Amos 2 speaks as if the Angel raised up the prophets (cp. the Angel's words in Zech. 1:1-8): "I destroyed the Amorite before them (the work of the Angel-hornet). . . I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness (all the work of the Angel). . . I raised up your sons for prophets" (v. 9-11)- another example of Angelic involvement in a man's calling and spirituality. See on 2 Sam. 23:1-3

 

The Spirit's condemnation of Israel in Am. 2:14,15 is loaded with allusions to the fate of Saul and Jonathan on Gilboa, as recorded in David's lament over Jonathan and Saul: " The flight (cp. Saul and sons fleeing before the Philistines) shall perish from the swift  (= Saul and Jonathan " swifter than eagles" ), and the strong  shall not strengthen his force (= " stronger than lions" ), neither shall the mighty  (" How are the mighty fallen" ) deliver himself: neither shall he stand that handleth the bow  (=" the bow of Jonathan..." )" .

 

5:1  Lamentation- Heb. 'a funeral dirge'. This is the genre of the Hebrew text of chapter 5. But are Israel dead yet? In a sense they are not, but the word of judgment is so strong that it is as if they are. But the urgency is therefore to "Hear" God's word, so that the judgment He has decided may be changed, as happened with Nineveh. Likewise :2 "she shall no more rise"- but the whole point of Amos' appeal is that despite God having decided, in one sense, that this is the end- His sensitivity to repentance is such that He can still change. See on 5:4,6,15.

5:4 Live- The permanently dead Israel could yet live- see on 5:1.

5:6 Lest- Yet the judgment was already certain (see on 5:1). But God is open to repentance even at the very last minute, such is His sensitivity to our desire to be with Him.

5:11 The poor- Amos was maybe not poor himself. He was a "sheep farmer" (1:1), but this term is used about King Mesha (2 Kings 3:4) who was able to tribute thousands of sheep.  So his criticism of the rich was not simply because he was poor. 

5:11 This condemnation of the affluent is commented upon in 9:14, where the returned exiles are spoken of as rebuilding the houses and replanting the vineyards. But the ten tribes never returned from captivity in Assyria- the implication is that this was a potential which God enabled but which was never realized because they did not have the faith or will to bring it about. Likewise the predicted return of Judah in glory from Babylon never quite happened as prophesied because they majority preferred to remain in Babylon and those who did return failed to fulfil God's intentions.

5:13 This could be rendered: "So, at a time like this a sensible person keeps quiet;  for it is an evil time". In this case the reference would be to how Amaziah the priest told Amos to shut up and go and preach in Judah (Am. 7:10).

 

5:14 Seek good- Verse 4 called upon them to "Seek the Lord", but seeking God cannot be a mere abstract searching for theological truth on the internet or from a concordance. In practice, to seek God is to seek how in practice we can be just. Admittedly we must chose the battles we fight, as the Lord Jesus and Paul did, rather than get cranky about everything and everyone; but all the same, we need to ask ourselves what we are proactively doing to seek justice for the poor or marginalised.

 

5:15 It may be- The condemnation that seemed so certain could still be changed (see on 5:1). We too, according to the legal allusions of Romans, have been condemned- but by grace there is a way out.

 

The remnant of Joseph- 1:1 explains that Amos was prophesying at the time of Jeroboam, who in fact expanded the borders of Israel (2 Kings 14:26-28). Yet Joseph (a term for the 10 tribe Kingdom, seeing that the largest tribe was Ephraim, son of Joseph) is here described as already being a mere remnant- see on 5:1.

 

5:17 Pass through- Wailing in every home because Yahweh has passed through is exactly the language of God's destruction of the Egyptian firstborn (Ex. 12:12). They were acting like Egypt, and were to be judged like her- just as the unworthy amongst the new Israel will be "condemned with the world". No longer would God 'pass over' Israel as He had done when He spared them on Passover night (Am. 7:8; 8:2).

