Modern Justice
If you live in North America like I do, you’ve quite likely never had another people group come to your village and pillage. Unless you live in the inner city that exists in my mind. Then there might be a people group (gang) who has invaded another’s territory (neighborhood). But I’ve never experienced that so the reality might be (probably is) radically different than my imagination.
As wildly different as reality of the inner city is to the inner city Hollywood has invented for consumers, that is likely a taste of how different it was to live in ancient Israel. The ancient Near East with people groups committing gross acts of invasion and enslavement or murder against each other. We have almost no functional context for what these interactions were like.
Spiritual Imagination
As I study this passage and the book of Amos, I want to be transported from the present world to the world of the text. I can’t understand what is happening if my filter is modern and “civilized.” As much as I can, I want to put myself in the divine shoes of my God.
I want to stand next to him on the hillside of the Sea of Galilee. Watching with him, there is a whole people group roughly lined up. What is happening to them? They are stumbling south, being forced to walk away from their homes.
I want to hear with him the mourning for the women and the infants within them who have been savagely destroyed for gain. His chosen people’s women and children. The future of his people.
These events aren’t in the imagination of God like they are in mine; these crimes were committed in front of him against his people. In front of his eyes. I want these atrocities in front of my eyes as much as I can as well.
Side Note
At this point, I’m not dealing with the question about “why is there suffering and pain in the world?” I know this is the Big Question in the Christian faith. It will be wrestled with, but not today. Notice I said “wrestled with” because I’m not presuming to find an answer. However, like Dr. John Gerstner was known to say about these difficult questions, “You aren’t dead yet. Why are you giving up already?”
I’m aware of the problem of pain and I’m not ignoring it, just so you know. Back to musing through the text in the shoes of God.
Justice
What kind of justice do you think a perfectly just judge would employ? What would the consequences be for the violators?
Would it be like the ancient form of justice like retributive justice with an eye for an eye? Or like modern inventions like restorative justice where the relationship between the criminal and the society is the focus? Or transformative justice where the criminal isn’t punished but re-educated?
As I make lists in this passage which describes different groups committing crimes against other groups and the prophecies of their punishments, I’m keeping in mind that God is the perfectly just judge. And the purpose of this scripture, like all other scripture, is to reveal the character and nature of God.
Let’s observe.
Observations from the Text
Introduction
As I noted while sentence diagramming in our last time together, this intro has some 5 W’s and an H aspects. Curious as to whether or not the earthquake Amos mentions helps narrow down the date, I searched in my Logos library for information about this event. There wasn’t much that came up except in the NET Bible notes where the study note gives the options between an actual earthquake and a figurative one.
Not that my opinion matters because there was either a literal earthquake or there wasn’t, but I tend to think there was a real event. Two reasons for this. One, the earthquake is mentioned in the indicated prose portion of the text in conjunction with a system of informing readers of the timeframe. Two, the NET study note indicates there is evidence of this kind of destruction in the archeological record of a place called Hazor.
In either case, there was a real time, in a real place, with real people where crimes occurred that God speaks against using the prophet Amos. Well, Amos declares that the LORD roars, actually. And that begins in verse 3.
Poetry or Not?
In our passage, Amos reports God’s words in six sections. Amos 1:3; 1:6; 1:9; 1:11; 1:13; 2:1. Lest we should think that poetry is unnecessary, imprecise, or fleshly, notice that God speaks in poetry.
There are clear declarations of what crimes have been committed which I observe in a minute, but God also uses artistic language to convey his anger over the violation of his holiness.
This list is more observing potential literary style and less about biblical content. Considering how God communicates using language is understanding our God better.
The Criminals
I did observe the identities of the criminals while determining the passage in our last Bite, but I made a list to keep them in front of my eyes.
While the locations are all within the original Israel boundaries, all of these towns and districts were in the areas that weren’t fully conquered. Like Phoenicia and Philistia and areas north in Assyria.
The Crimes
Here I list the crimes as God through Amos lists them. I’m not an expert in linguistics or literary style, but I see a discrepancy between the number ladders (3-4 transgressions) and the number of transgressions listed. This is another evidence for my mind that there is poetry happening here. God can count. And there are certainly at least 3-4 sins that were committed by the neighbors. But they aren’t listed. Is that a point of interest? I’m not sure but it’s now on my radar.
Motivations
I’m not sure what to call this list of observations. There are prophetic judgments coming to the region. God is a just God, so why does he choose these punishments? The punishments will fit the crimes. How?
I don’t have answers, but this list helps me to continue to have my focus on God’s character and nature more than strictly on nuts and bolts of the passage.
Reflection
These lists make me think again about the purpose of study.
God takes actions within the realm of what we know as Earth every day. He has for millennia. Has he had his plans of meting justice written down for every action? Hardly. So why these plans? Why these people? What about God am I to learn because he has revealed himself here?
My reflection today isn’t so much learning a tangible concept as much as it is learning that there is so much I haven’t yet learned about my God.
He condescends to me. Do I take the time to investigate the condescension?
Wrap Up
Our Bible Study Bite today is more of an abstract nature. It’s on my mind thanks to some lectures I’ve been listening to about the “Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy” that was deliberated over in 1978.
The most recent lecture I heard dealt with Article 4 having to do with the issue of human language. It may seem obvious to you, but maybe not to everyone. Like me. It’s a little Bite to consider that the Creator and Lord of everything would stoop to use anthropomorphic language to communicate with us. Me. Anthropomorphic as defined as “man-form.”
Utterly Foreign Language
I’ve been surprised at how many times people have not thought about the fact that the Bible wasn’t written in English. (No, the King James is not “inspired.”) But have we as people considered that God’s native tongue isn’t Hebrew or Greek either? I’m not saying that the original language documents we have aren’t the Very Words of God, but he chose to “translate” his Very Words from the divine language, from an utterly foreign language, to anthropomorphic language in order to reveal himself in written words.
As Calvin describes it, God lisps to us. Sproul calls it baby talk. Truly, consider the condescension of God. The willingness to choose mediums appropriate for our human skill-level through which there can be communication at all. Really, if you think about it from our passage that we’ve observed today, he stooped to prose within human language and also used poetry to make himself known.
While I work my way through Amos, I will be attempting to keep in mind the kindness of God as he communicates with me as part of the human race.
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