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Amos 8

A Picture of a Basket of Fruit

1 This is what the Lord the Ruler showed me: I saw a basket of ripe fruit.

2 The Lord asked me, 'Amos, what do you see?'

'A basket of ripe fruit', I answered.

Then the Lord said to me: 'The end has come for my people Israel. I will not delay their punishment.'

3 The Lord the Ruler says: 'On that day the temple songs will become sad songs. People will weep. There will be dead bodies everywhere.

People will throw out the dead bodies. There will be silence!'

Verse 1 Amos now has a fourth picture from God. It is a very ordinary picture. Workers put the fruit in baskets like this at harvest time.

Verse 2 God asks Amos a clear question. There is only one answer. In Hebrew, the words 'ripe fruit' sound like 'end'. God does not want to wait. His mercy has come to an end. Amaziah warned Amos not to prophesy against Israel. But nothing can stop Amos.

Verse 3 The people always thanked God for their harvest. However, there would now be no more songs of thanks at harvest. Instead, there would be sad songs. People would not laugh. Instead, they would weep. There would be a still sad silence. It would be the silence of death.

4 'Listen to me! You people are walking on the people who need help.

You are trying to ruin the poor people in this country.

5 You say to yourselves, 'When will the time of the New Moon finish so that we can sell our grain?

When will the Sabbath finish so that we can sell our wheat?'

Then you will weigh the grain wrongly, and you will lie.

You will cheat the people about the weight.

They will get less grain, but the price will go up.

6 You buy poor people with money.

You buy people who need things for a pair of shoes.

People sweep up rubbish.

And you mix this rubbish with wheat, and sell it.

Verse 4 During this time, there were two main groups of people. One group had a lot of money. The members of this group were usually business people or merchants. They took advantage of the government's decisions. These people 'walked' on the poor people. The poor people did not have enough to eat. They did not have good health. Some of them had to become slaves. These were crimes against God.

Verse 5 This verse describes business people. These business people knew that they had to keep the Sabbath. They knew that they had to keep the New Moon holiday. This was a covenant holiday that Moses started (Numbers 10:10; 28:11). The law said that people should not work on the Sabbath. But the business people loved their profits. They hated waiting for the Sabbath to end. They were in a hurry to start selling again. The people in the towns needed to buy food. So the merchants took advantage of this. They were not honest when they weighed the food on sale. They gave the poor people less food than they had paid for. This was against the Law (Leviticus 19:35-36). Other prophets also spoke against these practices (Micah 6:10; Ezekiel 45:9-12).

Verse 6 This verse is like 2:6b. God hated the way that people became slaves. He hated the way that merchants bought slaves. They were buying slaves at low prices. They were using the same money that the poor people gave them. The poor people were desperate for food. So, the people who were selling wheat mixed it with rubbish. They would sell anything if they could get more money.

Enemies will Defeat Israel

7 The Lord has made a promise.

He used his name, Pride of Jacob.

'I will never forget anything that they have done.

8 The whole land will shake because of these things.

Everyone who lives in the land will cry.

They will cry for the people who have died.

The whole land will rise and fall like the Nile River in Egypt.

I will stir the land.'

Verse 7 'Pride of Jacob' is a special name. This name means that the Israelites are proud of their God. God also says that he is the Glory of Israel (1 Samuel 15:29). God makes more promises than anyone else in the Old Testament. In Psalm 47:5, 'pride of Jacob' refers to the land of Israel. So God is making a promise in a very important way. The land of Israel is part of God's covenant.

Verse 8 Amos is saying that there will be an earthquake. During an earthquake the whole land shakes and buildings fall down. Israel will become a place of death. Many people will weep for their friends. There were seasons when it rained a lot in Ethiopia. When this happened, the level of the Nile rose. Water filled the whole valley and the result was much good soil. Perhaps the word 'stir' refers to this.

9 The Lord the Ruler said these things:

'At that time I will make the sun go down at noon.

I will make the earth dark on a clear day.

10 I will change your holidays into days of crying for the dead people.

All your songs will be sad songs because your people have died.

I will make everyone wear clothes that show they are sad.

You will remove all the hair from your heads.

It will be like a time when a son has died.

You will cry for him. It will be a very bitter end.'

11 The Lord the Ruler says, 'The days are coming when I will bring hunger to the land.

The people will not be hungry for bread.

They will not need to drink water.

But they will be hungry for words from the Lord.

12 People will wander from sea to sea.

They will wander from north to east.

They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord.

But they will not find it.

13 At that time, the beautiful young men and women will feel weak.

They will need to drink.

14 Those people made promises by the shame of Samaria.

They said, 'By the god of Dan that lives', or 'By the way of Beersheba that lives'.

But those people will fall.

They will not get up again.'

Verse 9 These are events that will happen in the future. We do not know when they will happen. God will bring sudden darkness. There is a similar idea in 5:18. Other prophets also use the picture of darkness (Joel 2:2; Zephaniah 1:15). Perhaps this is a sign that God is very sad.

Verse 10 The joy of Israel will come to an end. The holidays of the Israelites were special days when the people ate lots of food. They probably sang at these times. But there would be no more of these happy days. People would cry instead of laughing. They would have to wear clothes made out of cheap rough cloth. This would show that they were really sad. In the time of Amos, a son was very important The son always had the name of his father. So, if a son died, the family name came to an end. This was a serious problem.

Verse 11 God now used another picture -- a picture of food and drink. People would be without hope. They would not be able to hear God speak. They would not have the law of Moses. They would not be able to find a prophet who could give a message from God. So they would have no life at all.

Verse 12 The seas are the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. People would travel a long way. They would not care how far they walked. But they would not find the word of God. This situation would not last for a long time. It would only last until God's anger was over (Leviticus 26:44-45).

Verse 13 Even young women and young men would feel weak. This verse is like verse 11. However, in verse 13 two things would happen. The people would have little to drink, and they would also know little of God.

Verse 14 Israel does not want to make promises to God. Instead, she has made promises to her own gods. She has worshipped the gold bull at Bethel. She has worshipped the Baal-Asherah idol at the city of Samaria (1 Kings 16:32-33). She has also worshipped idols at Dan and Beersheba. There was another gold bull at Dan. The Hebrew for 'way' can also mean 'power'. Perhaps the people mixed their worship at Beersheba. Perhaps it was a false god and not the true God. This worship was not part of the covenant. It would not happen again.