5:18 They wanted the day of the Lord, just as we can wish for the Lord's return- but that will not alone justify us. Israel at this time were externally obedient  to the Law (5:21) but this did not mean God was pleased with them. This is the basis for powerful self-examination.

5:19 "A man runs away from one dangerous animal - a lion - only to meet another - a bear - and finally reaching home leaning on the wall is bitten by a snake - we presume fatally".

5:24 The allusion is to Ps. 36:7: "Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your justice [like] the great deep". God's justice and righteousness is not to be simply marvelled at, but to be lived out by us in our lives. It was by doing this that the otherwise inevitable, already-pronounced condemnation of God could be avoided (see on 5:1). 

7:1 It could be argued that the timing of the judgment reflects God's grace- the first harvest had already happened, the King taking the best of the hay [note how Uzziah, the King in Amos' time, 1:1, "loved husbandry", 2 Chron. 26:10]. The grasshoppers [Heb. locusts] were prepared to destroy the secondary harvest which was not so crucial to survival. It could be that the locusts ate the grass but hadn't moved on to the crops. God's grace is seen in the midst of His judgments; He could have judged Israel far more severely, by destroying the primary harvest. The creation of a locust plague by God naturally alludes to the plague of locusts upon Egypt - which was ended by Moses' mediation for Egypt just as Amos now interceded for Israel. This is one of many examples of where God's apostate people are treated as and spoken of in the language of Egypt / the world; the ultimate punishment for the rejected will be to be sent back into the world, the Egypt which they had preferred in their day of opportunity, and share their destiny. Hence Paul writes of being "condemned with the world". See on 7:4.

 

Note that God consciously "forms" locusts... He sends His rain on the earth, there's a consciousness about every movement in the natural creation, a conscious expenditure of His energy and Spirit.

 

Note the LXX of Amos 7:1: "Behold, a swarm of locusts coming from the east; and, behold, one caterpillar, king Gog". Yet Amos intercedes: "Repent, O Lord, for this. And this shall not be, saith the Lord". This would suggest that the Gog invasion was conditional and was forestalled by the intercession of Amos; thus not only Ezekiel 40-48 would be conditional prophecy, but Ezekiel 38 and 39 also.

 

7:2 The only other time we read of Jacob being "small" is when the same Hebrew word is used about Jacob being the "younger" son (Gen. 27:15,42). God delights to work through the weak, the younger sons, the spiritually weak, the sinners... and Amos appeals to God's grace, to continue working through the weak Israel. For how else shall Jacob "arise"- and the same Hebrew words are used of the historical Jacob 'arising' and being saved by God's grace from a just destruction for his sins (Gen. 31:17; 35:1). We can use these ideas to comfort those who feel they have fallen so far into sin that God has stopped working with them. His style is quite the opposite- to use such desperate situations to bring men and women to be His truest servants.

 

God is open to changing His stated plan due to the mediation of others. It would even appear that Amos believed God could forgive the sins of others because of his prayers rather than their repentance. For Amos doesn't merely ask God not to execute His judgments, but to actually forgive Israel. There's an obvious similarity with the intercession of Moses; the only other person to pray "Forgive, I beseech You" is Moses- the same Hebrew words are found on his lips twice (Ex. 34:9; Num. 14:19). Moses' amazing example had been meditated upon by Amos as he did his agricultural work- and he rose up to the same level. He prayed the same prayer. We too should be motivated in our prayer lives by Biblical examples, even using the same words. So many Biblical prayers use the words of previous Scripture. God leads us to see the similarities between our situations and those of Biblical figures- e.g. by giving Amos a vision of judgment upon Israel in terms of a locust plague, which was intended to lead Amos to see Israel as Egypt and himself as Moses in making intercession to end the plague. Amos gets into the spirit of Moses by asking God to "cease" (7:5), using the same word used to describe how the plagues "ceased" as a result of Moses' intercession (Ex. 9:29,33,34).

