Amos responds with two more visions – the first (here in chapter 8, the final one is in chapter 9) was a basket of ripe summer fruit (v1-3). I’m not a Hebrew scholar but I believe the words ‘ripe fruit’ sounds like ‘end’. God’s mercy seems to have come to an end.
The words of The LORD were, “The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.And the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day,” Says the LORD GOD – “Many dead bodies everywhere, They shall be thrown out in silence.”
Summer fruit wouldn’t keep long it was ripe and thus time would be short for Israel. The time for judgment would be swift and the picture is ripe fruit ready to be thrown out being rotten. It is clear that God’s judgment will be certain and swift. He will not ‘pass by them anymore’, ‘many dead bodies everywhere’. Amos pleaded with God not to destroy them with the locusts and the fire but not this time.
God condemns them (v4-6) for their injustice towards the poor, disobeying God’s commandments trading on the Sabbath, falsifying scales giving short measure and even selling rotten grain. God will not overlook dishonesty and injustice, especially in business. Not only that but God says He will never forget their evil and pictures them as a land trembling under his judgment and rising and falling in the seasons due to rains when like the tides in the River Nile would rise and water fill the valley, speaking of unsettling and uncertainty (v7,8). Amos referred to an earthquake when the whole land would shake and buildings fall down. Israel would become a place of death. Many people will weep for their friends.
What a difference in the forgiveness we can receive through our LORD Jesus Christ who promises to wipe out our sins, never to remember them anymore as a result of repentance and faith in Him through His death on the cross and paying the price of our redemption.
God’s judgment here is on the nation (v9,10) and He says that the sun will go down at midday and it would be dark in the middle of the day. Reminds me of that awful day when Jesus hung on the cross and darkness was over the place from midday to three in the afternoon. Some believe that this was looking forward to that day when Jesus would go through the agony of bearing our sin.
Amos’ prophecy takes a different line here (v11-14), he foretells a famine, not of bread or water, but a spiritual famine. This will be a famine of hearing the words of The LORD. It would not be a dearth of God’s word but of hearing it.
We could say it is no different to today – we have no shortage of Bibles, in fact it is still the world’s best seller, but fewer people seem to be hearing it, and even fewer and fewer, hearing the truth. As I mentioned earlier and it stands repeating, the Apostle Paul told Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Timothy 4:3,4) False teachers seem to abound.
“The condition described is that of being deaf to the words of Jehovah, not able to hear them. It is not a case of God withholding His revelation; but of people being in such a state that they do not see it, do not hear the words” (G. Campbell Morgan).
Amos foretells that the people would wander around, running from place to place seeking the word of The LORD without finding it, this is the, heaping up for themselves teachers to tickle their ears. Idolaters would fall and never rise again.
