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| Photo by Jim Tracy |
1 I saw the LORD standing upon the altar: and He said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered.
God’s final warnings through Amos.
2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:
There will be no place any Israelite can go to escape the judgment of God.
3 And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
“You can run but you can’t hide.”
5 And the Lord GOD of hosts is He that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
6 It is He that buildeth His stories in the heaven, and hath founded His troop in the earth; He that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is His name.
It is not man that will be punishing Israel. Oh, it will be human-held swords, but this punishment is the work of God.
7 Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
Ethiopia is the country just to the south of Egypt and represented extreme distance away from Israel with a touch of the captivity in Egypt.
It was God that brought each peoples to conquer their land.
8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.
Israel was totally destroyed by the Assyrians and was never again an independent nation. However, God protected Judah from the Assyrian army and brought remnants from each tribe back into Judah after the Babylonian captivity.
9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
“Corn” is the 16th century word for whatever the major local grain was, in this case, wheat.
You sift wheat by grinding the grain and then placing it in a sieve and shaking. The bran and any contaminants such as rocks stay in the sieve while the good stuff falls through.
10 All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, which say, "The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us."
God is going to use the Assyrian army to sift Israel. All those who are sinning (the majority) will be killed. Those very few righteous people will be preserved. Not one will fall.
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
There are three opinions on what this is talking about;
1. The Millennial reign.
2. Heaven
3. The return from the Babylonian captivity.
There is no indication in this scripture itself to cut these verses off and move them thousands of years into the future. If read as one whole unit with the rest of the book, the only logical interpretation is that it is talking about the Return from Babylon, when, in fact, the ruins of Judah were repaired just as this scripture prophecies.
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My Name, saith the LORD that doeth this.
Edom ceased to exist after Assyria was through with them. Israelites/ Judeans did settle what was their country after the Return.
13 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
There will be year round planting and harvesting, which can happen in Palestine if the rain pattern cooperates.
14 And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
Israel became rich enough after the Return that the Syrians under the Seleucid dynasty and the Egyptians fought over them and were continually raiding and sacking them. Obviously God kept His promise.
15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.
This is the verse used to put this scripture still ahead of us, yet the term “no more” often means “not again in this age” in the Bible, or “no more in the life time of those who experience it.”
For example, God promised that the Levites would be priests to Him forever. Since AD 70 there have been NO priests whatsoever. All genealogical records in Judah were lost and there is absolutely no way to go about reinstating this priesthood. And if there was, a 2000 year gap would rather violate this “forever” anyway. To top it off Hebrews tells us that Christ replaced the Levitical priesthood with the Melchesedec priesthood, bringing this promise to Levi to a definite end. Obviously the terms translated “forever” and “no more” in English did not hold exactly the same meaning in the original as they do for us.
The nation of Judah, with representatives from each of the twelve tribes, dwelt securely in the land for 400 years after the Babylonian captivity. This is sufficient to fulfill any of the Biblical definitions of “no more.”