““The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.” Amos 8:11-13 NLT
Amos isn’t famous, rich or educated, but he just had enough of Israel’s abundant flaunting of wealth and hubristic treatment of the poor. Being a shepherd and a fig tree farmer didn’t stop him from hearing from God, putting together his sermons and messages about what he heard and delivering it in Bethel, where there was a large temple.
Israel, under Jeroboam 2, had become extremely powerful and wealthy. The king had won a lot of battles and secured Israel’s borders so that everyone prospered. Everyone, except the poor. The rich got richer and the poor not only got poorer, they became slaves to the wealthy families. And because they were poor, there was no representation or help when cheated in transactions. All the while, the Jewish well to do continued to go to temple, pay their taxes, and party hard in the religious celebrations. And, worst of all the people did all of this while experiencing and expanding their worship of idols. In the people’s eyes, the nation was flourishing and the wealthy were happy to add Jehovah to a list of other gods as a part of their cultural, religious experiences.
This average Amos guy comes into town with big warnings and harsh words for the privileged and those who just wanted to live the good life without giving a second thought to God or his rules. Earlier in chapter 8, God shows Amos a basket of ripe fruit, figs most likely. God says that the ripe fruit represents the people being ripe for judgment. In one verse God says “You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.” (8:5). Just normal folks, playing a dangerous game of living high while behaving horribly to their fellow (poor) Israelites.
In these verses, God tells Amos, the next big famine that God will send on them will be worse than the ones before. What is worse than a food famine or a disastrous drought? God will quit speaking. There will not be any words, no communication, no messages from heaven – God goes silent. If we lined up all the Old Testament prophets, the spokespersons for God, they were all speaking, warning, pronouncing both judgment and hope. Most of them were murdered to subdue their silence. This time, God would go silent for 400 years! From Malachi to Matthew, God did not speak.
What happened in that time period? The world experienced a mini apocalypse, just a foretaste of what men of war and humanity would be like without God intervening or speaking. Just a note, in the future God will not be silent. You would think that the non-God crowd, the atheists or pantheists would celebrate. But the world got very dark, brutal and wicked. Honest historians admit, this period of time led to the worse treatment of humans and the poor ever! People who think Judaism is restrictive, or that Christianity is a straitjacket of thought, morality, and science – even promoting sexism, patriarchal oppression and hate, does not know history. This period of time, the 400 years of silence was a free for all of power, wealth, abuse and domination over the weak, the poor.
It was the worse time in history to be a woman or a child! Read Tom Holland’s book, Dominion. Holland, an atheist himself, concludes that Christ and Christianity was the turning point and salvation of human morality and treatment of the poor, the weak – especially for women, children and the family structure. Modern culture seems to beg for the removal of constraints and restrictions of Christianity, of any sense of God, but we do so to our own peril, our own destruction.
Prayer
Dad,
I feel the conviction and passion of Amos’ words even today. Our “king” and country is wealthy. And, I see a lot of folks pursue whatever god promises the biggest financial bonus or fame. I also do my Sunday duties and too often continue to treat the outliers and outcasts with disdain. Father God, you’d prefer mercy over sacrifice wouldn’t you? I also know that I tend to focus on things that perpetuate instead of prevent further harm or injustices. I need the boldness of Amos’ passion to work first in me. I don’t need to look far from my own frailties. Forgive me. Help me Holy Spirit; to yield and move towards you, not away from you. In you, Oh Lord, will I find right living, peace and joy! Amen.