seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Amos 6:1 Woe to you who are complacent in Zion,
and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you notable men of the foremost nation,
to whom the people of Israel come!
2 Go to Kalneh and look at it;
go from there to great Hamath,
and then go down to Gath in Philistia.
Are they better off than your two kingdoms?
Is their land larger than yours?
3 You put off the day of disaster
and bring near a reign of terror.
4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory
and lounge on your couches.
You dine on choice lambs
and fattened calves.
5 You strum away on your harps like David
and improvise on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful
and use the finest lotions,
but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile;
your feasting and lounging will end.
and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you notable men of the foremost nation,
to whom the people of Israel come!
2 Go to Kalneh and look at it;
go from there to great Hamath,
and then go down to Gath in Philistia.
Are they better off than your two kingdoms?
Is their land larger than yours?
3 You put off the day of disaster
and bring near a reign of terror.
4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory
and lounge on your couches.
You dine on choice lambs
and fattened calves.
5 You strum away on your harps like David
and improvise on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful
and use the finest lotions,
but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile;
your feasting and lounging will end.
8 The Sovereign Lord has sworn by himself—the Lord God Almighty declares:
“I abhor the pride of Jacob
and detest his fortresses;
I will deliver up the city
and everything in it.”
and detest his fortresses;
I will deliver up the city
and everything in it.”
9 If ten people are left in one house, they too will die. 10 And if the relative who comes to carry the bodies out of the house to burn them[a] asks anyone who might be hiding there, “Is anyone else with you?” and he says, “No,” then he will go on to say, “Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”
11 For the Lord has given the command,
and he will smash the great house into pieces
and the small house into bits.
and he will smash the great house into pieces
and the small house into bits.
12 Do horses run on the rocky crags?
Does one plow the sea[b] with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison
and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness—
13 you who rejoice in the conquest of Lo Debar[c]
and say, “Did we not take Karnaim[d] by our own strength?”
Does one plow the sea[b] with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison
and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness—
13 you who rejoice in the conquest of Lo Debar[c]
and say, “Did we not take Karnaim[d] by our own strength?”
14 For the Lord God Almighty declares,
“I will stir up a nation against you, Israel,
that will oppress you all the way
from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah.”
“I will stir up a nation against you, Israel,
that will oppress you all the way
from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah.”
a. Amos 6:10 Or to make a funeral fire in honor of the dead
b. Amos 6:12 With a different word division of the Hebrew; Masoretic Text plow there
c. Amos 6:13 Lo Debar means nothing.
d. Amos 6:13 Karnaim means horns; horn here symbolizes strength.
This is from the easy English site.
Perhaps the leaders realise that there may be a day of judgement. But they think that this day is a long time in the future. In the meantime, they continue to make trouble for the poor people. The ‘rule of terror’ may refer to unfair judgements by the courts or government. The Hebrew uses the words ‘seat of terror’.
Amos now speaks to the rich people. They were lazy. They spent their money on things of little real value. Most Israelites ate very little meat. They only ate meat on special occasions. But the rich people ate lots of meat. And they did not care that society had many things wrong with it.
The rich people amused themselves by playing music. They had so much time that they could live like kings and queens.
As well as this, the rich people became drunk. They drank too much wine. And they did not care how they drank it! It was a good idea to use oils in the time of Amos. It was a way to keep clean. However, the rich people used very expensive oils. It was not necessary to spend so much money. But they did not care about their own country. They did not care that they were ruining their nation.
This is the second time that God makes a promise. The other times are in 4:2 and 8:7. Each promise is a promise of punishment. The punishment is final. God will not change his mind. The people of Israel (or Jacob) are too proud. Pride is the cause of most of their sin. They are too confident about their strong places. But the enemy will take Samaria.
When the attack happens, there will be hunger and illness. There will be no escape for anyone. People will hide in inner rooms. Their relatives will come to these rooms. Perhaps there is a chance that more than one person is still alive. But they must not hope. They will not want to suffer any more. This is why they will not ‘mention’ the name ‘the Lord’. They accept that this is his punishment. They do not want to make him more angry. The time is over when they can pray to God. God has left them.
God has given instructions to the enemy. The details of the attack do not matter. God will make sure that the end will come. All types of houses will fall – big and small. Perhaps these are the ‘summer houses’ and ‘winter houses’ in Amos 3:15.
