“Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters…”
“But let justice run down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)
Amos, the prophet of 8th century Israel, speaks these words of God to his people Israel as contrast to their empty worship forms: “feast days”, “solemn assemblies,” “meal offerings,” “peace offerings of your fat beasts.”
“Take away from me,“ God says, “the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of thine harps.”
“But let justice run down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing [mighty] stream.”
(Amos 5:21-24)
The society of 8th century Israel (the ten tribes who had broken away from Judah after the rule of Solomon) built an altar to worship God in Samaria (Northern Israel) at Dan in the north and Bethel in the south. Jeroboam erected at each of these two locations a golden calf. The Levites who remained faithful to the true worship fled to the southern kingdom (Judah). The symbol of the golden calf is idolatrous, which is from Egypt and symbolized the god Hathor ( www.angelfire.com, part 3. Jeroboam as King over Israel). Following this, the Northern kingdom became subject to apostasy. It was carried off into the captivity of Assyria sometime after Amos’ prophecy against it (around 722 B.C.)
Amos’ unique and powerful prophecy provided the warning God gave to his people prior to their captivity and provided a time for repentance and renewal of their faith in God. The people of Israel rejected this strong warning and became what we now call “the lost tribes of Israel.” God’s covenantal promise continued through the remaining two tribes of Judah in the southern kingdom, Judah and Benjamin. Jesus Christ is from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of David the king of Israel and Judah around 1010 to 970 B.C, in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and David of a “promised seed” who would bless and rule over the nations.
I spent on evening reflecting on the prophecy of Amos, chapters 1-9 and its implications for us in our day. By outlining Amos, chapters 1-3, I was able to focus on the definition of injustice in comparison to Amos’ later theme of justice as demanded by the living God. Amos, chapters 1-2 contains a series of prophecies directed against the tribal groups (or towns) surrounding Israel. These include the following: Hazeal (Samaria), Gaza (the Philistines), Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. In chapter 3 the prophecy of Amos is directed against “you, the children of Israel,” God’s chosen people.
Whereas a religious Israelite may have celebrated the prophecies against the tribes near them who troubled Israel in many ways, when the spotlight is directed against northern Israel and the worship centers of Bethel and Dan, one can imagine the horror when they realized not only would their enemies by destroyed by the Assyrian armies, but they would be destroyed along with them.
Amos identifies the following reasons for God’s judgment on the surrounding tribes: (1) Hazael of Damascus (Samaria) “threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron teeth.” Apparently, all the food crops on which Gilead depended for life were destroyed (Amos 1:3).
(2) Gaza (the Philistines) apparently followed, destroying the people of Gilead, as “they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom.” The Philistines took the whole of Gilead captive and sold them as slaves to another tribal group, Edom. (Amos 1:6) It is certainly easier to take over land when all its people have been deported.
(3)Tyre did a similar offense, displacing another tribe (unidentified): “they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom and remembered not the brotherly covenant.” Again, free people, living together in peace are taken captive and sold into slavery. This is made more despicable as Tyre had a pledge of friendship with these people. (Amos 1:9-10) (Are we talking about the remnants of Gilead?)
(4)Edom, who had paid the others for those being brought into slavery is singled out next for punishment. God says, “I will not turn away its punishment because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.” Again, apparently to Edom’s neighbors he made war, killed everyone, refused to be appeased, showed no pity and destroyed everything.” This is a “scorched earth” execution of warfare, in which everyone and everything is destroyed. (Amos 1:11-12)
(5) Ammon is also told by God, “I will not turn away their punishment, because they have ripped women with child in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border.” Apparently, all these tribal groups had participated in the extermination of one tribal group, “Gilead,” in order to destroy this entire tribal group and possess their territory, their land. (Amos 1:13-15)
(6) Moab is condemned, “because he burned the bones of the King of Edom into lime.” To destroy the remains of the dead is a particularly gross sacrilege in this cultural period, apparently preventing the people of Edom from grieving and remembering the loss of their King. (Amos 2:1-3)
So in this initial introductory section of Amos, his prophecies identify God’s great displeasure at one tribe seeking to eliminate from the earth another tribal group and even going further attempting to destroy even the memory of them and their king. It was thought in this period of history that God assigned people groups or tribes certain areas of land. Each area in which that particular tribal group lived is considered their land. To kill by the sword, eviscerate pregnant women so both they and their children die, and then to sell the remaining inhabitants into slavery so the other tribes can take over and possess their land is especially scandalous to God.
