Amos 7:3 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. God contending with Israel, by the judgments, but are reprieved, and the judgments turned away at the prayer of Amos (Amo 7:1-6). 2. God's patience is at length worn out by their obstinacy, and they are rejected, and sentenced to utter ruin (Amo 7:7-9). II. Israel contending with God, by the opposition given to his prophet. 1. Amaziah informs against Amos (Amo 7:10, Amo 7:11) and does what he can to rid the country of him as a public nuisance (Amo 7:12, Amo 7:13). 2. Amos justifies himself in what he did as a prophet (Amo 7:14, Amo 7:15) and denounces the judgments of God against Amaziah his prosecutor (Amo 7:16, Amo 7:17); for, when the contest is between God and man, it is easy to foresee, it is very easy to foretel, who will come off with the worst of it.

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 7 In this and the two following chapters are the visions of Amos, in number five; three of which are contained in this chapter, and with which it begins. The first is of the grasshoppers or locusts eating up the later grass of the land, which are stopped at the intercession of the prophet, Amo 7:1; the second is of fire the Lord called for to contend by, whose devouring flames are made to cease by the same interposition, Amo 7:4; and the other is of the plumbline, signifying the utter destruction of the people of Israel, according to the righteous judgment of God, Amo 7:7; upon the delivery of which prophecies and visions, the priest of Bethel forms a charge against the prophet to the king; and advises Amos to flee into Judea, and prophesy there, and not at Bethel, being willing to be rid of him at any rate, Amo 7:10; next follows the prophet's vindication of himself showing his divine call to the prophetic office, and his mission and express order he had from the Lord to prophesy unto Israel, Amo 7:14; and concludes with a denunciation of divine judgments on the priest's family, and upon the whole land of Israel, Amo 7:16.

The Lord repented for this,.... He heard the prayer of the prophet, and at his intercession averted, the threatened judgment; thus the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, Jam 5:16; this is spoken after the manner of men; as men, when they repent of a thing, desist from it, so the Lord desisted from going on with this judgment; he did not change his mind, but changed the dispensations of his providence according to his mind and will: it shall not be, saith the Lord; these grasshoppers or locusts, the Assyrian army, shall not at this time destroy the land of Israel: Pul king of Assyria took a sum of money of the king of Israel, and so turned back, and stayed not in the land, Kg2 15:19.

(Chapter 7, verses 1-3) The Lord God showed me these things: And behold, a swarming locust at the beginning of the late crops, after the king's mowings. And it came to pass, when it had finished consuming the grass of the land, that I said: Lord God, please be merciful, I beseech You: who will raise up Jacob, for he is small? The Lord had pity on this: it shall not be, said the Lord. LXX: Thus the Lord showed me: And behold, a swarm of locusts was coming in the morning, and behold, one Gog, the king, was a bruchus. And it shall come to pass, when it is accomplished, that it shall consume the grass of the earth. And I said: Lord God, be merciful, who shall raise up Jacob, for he is little. Be sorry for us, O Lord, upon this: and upon this let it not be, saith the Lord. The prophetic word not only predicts things that will happen in the distant future, but also those that are near and will immediately follow the prophecy. For we humans often think more about ourselves than about future generations, as Ezechias says: Let there be peace in my days (2 Kings 20). So that those who have witnessed the fulfilled events that were previously announced, may turn to the worship of God, in whom the truth of prophecy resides. Therefore, the Lord revealed that Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, would come with an infinite army, like a swarm of locusts, to annihilate everything, just as a locust devours all when it begins to rain late in the season, when the people of Israel needed the extreme mercy of Almighty God. However, the one who commands and creates this swarm of locusts is the Lord. The locust comes at the beginning of the late rain, when everything is green and the whole field is giving birth, and the flowers of different trees burst into their own kind of fruit. And to summarize in one word what I want to convey, they promise abundance of all things, flowers of trees, and the crops of the fields. But these locusts, which fly in early spring, are followed by countless beetles, which come after the late rain, and are called the barber or the king's barber because they devastate everything and leave nothing of the green grass on the earth. This barber, or haircut, Isaiah calls a sharp razor (Isa. VII), which will shave all the hair and the beard of the body of the children of Israel. And when, he says, I doubted what this razor was, he immediately brought in the king of Assyria. Therefore, the razor and barber of the king is the army of the Chaldeans, which has devastated everything like a locust, not only crops, but also wood, hay, and straw. And it came to pass, when the locust had finished eating the grass of the earth, and the prophet understood what he saw, he turned to prayer and said: Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you. I do not want my words to be fulfilled in the subversion of my people. I do not want to be chosen from the number of shepherds to announce the ruin of the ten tribes. For who can raise up Jacob, except for you alone? When everything collapses, there is no one who can restore it. Jacob is weak and is frequently destroyed by attacks from the enemy. But when he prays and sheds tears from his inner self, the Lord takes pity on him and responds: I will not destroy all of the people of Israel, there will be saved remnants. Certainly, it must be understood in this way: he saw two things that would happen at the same time. First, a locust, then a caterpillar. He prayed to the Lord for both, and only one was heard, so that the caterpillar would not devour everything to the point of annihilation. However, the flying locust would devour some things and leave others untouched. It seems to me that the 70 interpreters understood the Hebrew word Gozi (), which is interpreted as a barber or tonsure, as Gog, considering the letter Zai as Vau, and compared the countless multitude of caterpillars to the most savage Gog nation, which is described as devastating the land of Judea. But what Aquila wanted to say, I do not quite understand, unless perhaps he placed the word 'Gozi' instead of 'Gaza,' and gradually 'Gaza' was corrupted by error. Let us also say spiritually: those who have committed serious sins after the works of justice (as it is said in the prophet: 'Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you' - Hosea 10, and Jeremiah 4), are brought forth with offspring or a generation of morning locusts when the darkness of night passes, and they begin to recognize their own sins, because they did not repent. And because they did not repent, the bruchus is brought forth, which is called King Gog. But 'Gog' is translated into our language as 'roof,' a certain proud and arrogant strength. And when the hay and stubble of our land are consumed, whoever have been holy for the people will pray for forgiveness and say: Lord God, be merciful. For who else can raise up Jacob (Isa. X)? Who can heal the woman with an issue of blood, except you alone, at whose touch her health is immediately restored (Luke VIII)? For Jacob is small, or of small number, because there remain no or few traces of virtues in them. May you feel remorse, Lord, regarding this, for which you have threatened to do to your people. However, we must understand God's repentance in the Scriptures as we do sleep and anger: not that God feels remorse or changes his mind, as he speaks through the prophet: I am God, and I do not change (Mal. III, 6). And to whom we say: But you are the same, and your years will not fail (Ps. CI, 28); but rather that, when we turn to better things, it is he himself who repents of his decision, so that he does not give rewards to the righteous that he promised, if they turn to wickedness, nor does he inflict punishment on the sinner that he has threatened, if he turns to salvation. He is said to those who are going to repent: Do not give sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, so that you may be freed like a gazelle from the traps, and like a bird from the snare (Prov. VI, 4, 5). If he who despises the Lord's commandments first, and then, when he is in distress, begins to wake up, he awakens the Lord who is sleeping to him, and says: Arise, why do you sleep, Lord (Ps. XLIII, 23)? On the other hand, he who treasures up wrath for himself on the day of wrath, will feel God's anger (Rom. II). But if he repents, anger will turn into mercy, and the Lord will change with our troubles and virtues into both punishment and mercy.