Amos now uses some examples that seem a little unlikely. A good rider would not take his horse over rocks. A good farmer would not try to plough over rocks. These actions would not be sensible, and they would only have bad results. They are not normal actions. But Israel has done the opposite of what is good and normal. The Israelites did not want fair laws. As a result, when good people tried to do good things, they were disappointed. It was like eating bitter food. The prophets in the Old Testament knew the terrible power of sin.
Amos now uses Hebrew in a clever way. It is difficult to give the proper meaning in a translation. ‘Lo Debar’ means ‘nothing’. ‘Karnaim’ means ‘horns’. The word ‘horns’ is a way of saying ‘strength’. Jeroboam 2nd took these cities in war (2 Kings 14:25-28). When Israel won these battles, she thought that she had become great. However, God did not think that these battles were important.
Amos has a surprise for Israel! Other nations seemed weak, but God would change this. Hamath was on the northern boundary of Israel. The Arabah valley was on the southern boundary. The Dead Sea was in the Arabah valley. Amos does not give a name to the enemy. However, Israel could be sure that the enemy would come. Nobody in Israel would escape.
This little summary is from bibletrack.org.These verses are particularly cryptic at first glance, but keep in mind, he's talking to the God-rejecting, living-it-up inhabitants of Israel (Northern Kingdom); the less-than-obvious references in this chapter would have been very piercing to Israel's inhabitants with regard to some of their daily practices and attitudes. All of these verses implicate Israel in that they took pride in their riches and national strength, but Assyria would soon bring all of their pride to a screeching halt. Woe to you! They were living like there was no tomorrow - no tomorrow to face God. But notice the prophecy of Amos in verse 8, "The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein." Verse 14 caps this chapter off with the promise that God will raise up a nation against Israel to afflict them. Assyria is coming! Assyria's defeat of Israel (Northern Kingdom) took place in 721/722 B.C. during the reign of King Hoshea of Israel (II Kings 17).
These rich people.... according to Hollywood.... didn't have to go to the office. They had big palaces and the office would come to them. They could lay around strumming a harp and drinking wine all day and all night. It didn't matter.... they were rich and entitled.... and stupid..... people like Amos had been warning them that they were responsible for their own actions..... and their treatment of the poor was making God really angry.These rich people were all about collecting more money. They put fees and taxes on the money loaned to the poor. Keeping the workforce impoverished and dependent guaranteed slave wage labor forces.
This is from studylight.org.
It is too late to call upon God now; it is the time of vengeance. We rejected him in life; we may not cry to him in death. St. Jerome refers the prohibition to the hardness of heart and unbelief of the people, who even in all this misery will not confess the name of the Lord. Keil says, "It indicates a fear lest, by the invocation of the name of God, his eye should be drawn towards this last remaining one, and he also should fall a victim to the judgment of death." Others again think that the notion in the mind of the impious speaker is that Jehovah is the Author of all their calamities, and that he is impatient at the very mention of his name. The simplest explanation is the first, or a modification of it The person addressed is about to pray or to call on God in his distress. "Be silent," says the speaker; "we can no longer appeal to Jehovah as the covenant God; by naming him we call to his remembrance how we have broken the covenant, violated our relation to him; therefore provoke him not further by making mention of his name."
There comes a time when it is just too late....... In the days of the Old Testament..... Jesus hadn't been to earth with the antidote to death. When people died they died. They were buried or burned.... but they were dead. There was no hope for those relatives.... there was no solace. They wouldn't "hope" to see their loved ones again in Heaven.... there was no Heaven for those who laid around drunk all day.... there was no Heaven for those who threw their food to the dogs rather than give to the poor. This bunch of drunk, self absorbed, over indulged, morons..... would be drug out of their homes.... off of their fancy couches..... first. They would be at the head of the line.... a line they didn't want to be in.... but they would be in a place at the front of the line.... castrated or raped..... with a hook through their lip..... dragged for months to a place where they would be the slave labor..... Their relatives would come to bury the dead..... the stench in the city must have been stomach wrenching..... all those dead bodies.... rotting.... there were no refrigerated morgues.... they used herbs to cover the rotting stench. There's a lot of talk about the people searching for their relatives.... who would have hidden in the weirdest places to keep from being murdered, castrated, raped or enslaved..... but the worst part for those searching for their relatives.... must have been not finding them.... and knowing they had been taken..... enslaved.....
These people didn't care about God. So God let them live [or die] their own life.
