amos 7 and 8

Read Amos 7 and 8 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Amo 7:1-6 {p} Destruction by locust + fire, but the Lord relented from them at the cry of Amos
Amo 7:7-9 {s} The plumb line in the midst of Israel: destruction for her high places + house of Jeroboam
Amo 7:10-11 {s} Amaziah priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam the king: Amos has conspired against you
Amo 7:12-17 {p} Amaziah sent Amos away: the end of Amaziah’s house + Israel taken captive from their land
Amo 8:1-3 {p} The vision of summer fruit: the end of the kingdom of Israel
Amo 8:4-8 {p} The sin of Israel: increasing wealth by deceit + oppressing the poor
Amo 8:9-10 {p} The day will be a day of darkness, mourning, lamentation
Amo 8:11-14 {s} The day of famine in the land for the word of the Lord

Amo 8:2b-10 chiastic structure:

1a) Amo 8:2b, The Lord said: The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore;

1b) Amo 8:3 {p} The songs of the temple shall be wailing/ dead bodies everywhere;

1c) Amo 8:4a, Hear this, you who swallow up the needy;

1d) Amo 8:4b, And make the poor of the land fail;

central axis) Amo 8:5, Saying: When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit;

2d) Amo 8:6a, That we may buy the poor for silver;

2c) Amo 8:6b, And the needy for a pair of sandals— even sell the bad wheat?”

2b) Amo 8:7-10a, The feasts of the land shall be mourning;

1a) Amo 8:7-8a, The Lord has sworn: Surely I will never forget their works. Shall not the land tremble + mourn?
1b) Amo 8:8b {p} The land shall swell like the River, heave and subside like the River of Egypt;
central axis) Amo 8:9a, And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord God;
2b) Amo 8:9b, That I will make the sun go down at noon + darken the earth in broad daylight;
2a) Amo 8:10a, I will turn your feasts into mourning + your songs into lamentation;

2a) Amo 8:10b {p} And its end like a bitter day.

Amos prophesied ruin and captivity upon Israel, for her sins of idolatry, coveting material gain at the expense of the poor, and holding to a form of godliness while denying its power. Israel celebrated new moons and sabbath days, outwardly, and could not wait for them to be over so they could open their businesses again (Amo 8:5). They mixed elements of the LORD’s worship that they learned from Moses, with the pagan worship of their golden calves that the first Jeroboam established in Bethel and Dan.

When Amos was told to go home to Judah, and prophesy no more at Bethel of the death of the king and the captivity of Israel, the LORD decreed (since Israel despised hearing the word of the LORD) that the days were coming, when there would be a famine of hearing the word of the LORD, and the people would seek for it diligently but not find it (Amo 8:11-12). In fact, this happened, as there was a four hundred year period in between the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, and the birth of Jesus, the Living Word, where there was no prophet in Israel.

But notice how wonderfully the LORD ended that famine: He came Himself, the Living Word incarnate, in Jesus our Lord!