 

The relatively small amount  of human repentance needed to make the Angel repent is shown in Amos 7. Amos sees visions of the impending judgements on Israel. After each he prays "O Lord God, forgive, I beseech Thee: who shall stand for Jacob? ('If you, his Angel-God, don't?') for he is small" (Am. 7:2). The answer comes :"The Lord repented for this. It shall not be, saith the Lord". He repented for the sake of one intense prayer! Notice too Amos asking "Who shall stand for Jacob?". Michael the Angel stands for Israel in the court of Heaven (as the Angel 'God of Jacob'; Dan. 12:1), and thus it appears Amos is pointing out that if Israel is condemned and punished they will have no Angel with them- and so the Angel / God changes His mind.

 

7:3 There really were intended Divine judgments upon Israel at this time which didn't happen thanks to a subsistence farmer praying to God to change His mind... Note the huge implications of the two words "for this". For those few words of Amos, Almighty God changed His mind. What's amazing is that Amos had opened his prophecy by relaying the statement that God would not repent of His judgment of Israel (Am. 2:6).

 

7:4 Called- to the Angels in the court of Heaven? "Contend" suggests a reference to Elijah calling God to contend by fire against an apostate Israel.

 

Israel are likened to the sea, being burnt up by the heat of God's wrath. But the sea is usually a symbol of the Gentile world- as in the notes on 7:1, apostate Israel are being likened to the Gentiles. God at that time would've burnt up all Israel- had not Amos interceded. This is exactly what happened with Moses. The idea of "part" of God's land and people being burnt up by judgment is common in Revelation- the implication of the allusions back here to Amos could be that all God's land / people aren't destroyed in the last days because of intercession by third parties- ourselves?

 

7:8 Pass by them- See on 5:17. GNB "I will not change my mind again about punishing them". God is aware that He has changed His mind... elsewhere He warns that this time, His threatened punishment of Israel will not be as another echo in the mountains (Ez. 7:7). But... He still doesn't destroy them fully. Hos. 11:8 describes His unbearable tension: "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together" (Hos. 11:8). This is the God whose word is ultimately firm still being open to changing it- such is the extent of His love for Israel; and us.

 

7:9 We never read of Isaac having any idolatrous "high places", but all the patriarchs were amazingly weak at times and so it doesn't surprise us. The point is, the secret sins of God's people, e.g. those of Isaac which by grace aren't recorded in the Biblical record, will be revealed in the time of judgment. Hence the reference in 7:16 to "the house of Isaac".

 

7:14 Amos stresses that speaking forth God's word wasn't at all what he wished to do or was cut out for. Likewise Paul says that because preaching God's word was against his natural inclination, therefore a calling to preach the Gospel had indeed been given to him (1 Cor. 9:17). Paul was sent to the Gentiles and not the Jews as he might naturally have preferred; the disciples were unlearned and ignorant men called to preach to the Jewish intelligentsia; women weren't accepted as legal witnesses and yet the Lord asks women to be the first witnesses of His resurrection; always in the preaching of His word does God use those who humanly aren't qualified to do so. He doesn't use slick presentation, but rather human weakness in order to convert others. Amos doubtless alludes to himself in Am. 3:8 where he says that a prophet cannot but speak out God's word- and this is alluded to by the apostles when they say they cannot but speak out what they have seen and heard of Christ.

 

Amos doesn't actually answer the serious false allegation against him personally, but gets on with speaking forth God's word.

 

7:17 Imagine the nervous tone of voice in which Amos likely said those words.

 

Individual animals may be commanded by the Angels to bring about His purpose- Amos 9 is an example of this . "Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence (this is the language of Angelic limitation- all things are known to God without His searching for them): and though they be hid from My sight (i. e. God's Angel-eyes) in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent and it shall bite them" (v. 3)- in the same way as the Angel commanded Balaam's donkey. The Angelic context is set by the following:

v. 1 "The Lord standing upon the altar"- cp. the Angel of Lk. 1:11 and other Angels appearing by altars

v. 5 "God of Hosts" (Angels)

v. 8 "the eyes (Angels) of the Lord".

 

8:2 See on 5:17.

9:6 See on Mt. 6:26