'll be a real loss I'm sure.

Comments

[zteccc.livejournal.com]

Judah's and Israel's leaders felt safe by their position (they had money, armies, strong walls, etc.). Amos brings the example of other capital cities which fell and their leaders fell with them. Amos prophecies that the rich leaders will be the first to be carried off into captivity (this is what happened). This is because the leaders are perverting justice and disregarding their duty to their people and instead living a life of excess at the expense of the citizens.

Amos receives a vision of the destruction of the crops. The king still gets his share (because the king was unjust and would take it even if his people had to starve). Amos asked God to reconsider and God does so.
Amos sees a vision of a fireball that would burn up the earth and oceans. Amos again asks God to reconsider and God does so.
Amos sees a vision of a measuring line to show how the Israelites don't measure up to God's covenant (and actually aren't even trying).
Amaziah, a priest tries to discredit Amos and tells the king he is planning to rebel against him. Amaziah tries to get Amos to return to Judah and be a prophet there. Amos responds that he isn't a prophet (at least not a professional one), but a shepherd sent by God with a message. He then speaks a prophecy against Amaziah the priest.

Amos sees a vision of ripe summer fruit and God says that this shows that God is done with Israel. Note that ripe summer fruit in the Middle East, tends to be ripe for just a very short period of time before it spoils. If someone sees a basket of ripe fruit, they're pretty much seeing a basket of spoiled fruit that will be discarded since almost all of it will spoil because it can be eaten (without refrigeration). In Amos' time, only a small portion of the basket could be saved and the rest would be rotten within a day. Similarly, a small portion of Israelites were still complying with the covenant, but the bulk of them were not. The imagery of the sun going down at noon and turning daylight into darkness is not ecliptic (the sun doesn't go down during an eclipse and it isn't darkness), but rather apocalyptic (the sun will literally become dark). Nonbelievers will come to the realization that they are missing God's message.

Amos sees a vision of God by the temple altar. God's coming judgment will be terrible for those who have not followed the covenant.
God states that the Ethiopians are just as important as the Israelites. This is extremely important because it went against what the Israelites (as the chosen people) believed at the time. Amos making this statement must have been pretty confident that he heard from God, because even though the Israelites weren't following the covenant, they still believed that they were special above other nations and they would have reacted strongly (possibly violently) to this message.
God will kill those who don't follow the covenant, but will allow those who follow the covenant to live in exile and eventually return.

Brief note on the Old Testament. When the New Testament was canonized, the Council of Nicene largely took the existing Jewish Canon and called it the Old Testament. They were, of course, focused on the New Testament at the time, but many prophecies in the Old Testament applied both to the New Testament and to "end times" or the apocalypse. Since the prophecies of the apocalypse had yet to be fulfilled, they were considered essential to retain.

[wolfpurplemoon]

Have you never experienced an eclipse? It gets very dark I can assure you. As for the sun actually going dark, I know that our sun will in all probability go dark one day, but humanity will be long extinct by then so it won't worry anyone I don't think.

[zteccc.livejournal.com]

Yes, Amy, I've experienced an eclipse, and although it can get dark for a moment, nobody would consider it darkness as compared, for example, to night time, nor does the sun "go down at noon" in an eclipse. During an eclipse, the horizon is still light, but that is not the imagery here. This imagery is similar to other prophets predictions, for example Isaiah 50:3 refers to the sun as being clothed with blackness, not just dimmed, as during an eclipse, but blackness as we get in a night with no moon and obscured stars.

The language used in Amos referring to the day of the Lord is used in other books as well referring to an apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic time, not the current time of the prophet. This would be a world-wide event and it for it to be known world wide, the darkness effects would have to be world wide as well. An eclipse is only total over a small portion of the earth, but prophecies like this refer to the sun being darkened in an event that everyone would notice, no matter where they live (not only local to the Middle East like an eclipse).

Yes, science suggests that the sun will eventually fail and go dark, but this prophecy suggests that the darkness referred to in Amos (and other scriptures) will be significantly sooner and people will be around to experience it.

-- Jeff