The greater the privileges the greater the responsibilities
3
📚Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family 📖 which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2 📚“You only 📖 have I known 📖 of
all the families of the earth,
therefore 📖 I will punish you for all
your evil deeds.
3 📚Can two walk together,
unless they are in agreement?
3:3 God and Israel could not go on together unless Israel was in agreement with God’s laws and ways. If Israel would not agree there must be the punishment of separation. Compare Hos 1:2-9.⚜
God speaks through the prophet
4 📚Will a lion roar in the forest,
when he has no prey?
Will a young lion cry out of his den,
if he has caught nothing?
5 📚Can a bird fall in a snare
on the earth,
where there is no trap for it?
Will a trap spring up from the ground,
if it has caught nothing at all?
3:4-5 Every event has a cause. Lions roar thinking of their prey. They growl when they are eating it. Birds are not caught without a trap or snare. And traps and snares do not catch something if there is nothing there. Amos means that God was roaring against them (Amos 1:2) and had laid a trap for them.⚜
6 📚Will a trumpet be blown
in the city,
without the people being afraid?
Will there be a disaster in a city,
without the LORD causing it?
3:6 People tremble when a trumpet sounds an alarm – Joel 2:1. Disaster coming on a city is like a trumpet sound from God. It does not come without cause and the cause is the Lord Himself.⚜
7 📚Surely the Lord God does nothing
without revealing his secret 📖
to his servants the prophets.
8 📚The lion has roared! Who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken!
Who can but prophesy 📖?
3:7-8 Here Amos applies the above illustrations. Why is he there warning them of coming disaster? Because God had revealed to him what was coming and told him to prophesy. His prophesying was God roaring like a lion through him and the roar was a sure sign that disaster was coming on them. Compare Hos 5:14.⚜
The people of Israel, afflicting the poor and living in luxury, will in fact bring punishment
9 📚Make a proclamation in the palaces
at Ashdod, and in the palaces
in the land of Egypt, and say,
“Assemble on the mountains of Samaria,
and see the great tumults in her midst,
and the oppression within her”.
10 📚“For they do not know how
to do right”, says the LORD,
“who store up in their palaces
the gains of violence
and robbery”.
3:9-10 People who did not have God’s law and did not know God are called as witnesses against Israel. Even such people could see that what Israel was doing was wrong.⚜
11 📚Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“There will be an enemy 📖
surrounding the land,
and he will deprive you of your strength,
and your palaces will be plundered”.
3:11 The rich and powerful in Israel hoarded their wealth and oppressed the poor – Amos 2:6-7. God would deal with them as they dealt with others (see note at Ps 18:25-26).⚜
12 📚Thus says the LORD:
“As a shepherd takes out of the mouth
of a lion two legs,
or a piece of an ear, so will the children
of Israel who live in Samaria be
taken out on the corner of a bed,
and to Damascus on a couch.
13 📚Listen and testify against
the house of Jacob”,
says the Lord God, the God of hosts,
14 📚“That in the day that I punish 📖 Israel
for his transgressions,
I will also punish the altars of Bethel 📖,
and the horns of the altar
will be cut off,
and fall to the ground.
15 📚And I will strike the winter house
with the summer house,
and the houses of ivory will perish,
and the great houses will come
to an end”, says the LORD.
3:15 This verse speaks of wealth and luxury. God would destroy all that because it was based on selfishness and contempt for the poor (Amos 4:1). See 1 Tim 6:6-19.⚜