Amos 7:7-17 is part of a series of visions the Lord gave to Amos and the response of the king and Amaziah.
The five visions contained in chapters 7-9 reveal an introspective side to his character. They connect with the remarkable call of Amos. They play out a drama between the Lord and Amos that arose out of deepest solitude. They foretell doom upon Israel. The series of visions he relates have no parallels, for he has no older tradition on which he depends for the contents. He simply ponders the situation he saw in Israel. [1]He had concern for the changes and tensions in the political world of Israel. Locusts, fire, God standing at a wall, and a sheaf of ripe grain are the content of the visions. A psychological turning point may appear between the second and third, in that the possibility of repentance no longer exists. He may have had a premonition of disaster at the beginning of his call, and later interpreted the present considering that.
Amos 7:1-9 relates three reports in prose of prophetic visions of judgment, with another in 8:1-3 and a final vision of destruction in 9:1-6. In the first two, the Lords relents. The wrath of God is not an attribute of God, for as we learn here, the Lord can interrupt or the mercy of God can turn it aside.[2] The first prophetic vision of locusts is in 7:1-3. My Lord God showed me the divine creation of a plague of locusts at the time when the late-sown crops were beginning to sprout and after the king’s reaping, which occurred near the end of the rainy season. Whatever the locust destroyed after that could not be replaced for another year. When the locusts finished devouring the vegetation in the land, Amos offered an intercessory lament on behalf of Israel that the Lord God would forgive, for how shall Jacob survive, given the diminishing size of the kingdom? The Lord relented, saying the vision will not happen. The Lord relented, not because the people are innocent, but because they had become small. Divine judgment is never final.[3] The second prophetic vision of judgment by fire is in 7:4-6. The Lord God summoned to contend by fire that consumed the Great Deep and was consuming the fields. Amos offered an intercessory lament on behalf of Israel that the Lord God would forgive, for how shall Jacob survive, given the diminishing size of the kingdom? The Lord relented by saying this will not happen either. Amos 7:7-9 is the third in a series of prophetic visions. The theme is the plumbline. 7 This is what he (the Lord) showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line (`anak, unique to this passage), with a plumb line in his hand. This vision consists of the Lord showing the prophet a wall out of line. The etymology of ‘anak connects it to the lead found in the weight at the end of a builder’s plumb line. The vision symbolically uses the instrument to establish Israel as the chosen people in the first place. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” The plumbline was a test to see if the wall is straight and true. We have here an example of one of many biblical ideas of revelation. The prophet sees an ordinary object that strikes him with peculiar force. It contains a message revealed by God.[4] We find a parallel in Jeremiah 1:11-13, where the Lord asks Jeremiah what he sees, and he sees a branch of an almond tree and a boiling pot tilted from the north. Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. The plumb line is now the instrument by which the Lord measures Israel’s fault. In setting up the plumb line, the Lord is testing to see if the nation measures up. They do not. I will never again pass them by; 9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam (referring to Jeroboam II, but better to refer to the House of Jehu) with the sword.” This was the last stable dynasty of Israel. Of course, in turning upon the House of Jehu, the Lord is turning upon Israel. The plumb line is the symbolic representation of the entire revelation given to Israel, from the call of Abraham to the Mosaic covenant to the prophetic establishment that included Samuel, Nathan and Amos himself. This is a type of saying from Amos is what Amaziah found objectionable.
Remember that this text is a reference to the people of God, not the unbeliever, being out of plumb. If you have lived in a house that was not square, the floors were slanted so that if you put a marble on it it would roll to the corner, you know the importance of the plumb line even today. One can live in it, but only uncomfortably.
A prophet sees the self-destructive nature of the times in which he lived. Suffering will be the result. Assyria will carry off the northern ten tribes into exile. Most of us can only imagine the suffering these people would endure.
