Chapter 2
Judgement on Moab - Moab "burned the bones of the King of Edom". MSB says we don't know what event this references. It does not appear anywhere else in the Bible. The idea is that they didn't just kill this King, they burned him to ashes so he could not receive an honorable burial. Interesting that Moab is judged for what they did to Edom, though Edom has previously been judged for their treatment of Israel. Moab is the other son of Lot by his eldest daughter. The King of Moab is to be killed as are all his sons. His line will be cut off.
Judgement on Judah - For "rejecting the law of the Lord, and not keeping his statutes". Fire is to come. So this judgement on Judah is prophesied well before (100-150 years before) it happens, and even before Israel falls in the north. Fire will be the agent - that is, it will fall by invasion.
2023 - Wow. Judah is included with these other offenders - the Philistines, Moab, Tyre...God pretty much levels things out here through Amos. And then Israel comes right after!
Judgement on Israel - For selling the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They have denigrated human life to a commodity, to be bought and sold without regard for the fact that they are trading people for money. And sometimes just for shoes. They are soulless and driven by greed. It keeps going. They also sexually abuse female slaves, and they violate God's laws about goods to worship idols, in disregard of those who gave the collateral. They commit sexual sins in the temples of idols. Israel has the longest list of transgressions given.
2024 - This verse:
6 Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals-- [Amo 2:6 ESV]
How is this not a statement of God's position on slavery? Israel is to fall because they trade human beings like commodities. God's own chosen are not exempt from punishment because of this sin. The commentaries on Bible Hub don't really even use the word "slavery". They say it is about judges taking bribes to rule that the ones in the right in a money dispute end up sold into servitude - because the judges are corrupt. Also says it is about how they'd sell people for a trivial price - a pair of sandals. But the word slavery is not mentioned except in the Cambridge commentary, and even then it is not slavery itself that is condemned but the hard hearts of those who would sell people for the price of a pair of sandals. If looked at that way, we might almost say that there is no condemnation of slavery here at all, but of devaluing human beings and of the corruption of justice. Or...perhaps it was that while selling any man for a price is fundamentally wrong, Israel had become so jaded as to the sin they were committing that they were doing not of need or necessity but for trivial reasons. In the OT, perhaps slavery was admitted as a necessary evil, but Israel was far past that. Do the commentaries not mention this because of the "time" the commentaries were written? Barnes died in 1870 in Pennsylvania. The north. You'd think he would mention that slavery itself is a bad idea.
Eight judgments. Each has a specific reason. You could do a study on those reasons. Some are general enough - like the last two, but the ones on Israel's enemies are different. They have to do mostly with how those countries dealt with Israel and Judah.
Then God presents a list of the things he has done for Israel, that they should have been obligated to Him about. He brought them out of Egypt, and yet they treat slaves this way.
It says that no amount of preparation will save them from this judgement. Being a fast runner won't let them get away, nor will riding a fast horse. The judgement is on all of them, and none will escape it.
2025 - So judgment is pronounced on this whole area - Israel, Judah, Moab, Tyre, Gaza, and so on. If this was in 762 BC, then it is before Samaria went into captivity. Assyria overran the whole area I think, and then the Chaldeans repeated it later? I am not sure of anyplace but Judah, which did not fall until the Chaldeans invaded. Amos though if prophesying about events that will happen over the next 200-250 years. He is foretelling the future of this whole region. He is a prophet. Yet today, we go to great lengths to say we still have prophets but that they don't tell the future anymore. The Bible admits that there were no prophets for 400 years. Why do we try so very hard to "allow" for prophets today, even though the only way we can get there is to totally redefine the word?