In this chapter we have God’s warnings and woes about their lavish and excessive lifestyle.
God expresses woe to the people who thought they were at ease, in luxury and comfort in Zion. This was a sinful ease in self-confidence. It is reminiscent of Isaiah 5:20 where we read, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil”. An upside-down world where they were presuming on the goodness of God whatever they did. They had become hardened, callous, brutal and expecting god to bless them whatever they did or didn’t do. They were boastful in their complacency.
They were trusting in their own ability and comparing themselves to their godless neighbours. (v1,2) They felt they could eat, drink and be merry, they were at rest and at ease and apparently without a care. Spurgeon said that, ‘It was not the rest of one who is on the rock…. But one whose house is tottering from its sandy foundations; it is not the calm of soul at peace with God, but the ease of a madman, who, because he has hidden his sin from his own eyes, thinks he has concealed it from God….’ The people were complacent in their wickedness because they thought they were God’s people but Amos was speaking the words of God and they didn’t like it, to them he was been an alarmist. Amos, however, was right in his condemnation in that he was speaking God’s words and they wouldn’t escape from it even though they were God’s people.
In verses 3-7 we are shown further excessive lifestyle of the people – lying on beds of ivory, stretching out on couches thinking they could put off the day of doom and carry on feasting, eating and drinking, using the best ointments and singing to stringed instruments which they invented. The perilous word is right at the beginning, ‘woe’. They would not get away with it. Notice that they were singing idly. It wasn’t genuine worship, they were going through the motions. The bowls would have been used for sacrifice. These indulgent people would be the first to go into captivity (v7) and the banquettes would be removed. The ruin of Joseph (v6) seems to refer to the brothers eating and drinking while Joseph was in the pit which was a national disgrace. God was not pleased with that and He likened their behaviour here to that event.
The LORD makes it clear that all this will come to pass, it’s by His own word which is sure (v8-11). He states that He hates the pride of Jacob because in their prosperity they had become proud and therefore, God would humble them. We should never ask God to humble us for that could be very painful. In the book of Daniel, king Nebuchadnezzar had become proud – ‘I am the greatest!’ God had to reduce him to eating grass like the animals and his nails grew long like talons until he recognised the greatness of God, then God restored him. Instead, the Bible says that we should humble ourselves. In this case Jacob had become proud and God had to deal with them. Amos said, “For behold, the LORD gives a command: He will break the great house into bits, And the little house into pieces.”
It was clear that Israel’s pride and injustice would lead to judgment from God (v12-14). Their pride goes on in that they were saying that they had success by their own strength and had turned justice into poison. Amos, again, uses common sense by asking ‘do you plough the rocks?’ Of course not, as it would be useless, and horses don’t run on rocks, they would slip and fall. He was a farmer and this would make sense, they would be wasting their time doing these things.
God would bring them down and raise up a nation against them.
