START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Amos 7:7-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
OBSERVE:
The prophetic ministry of Amos reminds us a little of Elijah and Elisha. Amos is a bit of an eccentric, like those two prophets who predate him by about 100 years.
First of all, Amos is a “southern boy” who comes north to Israel from his hometown in Tekoa in Judah, ten miles from Jerusalem. We remember that Israel (the northern kingdom) had seceded from Judah (the southern kingdom) about 931 B.C. Amos has come into Israel in the north around 750 B.C. to scold King Jeroboam II of Israel.
To gain perspective on how strange this may have seemed, imagine a pastor from Dearborn, Michigan during the American Civil War leaving the north and coming south to Richmond, Virginia to scold President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy for his policies! Like Amos, he probably wouldn’t be received warmly!
Amos himself admits that he has no genealogical foundation as a prophet:
I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs.
One of the things we see elsewhere in the Old Testament is that there are “court prophets” who are employed in the palaces of the kings of Israel and Judah. And because they were employed by the kings, sometimes they found it difficult to tell the king what he really needed to hear.
Amos makes it very clear that his is an independent voice, without compromise. He is neither a court prophet nor has he been taught in the “schools of the prophets” that were current in those days. Amos’ only accountability is to God.
In this passage, Amos uses a dramatic metaphor to illustrate the objective and absolute moral standards of God:
Thus he showed me and behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. Yahweh said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I will set a plumb line in the middle of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.
The plumb line is a rope with a weight at the end, used by builders to determine the vertical precision of a wall. The plumb line is an absolute standard of measurement.
In this case, the Lord is declaring that Israel and their King Jeroboam will be judged by divine standards — and be found wanting:
The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
Amos’ ministry will not go unopposed. Ironically, it is a priest who is most alarmed about Amos’ prophesies. Amaziah the priest of Bethel advises King Jeroboam that Amos is conspiring against him. Amos does prophesy Jeroboam’s death and the exile of Israel.
We are reminded that the priesthood in Israel are by definition like the “court prophets” described above. The center of worship for the Israelites had been Jerusalem since the time of King David. The ark of the covenant had been taken there by David probably around 1000 B.C. Solomon, the son of David, built a glorious temple to house the ark around 966 B.C. It was in Jerusalem that the Aaronic priests and the Levites carried out the sacrificial ritual and musical worship from that time on.
However, because of King Rehoboam’s poor leadership following the death of his father Solomon, Israel seceded from Judah in 931 B.C., thereby dividing the kingdom into the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). The new kings of the northern kingdom wanted to consolidate their power in this new independent kingdom and this meant fostering the worship of the Lord in places like Dan and Bethel.
This explains why Amaziah the priest of Bethel is so suspicious of Amos. Amos is from Judah, not Israel. But Amos was of the belief that Israel and Judah worship the same Lord. Furthermore, Amos knows he has been commissioned by the Lord to warn his northern cousins that they must repent.
Amaziah wants Amos to go home:
You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!
This prompts Amos to respond that he doesn’t belong to any guild of prophets — and he certainly is no “court prophet.” His only responsibility is to the Lord:
I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
Amos’ answer to Amaziah is unequivocal and uncompromising. He is a faithful witness from the Lord, and says:
Now therefore listen to Yahweh’s word: “You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.” Therefore Yahweh says: “Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.”
Amos is prophesying around 750 B.C. while Israel is still intact and prosperous. Within 29 years, in the year 721 B.C., Amos’ warnings would come to pass. Israel would be conquered by the ruthless Assyrian empire and scattered to the four winds.
APPLY:
God’s standards for right and wrong, good and evil, are absolute. Like the plumb line, God’s standards measure our ethics and morality — and we are found wanting.
However, the role of the prophet is to warn us that we can still repent and turn and receive mercy. The role of the prophet can be thankless.
Pastors tend to try to comfort people. The prophet must be the bad guy, who tells us what we don’t want to hear. Just as nations need an independent judiciary, so the prophet needs to be independent — accountable only to God.
RESPOND:
I’ve given a lot of thought to the role of the prophet, and the difficulty of telling people the truth about the consequences of sin and injustice.
We have a tendency in modern culture to be “nice” to people. Young people, I’m told, want “safe spaces” where their opinions or choices won’t be challenged or contradicted.
But what if our opinions and choices are extremely dangerous to us? What if those beliefs and practices carry us away from God?
In that case, the work of a prophet in telling the truth is a little like that of a doctor. When a patient goes to the doctor, he doesn’t expect the doctor to tell him what he wants to hear. That would be very unloving and unhelpful. No, the doctor’s duty is to tell the truth, and then give the patient choices about his treatment.
In my mind, it is the doctor who tells me the truth that really cares about me, not the doctor who tells me what I want to hear.
Lord, give me the courage to hear the truth, as well as the courage to tell the truth. And remind me to always speak the truth in love. Amen.
PHOTOS:
“plumb line on sandstone wall” by P.W. Hatcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 