1 The words of Amos, who was one of the sheep breeders ,a from Tekoa b—what he saw regarding Israel in the days of King Uzziah c of Judah and Jeroboam d son of Jehoash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. e
2 He said:
The LORD roars f from Zion
and makes his voice heard from Jerusalem;
the pastures of the shepherds mourn, ,g
and the summit of Carmel h withers.
Judgment on Israel’s Neighbors
3 The LORD says:
I will not relent from punishing Damascus i
for three crimes, even four, j
because they threshed Gilead with iron sledges.
4 Therefore, I will send fire against Hazael’s palace,
and it will consume Ben-hadad’s k citadels.
5 I will break down the gates ,l of Damascus.
I will cut off the ruler from the Valley of Aven,
and the one who wields the scepter from Beth-eden.
The people of Aram will be exiled to Kir. m
The LORD has spoken.
6 The LORD says:
I will not relent from punishing Gaza n
for three crimes, even four,
because they exiled a whole community,
handing them over to Edom.
7 Therefore, I will send fire against the walls of Gaza,
and it will consume its citadels.
8 I will cut off the ruler from Ashdod, o
and the one who wields the scepter from Ashkelon. p
I will also turn my hand against Ekron,
and the remainder of the Philistines q will perish.
The Lord GOD has spoken.
9 The LORD says:
I will not relent from punishing Tyre r
for three crimes, even four,
because they handed over
a whole community of exiles to Edom
and broke a treaty of brotherhood. s
10 Therefore, I will send fire t against the walls of Tyre,
and it will consume its citadels.
11 The LORD says:
I will not relent from punishing Edom u
for three crimes, even four,
because he pursued his brother with the sword. v
He stifled his compassion,
his anger tore at him w continually,
and he harbored his rage incessantly.
12 Therefore, I will send fire against Teman, x
and it will consume the citadels of Bozrah.
13 The LORD says:
I will not relent from punishing the Ammonites y
for three crimes, even four,
because they ripped open
the pregnant women of Gilead z
in order to enlarge their territory. a
14 Therefore, I will set fire to the walls of Rabbah, b
and it will consume its citadels.
There will be shouting on the day of battle c
and a violent wind on the day of the storm. d
15 Their king and his princes
will go into exile together. e
The LORD has spoken.
A. The superscription (1:1–2). This book begins like most other prophetic books (1:1): by identifying the author of these words (Amos), his secular employment (a manager of shepherds), his location (Tekoa), his audience (the northern tribes in Israel), and his time (during the reign of Uzziah and Jeroboam II), probably around 765–760 BC. The words that he spoke he “saw,” a term that points to the prophet perceiving them through the medium of divine revelation.
1:3–5. First, Amos gives an oracle about the defeat of Syria and its capital city of Damascus (1:3). The prophet’s Israelite audience would quickly agree with Amos that Syria had acted in rebellion against God. They had sinned “three . . . even four” times, a rhetorical expression that indicates repeated rebellion and legitimates God’s punishment. It was just for God to bring his wrath against them, for recently they had mistreated the Israelite people living in Gilead, the area east of the Sea of Galilee (2 Kg 13:1–7). Amos compares their immoral behavior to the harvesting of grain. Just as farmers drag heavy wooden threshing sledges with iron spikes over the grain to separate the grain from the stalk, so the Syrians have brutalized the people of Gilead by running over them. Consequently, God will send the fire of war against the palaces of kings Hazael and Ben-hadad, destroy the gates of Damascus, remove the people who live in the distant provinces of Syria, and exile the remaining people back to the place where they came from in Kir (1:4–5; cf. 9:7).
1:6–8. Using nearly identical terminology, the second oracle speaks out against the Philistines, who have also committed many rebellious acts. God will hold them accountable and pour out his wrath on them. Amos castigates Gaza for kidnapping the entire population of some unwalled villages and then selling them to the Edomites (1:6). Consequently, God will bring fire on the palaces of Gaza and the other Philistine fortified cities (1:7). The common people, the rulers in these cities, and the remnant that remains will perish (1:8). Certainly the Israelite audience would have applauded the words of this prophet from Judah.
1:9–10. The next two oracles, addressing God’s plans for the Phoenicians (1:9–10) and the Edomites (1:11–12), use a slightly different pattern: the punishment statement is shorter, and there is no final “The LORD has spoken.” The Phoenicians from the cities of Tyre (and probably Sidon) have sinned repeatedly, so it is proper for God to send his wrath against them. Their sin is similar to that of the Philistines, in that both of these nations have sold people to Edom (1:9). But selling an entire community of innocent people (possibly Israelites) is not their only fault, for the Phoenicians have kidnapped people from a country with which they had a peace treaty. Instead of respecting their treaty, the Phoenicians have betrayed this trust and broken their covenant. This may have happened because King Jehu killed the children of Ahab and Jezebel (she was a Phoenician; 2 Kg 10:1–11), although Amos never identifies this specifically. Amos’s Israelite audience would naturally despise the treasonous acts of these former allies, so they would wholeheartedly agree that God should destroy Tyre with fire and ruin the king’s palace (1:10).
1:11–12. Next Amos addresses the many sins of Edom, the descendants of Esau (Gn 36:1). Although Jacob and Esau were blood brothers and should have had brotherly love for one another, the two nations that came from these brothers fought again and again (2 Sm 8:11–14; 2 Kg 8:20–22; 14:7; 16:6). Amos concludes that it was just for God’s wrath to fall on Edom because the Edomites have had absolutely no mercy on the sons of Jacob, but in great anger repeatedly they have allowed the fire of their hatred to drive them to kill their brothers (1:11). Consequently, the audience would agree with God’s plan to send the fires of war against the main Edomite city of Teman and destroy the palaces in Bozrah (1:12).
1:13–15. The last pair of oracles addresses the future of the Ammonites (1:13–15) and Moabites (2:1–3), the two nations that came from Lot’s two daughters (Gn 19:30–38). God’s word about the Ammonites is that his determination will not vacillate, for he has decided to pour out his wrath on them because of their acts of rebellion. Among their rebellious deeds is the specific sin of ripping open pregnant women from Gilead, a heinous atrocity in which the Ammonites killed innocent noncombatants, defenseless women and their unborn children, in a time of war, simply to enlarge the borders of Ammon (1:13; cf. 2 Kg 15:16). Certainly Amos’s audience in Samaria would agree that God is just in kindling the fires of war on the capital city of Ammon (Rabbah) to destroy the palaces of the king who has ordered these atrocities and to exile their rulers and princes to another land (1:14–15).