The first three of the five condemnations begin with the words, ‘hear this word’, Amos 3:1 / Amos 4:1 / Amos 5:1. The last two begin with the phrase, ‘woe to you who’, Amos 5:18 / Amos 6:1.
The first message here is a message from the Lord against Israel, 2 Chronicles 36:16 / Isaiah 1:2-4. This would also include Judah, ‘the family I brought up out of Egypt’, Amos 3:1. But the message is primarily for Israel, Exodus 19:3-6 / Deuteronomy 28:1-14.
As God’s people, they should have known better, so He warns them that He will punish them, Amos 3:2 / Amos 3:14 / Luke 12:48. In Amos 3:3-5, we find a series of rhetorical questions, that is, the answers are implied in the questions.
The lesson, for instance, two people can walk together if they have agreed to do so, but if one, that is, Israel, breaks that covenant, how can they walk with God? Amos 3:2.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning Amos 3:4.
‘Just as the roar of the lion, or the growl of the young lion, means that the prey is before them, the roaring of the prophet against Israel means that, ‘God not only has before him the nation that is ripe for judgment, but that he has it in his power.’
A lion doesn’t roar in the thicket unless it has found prey. Young lions don’t growl in their dens unless they have captured something and are protecting it. A bird will only go into a trap if the bait is set; it can’t be trapped if the snare isn’t set, Amos 3:5 / Jeremiah 2:35. Israel’s fall to the ground means that they were caught in their own trap of sin.
Keil, in his commentary, says the following concerning the blowing of the trumpet, Amos 3:6.
‘As the trumpet, when blown, frightens the people out of their self-security, so will the voice of the prophet. The calamity, which is bursting upon them, comes from Jehovah, and is sent by him for punishment.’
No calamity befalls a city unless the Lord has caused it, Amos 3:6. People tremble in a city when the trumpet sounds, and so, He warns the people before He acts in judgment, Amos 3:6-7 / Psalm 25:14 / Jeremiah 23:18 / Jeremiah 23:22.
God doesn’t do anything without first revealing His will, Amos 3:7. In other words, God would bring no judgment on His people unless He first warned them.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘God especially reveals the secrets of His coming judgment, so that men will have time to repent and no reason to be surprised. ‘Such secrets of God are revealed to them, that they may inform the people; that, by repentance and conversion, they may avoid the evil, and, by walking closely with God, secure the continuance of his favour’.
God warned them through His prophets, but they rejected what they said, Amos 2:12. No true prophet speaks unless by divine revelation, Amos 3:7 / Deuteronomy 18:22 / Numbers 23:19 / Ezekiel 13:10.
Israel had rejected the pleas of God through the prophets to follow after His commandments, Amos 2:4 / Amos 7:10-13. God’s message through Amos is likened to the lion’s roar, Amos 3:8. God was the lion who roared through the prophets to tell Israel to turn from their sin, Amos 1:1 / Joel 3:16.
Motyer, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The only view of history that the Bible espouses is that the Lord is the Great Agent. Behind every event stands a cause, behind all history stands the Lord, Isaiah 45:5-7. Maybe thus they will prepare themselves for his future acts of judgment.’
Ashdod, that is, Assyria and Egypt, are summoned to Samaria to witness the unrest and oppression, that is, their treatment of the poor, Amos 3:9. Two witnesses were required under Old Testament law before the death sentence could be carried out, Deuteronomy 17:6.
The wickedness of Israel rivals the wickedness of Ashdod and Egypt. They don’t know how to do right, Hosea 4:6, and they stored up goods in their strongholds, Amos 3:10. As a result of not knowing God and His ways, they made up their own values and behaved in such a way to please their own desires, Amos 3:10.
Here we read that an enemy will overrun the land, they will pull down their strongholds and plunder their fortresses.
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘That enemy proved to be Assyria, which besieged and destroyed Samaria and overran all Israel in 722 B.C.’
The severity of this is likened to a lion’s attack on a sheep, Amos 3:12 / Exodus 22:10-13. ‘Only two leg bones or a piece of an ear remain’, Amos 3:12, may suggest that a small remnant remains, or that God has done everything that He can, and they will be destroyed, Jeremiah 50:17.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Those of them that escape these judgments shall escape with as great difficulty, and be of as little worth, as the two legs and piece of an ear that shall be snatched out of the lion’s mouth. We know that when the Babylonians carried away the people into Chaldea, they left behind only a few, and those the refuse of the land.’
The descendants of Jacob will also receive judgment, Amos 3:13, which means both the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms will be judged by God. We read of the judgment upon Bethel, Amos 3:14 / Hosea 8:11.
Bethel was one of the centres of worship in Israel, 1 Kings 12:25-33, where Jeroboam set up golden calves for sacrifice at Bethel and Dan after the division of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The altars will be destroyed, and the horns, Amos 3:14 / 1 Kings 1:50 / 1 Kings 2:28, a symbol of power or sanctuary, of the altar will be cut off. It shows that the centre of worship will be destroyed. This is the devastation of their idolatry and the punishment of their transgressions.
Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, will be surrounded, and when it finally falls, the royal palaces, 1 Kings 22:39 / Psalms 45:8, will be plundered, and the city itself will be totally destroyed.
Mays, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The judgment which Amos announces is no ascetic primitivism, growing out of simple hostility against a commercial culture and its influence. The houses were built beam by beam, and stone by stone, from a store of crimes.’
God’s judgment isn’t going to stop at their idol altars. It would continue on to the expensive places they build at the expense of the poor, Amos 3:15. Israel was going to be punished because of their religious practices, Amos 3:14, and their abuse of their wealth and power, Amos 3:15.
The judgment which Amos is speaking about eventually happened a few years later when Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, brought down Samaria, and so, also brought an end to the Northern Kingdom, 2 Kings 17:5-6.