Every tribe and tongue, people and nation has been given space by God to live and to prosper on the earth. To deprive any people group of that God-given right and then to even try and erase the memory of them and their king is a very serious offence to God and humanity.
So when Amos says, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” he means the opposite of what he has condemned.
It is not hard for us to find a modern equivalent to the actions of these “other tribes.” Immediately, in the modern context both ISIS/ISIL in Iraq and Syria and Boko Haram in Nigeria are condemned. ISIL is condemned for the same offense as Edom and Tyre, “bringing whole communities into captivity” across Iraq and Syria. Even today the city of Mosul, where ISIL declared their caliphate is being liberated ever so slowly, street by brutal street. Thousands have been killed, tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, refugees by the millions leaving to find a new place to live in peace. Boko Haram used similar tactics and has met a similar fate. There are likely others we might also include, as the communities of Myanmar who are being systematically persecuted, supposedly over religious offenses, but more likely a grab for land and resources by one people group over another. My list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it complete. What the Nazis did to the Jews and others in Germany is a similar act, and the Turkish government to the Armenians, in both cases millions dying and being displaced from their place in the human family, the extermination of one tribal group, so another may take its place. We could expand this to include Russia in Crimea and more recently Ukraine. We could go further and say when the US government does not oppose such evil, we are equally condemned.
I read this past week on BBC News of one man’s live vigil to documenting “Than Shwe of Burma’s Crimes against humanity.” From time to time we read of another quest to document the memory of another lost or exterminated people group. After a time, for example, when we hear of the Hutus and Tutsis fighting for control of Uganda in 1994 in which as many as 4 million perished, we begin to ask ourselves is the systematic extermination of one tribe by another becoming the new normal? We are aware of Pol Pot as leader of the Khmer Rouge who exterminated from 1 million to 3 million of his own people in Cambodia from 1976 to 1979. We are also aware of Idi Amin who served as president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. During the period of his reign of terror, between 100,000 and 500,000 persons were killed by his regime.
We could add, of course, Stalin’s and the U.S.S.R use of the Gulag to house millions of dissidents in Siberia, many of whom never returned from there. Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-Tung), in the Republic of China is known to have caused the deaths of 65 million Chinese as a result of his attempts to create a new “socialist” China, either by execution, imprisonment or forced famine. (Lee Edwards, Ph.D. The Legacy of Mao Zedong is Mass Murder. 2010) He reports “the total number of dead from 1959 to 1961 [from hunger] was between 30 and 40 million, and reached 50% in some Chinese villagers. The “Great Leap Forward” resulted in millions more of Chinese deaths.
When the Hebrew prophet Amos prophesied in the 8th century B.C. he was horrified at what happened in his own century and announced God’s concern and God’s judgment on such crimes against humanity. It is not likely he even remotely imagined what we are capable of in the 20th and 21st centuries. If we add the loss to humanity of citizens in World War I and World War II and innumerable smaller conflicts since that time as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria we begin to feel the true weight of our corporate sin before the living God.
Judah and finally, Israel, are included by Amos in his listing of the nations condemned by God. Of Judah, God says, “I will not turn away because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies have caused them to err, after which their fathers have walked. I will sent a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” (Amos 2:4-5)
To forsake God’s covenant of love, as represented in the gift of the law to Judah and Israel on Mt. Sinai from the very hand of Moses is to break God’s unique covenant with his people. Judah’s rejection of this law by “lies…caused them to err” (v.5) apparently means the wrong interpretation and application of God’s law in such a way as to dishonor the covenant God made with him people and sealed by God in the covenantal ceremony on Mt. Sinai. The loss of the law is the loss of identity for Judah. They are no longer God’s distinctive people and their lack of “choseness” in forsaking God’s law allows the nations surrounding them to also falter. The lack of a standard with which to compare the other nations’ behavior means the loss of Judah’s distinct identity and mission before God, so it too is carried off into captivity. Because of Isaiah and Jeremiah’s intercession on Judah’s behalf, they were spared going into Assyria captivity in 722B.C. Instead they went into captivity in 586 B.C, when Babylonia held the ascendency of power in the Middle East. This empire took the elite of Israel, the royal family and chief people of the land and chose to preserve them as a people, so Judah is preserved to continue their mission after being cleansed by suffering in Babylon. The cry of the Lord’s people, “how shall we sing the Lord’s songs in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137) becomes the catalyst for their return under Ezra and Nehemiah. In the Babylonian captivity Judah (and within Judah, Israel), from which Jesus Christ is born and God’s covenant of love and grace, kindness and redemption is extended to all people everywhere. What was a covenant only with one people, in Christ becomes a covenant for all people, for all who will place their faith in Jesus’s name.
