Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

8:1-2 The Hebrew terms for summer fruit (qayits) and end (qets) sound alike. In Hebrew literature this kind of wordplay is very common. Beyond this, "summer fruit" did signify the last of the harvest. See Jer. 8:20, "the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The long summer of God's patience has finally come to an end, and there has been no harvest of repentance.

8:3 dead bodies. See Ezek. 9:7. The paganized worship of Israel will end in a terrible silence.

8:4-6 The terrible irony is that the Israelites thought that ritualistic worship could excuse oppression and greed. Even a sincere worship could not have atoned for that. See the notes on 4:4-5 and 5:22.

8:4 you who trample on the needy. The rich and powerful were oppressing the poor and weak rather than helping them. But those who sought to bring the poor of the land to an end were themselves going to face a terrible end.

8:5-6 Real worship of God in the new moon and Sabbath festivals would have created compassion for the poor and the needy. Throughout the OT, false balances are a symbol of injustice (Lev. 19:35-36; Prov. 20:10; Mic. 6:10-11). The weight of goods being bought or sold was determined by hanging them on one end of a balance beam while standard weights (such as a shekel) were hung on the other end. If the weights were only slightly false in the merchant's favor, considerable profits could be made. The situation was similar if the measure of volume (such as an ephah) being used was incorrect.

8:6 buy the poor . . . and the needy. Rather than helping their poor neighbors, the rich and powerful were using their money and power to put these people into slavery.

8:7 The pride of Jacob could be taken in two different ways: it could be a reference to God himself (see 6:8), or it could be a literal reference to Israel's insupportable pride in its strength and wealth (see also 6:8).

8:8 rise . . . and sink . . . like the Nile. Amos sees the coming destruction to be like the annual flooding of the Nile. The flood is absolutely inevitable, covering everything and leaving destruction in its wake. See also 9:5.

8:9-10 Israel's destruction will be so terrible that even nature will go into mourning, with the sun hiding its face. This is reminiscent of the darkness that covered the earth when God's only Son died for the sins of Israel and the whole world (see Mark 15:33). Darkening can serve as a symbol of judgment (Joel 3:15; see also Rev. 6:12; 8:12).

8:11-12 Israel had rejected the words of the Lord from Amos and so they would go into exile, where there would be no word from the Lord at all. In its absence they will find that the revelation from God had been their most precious possession. they shall not find it. People who have repeatedly rejected God's words will suddenly be unable to find God's words at all. In 7:17 severe judgment came to a priest for rejecting God's words, but here severe judgment comes upon the people as a whole for the same sin.

8:13-14 Israel had depended on their paganized ideas of Yahweh, represented by the idols at Samaria and Dan, or on the ancestral tradition of Yahweh at Beersheba (see 5:5 and note), but they would find that these pseudo-Yahwehs were no good at all. The Guilt of Samaria might be a mocking wordplay on "Asherah of Samaria," since the Hebrew for "guilt" (’ashmah) sounds like Asherah. For a similar wordplay, see the transformation of Eshbaal, "man of Baal" (1 Chron. 8:33), into Ish-bosheth, "man of shame" (2 Sam. 2:8).