During the Holocaust, a man asked Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, whom the Nazis later murdered, why God allowed such suffering. Rabbi Wasserman replied with a parable: Imagine a city dweller visits a farm and marvels over the green pastures. The farmer walks in with his shovel and turns over the soil. The city dweller is aghast. These were beautiful green pastures, and now it is all mud. The farmer proceeds to take perfectly clean seeds and sprinkle them all over the mud. The city dweller is again aghast. With time, the seeds sprout and a golden field of grain waves in the wind. Finally, the city dweller understands that what was destructive was in fact constructive. To grow a golden field of grain, you must kill the beautiful grass, turn over the soil and plant the seeds. Today, concluded Rabbi Wasserman, all we see is death and destruction. However, when Mashiach comes, we will see how much our suffering has achieved. Not only will we appreciate our suffering at that point, but we will also yearn for those days, thinking that if only we had suffered a little more, we would have achieved so much more.[5]
Amos 7: 10-17 is the challenge Amaziah, custodian of the royal shrine at Bethel, offers to Amos. It occurs here because the previous prophetic vision mentions the House of Jeroboam II. 10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. Amos viewed his preaching as announcing divine judgment. Amaziah views it as sedition. We might also note the power of the word as well. Thus, in predicting the end of the rule of the House of Jehu, Amos prompts paranoia in the king and his priest in Bethel that the prophet may be conspiring with the pro-Damascus coalition to remove him in favor of Pekah. The text portrays Amaziah as a royal lackey. First, he reports the words of Amos to King Jeroboam. 11 For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” The point of Amaziah is that the prophecy of Amos was treasonous because it would demoralize the people. Second, we can assume at the request of the king, Amaziah denounces Amos’ oracle and bans him from the royal shrine. 12 And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer (not a derogatory term), go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there. The prophet is from Judah, so Amaziah sends him home. 13 But never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” According to Genesis 28:10-19, Jacob founded Bethel. The Lord established a covenant and in response Jacob set up a stone as a pillar and poured oil on it, renaming the place Bethel. Jeroboam I tried to establish it as the place of worship. The encounter between Amos and Amaziah is a classic illustration of the clash between charismatic prophet and institutional religious functionary. That conflict will solidify into a checks-and-balances system by which the religious tradition of ancient Israel could remain, in theory, both self-perpetuating (in the priesthood) and self-regulating (in the prophetic tradition). Both poles of this system contributed to Israel’s religious vitality, and both posed risks. 14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, referring to the prophetic guild; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, the food of the poor. Amos says he is not a professional prophet, who may be hired for his services and thus bought. Rather, he earns his living as a farmer. 15 The Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Amos refers to the call of God but does not describe the call. This call took him away from his job to perform a particular task. This being so, he has no alternative but to prophesy. His reply enhances the authority associated with his message. Thus, in the face of the royal directive from a priest who has sold his holy office for political power, Amos proceeds to prophesy. The passage concludes with a chilling prediction from Amos about Amaziah and his own family. 16 “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ We see an example of a criticism others gave of the prophet, but the prophet turning it around to criticism of his opponents. 17 Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’” The chilling prophesy regarding Amaziah and his family is that they will participate in the impending disaster that is coming to the rest of the northern kingdom of Israel. Amaziah defends his faith and the faith of his people. Amos had gone beyond any prophet before him in declaring that Israel will disappear from the land. He was denying the very foundation of religion and state. Yahweh would no longer forgive these people. The fulfillment of his prophecies came 30-40 years later with the coming of Assyria, which defeated all the nations, including Samaria.
Amaziah tried his hand at conflict management. He thought Amos should speak things fitting and proper to the setting of a royal chapel. However, the Bible often condemns those who say only soothing things. The Bible does not suggest avoidance of conflict at any cost. Amos was the quintessential “doom and gloom” prophet. We often misunderstand prophecy as doomsday soothsayers, apocalyptic dreamers, and militant revolutionaries. Prophecy is not the result of seeing into the future. Rather, prophecy is the faithful declaration of the implications of current actions on the future, with the hope of having an impact on both.[6] The heavy emphasis of Amos is on Israel’s wrongs and the divine punishment the nation could expect as a result. Amos conceived of those wrongs as various forms of social injustice that had so permeated Israelite society that the entire nation was out of line, as this vision represents. His vision is an unpopular one in any culture and time. Well-meaning and sometimes not-so-well-meaning actions create problems that can grow beyond our ability to solve. We then must face the monstrous consequences of our actions. Human beings of every culture and time prefer recklessness without responsibility. We want to play, but not to pay.
The story is told of a young soldier brought before General Robert E. Lee because he was charged with some offense. The young man was so afraid that he was shaking. General Lee looked at him and said, "Don't be afraid son, you'll get justice here." The young soldier replied, "That's why I'm shaking, sir."
The life and prophecies of Amos raise a question I am not prepared to resolve here. If the victim and violator perceive the justice of receiving the consequences of one’s actions, is that same as forgiveness? The point is that consequences can hold people accountable for their behavior and include a type of forgiveness. Yet, that observation raises another question. Where is the place of forgiveness if a perpetrator suffers no consequences? Is there forgiveness for the unrepentant? There is a Japanese proverb that speaks to the elusiveness of this question: "Forgiving the unrepentant is like drawing pictures on water."[7] I need to ponder this more.
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[5] —Lazer Gurkow, “A mother’s comfort,” Chabad.org. chabad.org. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
[6] Inspired by -Bob Hulteen, "Once a Millennium," Sojourners, July-August 1998, 65.
[7] Inspired by -Mary Samuels, "The Question of Forgiveness," www.realjustice.org.
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