Israel is the final one to be named by Amos in this list of tribes (nations). Essentially, he saves Israel for last, as Israel is primarily what his prophecy is about. It is to Israel that Amos makes his plea for repentance and turning to God for salvation. The list of Israel’s sins are much longer than the others and cover different aspects of their religious and social life.
“Thus says the Lord: for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes, that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek; and a man and his father will go into the same maid, to profane my holy name. And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and the drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.” (Amos 2:6-8)
Amos focused his last and most poignant prophecy on his own community, where he has been sent by God to prophesy against Israel. His focus is not on the deportation or extermination of other peoples, but rather on the social relationships within the nation itself. As God’s covenant people, they should have known God’s covenantal laws. The Ten Commandments with its focus towards God and towards neighbor is the basis of all other laws adopted in their society.
The “selling of the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes” (2:6) represents the consequences of indebtedness, in which one person’s debts to another of the same community results in their being sold into slavery. Some of the community “the righteous” fetch more money (“silver”) than the poorer members (“a pair of shoes”). The result is that in the community some accumulate a great deal of wealth and others due to their debts become slaves. (We might make a comparison to our society today, and “the shrinking middle class.” Great wealth is accumulated in the pockets of a few individuals (as our President Trump), while the numbers of poor increase throughout the land).
“They pant for the dust of the earth on the head of the poor” is a difficult phrase. It seems the poor have been placed in some form of forced labor to make more wealth for the wealthy (much as the African slaves worked for the southern plantation owners when “cotton was king.”)
“To turn aside the way of the meek” seems to apply to their exclusion from religious worship. The “meek” work so much they never have a day off to worship God in the religious rituals of the day. This is much like our own day, in which Walmart (our largest USA department store) and other stores are open all day Sunday. While some of us are privileged to go to worship, the “meek”, those whom God would like to see in worship are instead working while the wealthy take “their Sabbath”, their day of rest from their labors. But even while the wealthy rest, they are becoming more wealthy, as they own the businesses in which the “meek” labor on the Sabbath day, which should be a day of rest for everyone!
“A man and his father go into the same maid,” speaks of a breakdown in the normal moral fabric of the society. Relationships between men and women in the covenantal language of marriage is an exclusive relationship, in which one man is married to one woman. In this case, the normal boundaries of accepted human behavior have broken down, so a man’s wife is also given to his father for intercourse, which certainly introduces a new confusion of roles and relationships in the homes.
“Laying down on clothes laid to pledge” refers to garments given in the morning as a token that a debt will be repaid. In the covenantal society of Israel, the ordinance says these garments held in pledge must be returned at night so the person can be warm while they sleep. In this case, the person who is given the garment in pledge never returns them at night, so the owner is forced to sleep in the cold without a covering. Further, the person lying on the pledged garments celebrates by drinking wine taken from those who are being held for some perceived crime “in the house of their god.” The temple has ceased to be a holy place for worship and instead is a place where people are drinking and carousing, using wine not bought by themselves, but stolen from others who have some perceived crime or slight against those who hold all the wealth and the power.
Amos focuses in Israel, the northern kingdom, on these type of offenses, of neighbor to neighbor in the area of finance, in relationships, in sexuality, in treatment of the poor and how the wealthy handle their wealth to the exclusion of the poor of this society, so much so they even keep their garments at night and do not return them to allow the “poor” to sleep under a warm coat or blanket.
The breakdown of the covenantal law in Israel, first by introducing the golden calf at Dan and Bethel in a syncretism of beliefs resulted in the corruption of the pure worship of Yahweh, Israel’s covenantal God and also the breakdown of human covenantal community life (as illustrated above), both of which signal the internal demise of Israel’s society. It is only a matter of time after the internal collapse has occurred that the external nation will be carried away into captivity. God’s blessing is no longer present in the land and the enemies know this. Assyria sends its armies to overrun all the cities of this region, to scavenge the land of its crops, of its people and of its wealth. The internal collapse of the nation’s spiritual and moral life allowed the collapse of the whole nation of Israel, which had become only a shell of its former glory.
The Voice of one crying in this wilderness, “Make straight in this desert a Highway for our God”
“Amen! We praise you, Lord Jesus Christ! To your holy and Blessed name be all praise, glory, honor and blessing both now and forevermore. Amen.”
Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”
Tweety Bird 