Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 13
IMMERSED IN AMOS
I N T H E F I R S T H A L F of
the eighth century bc , the northern kingdom of
Israel reached its greatest heights of prosperity and strength under
the long reign of Jeroboam II. Israel’s leaders and nobles reveled in
the glory and power of their economic success and military prowess.
They believed that this reflected God’s favor and blessings upon them.
After all, didn’t they bring lavish offerings to their gods at the temple in
Bethel, which was the king’s sanctuary and a national place of worship,
as well as at other shrines such as in Gilgal and Dan?
But their self-satisfaction was disturbed by the words of a shepherd
from a small town in the southern kingdom: “The temples of Israel will
be destroyed; I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden
end.” Why did the prophet Amos bring these dire words to the people?
In the midst of their comfort and wealth, the Lord had seen the truth:
“They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed
out of the way.” Israel’s brash self-assurance was built on idolatrous
worship, gross injustice, and mistreatment of the poor. So God sent his
messenger to warn the northern kingdom of their coming judgment
and demise.
The leaders of Israel gave Amos’s warning all the attention they felt
it deserved: They threw him out of the kingdom and told him to take
his message back to Judah where he’d come from. So Amos left, but
his prophecies were written down to preserve them as an ongoing witness against the injustices that would doom the northern kingdom. He
became the earliest of the “writing prophets,” whose words have been
collected for us in the Bible.
The book of Amos begins by establishing the credibility of his warnings.
Its superscription specifies that he received his message “two years before the earthquake.” Amos had predicted this: “The earth will tremble
for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The ground will rise like the
Nile River at floodtime; it will heave up, then sink again.” And when this
earthquake came, it was devastating. Geologists have found evidence
at multiple sites of widespread and sudden destruction consistent with
a massive earthquake late in the reign of Jeroboam II.
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