In this chapter God represents to Amos, by three several visions, the judgments he is about to bring on Israel. The first is a plague of locusts, threatening to cut of the hopes of the harvest by attacking it in the time of the second growth; the first luxuriances of the crop being probably mowed for the king's horses, Amo 7:1-3. The next vision threatens a judgment by fire, which would consume a great part, Amo 7:4-6; and the third a total overthrow of Israel, levelling it as it were by a line, Amo 7:7-9. The rest of the chapter is a denunciation of heavy judgments against Amaziah, priest of Beth-el, who had brought an accusation to the king against the prophet, Amo 7:10-17.

The Lord repented - Changed his purpose of destroying them by the locusts. See Amo 7:6.

showed . . . me; and, behold--The same formula prefaces the three visions in this chapter, and the fourth in Amo 8:1. grasshoppers--rather, "locusts" in the caterpillar state, from a Hebrew root, "to creep forth." In the autumn the eggs are deposited in the earth; in the spring the young come forth [MAURER]. the latter growth--namely, of grass, which comes up after the mowing. They do not in the East mow their grass and make hay of it, but cut it off the ground as they require it. the king's mowings--the first-fruits of the mown grass, tyrannically exacted by the king from the people. The literal locusts, as in Joel, are probably symbols of human foes: thus the "growth" of grass "after the king's mowings" will mean the political revival of Israel under Jeroboam II (Kg2 14:25), after it had been mown down, as it were, by Hazael and Ben-hadad of Syria (Kg2 13:3), [GROTIUS].

repented for this--that is, of this. The change was not in the mind of God (Num 2:19; Jam 1:17), but in the effect outwardly. God unchangeably does what is just; it is just that He should hear intercessory prayer (Jam 5:16-18), as it would have been just for Him to have let judgment take its course at once on the guilty nation, but for the prayer of one or two righteous men in it (compare Gen 18:23-33; Sa1 15:11; Jer 42:10). The repentance of the sinner, and God's regard to His own attributes of mercy and covenanted love, also cause God outwardly to deal with him as if he repented (Jon 3:10), whereas the change in outward dealing is in strictest harmony with God's own unchangeableness. It shall not be--Israel's utter overthrow now. Pul was influenced by God to accept money and withdraw from Israel.

III. Sights or Visions The last part of the writings of Amos contains five visions, which confirm the contents of the prophetic addresses in the preceding part. The first four visions, however (ch. 7 and Amo 8:1-14), are distinguished from the fifth and last (Amo 9:1-15) by the fact, that whereas the former all commence with the same formula, "Thus hath the Lord showed me," the latter commences with the words, "I saw the Lord," etc. They also differ in their contents, inasmuch as the former symbolize the judgments which have already fallen in part upon Israel, and in part have still to fall; whilst the latter, on the contrary, proclaims the overthrow of the old theocracy, and after this the restoration of the fallen kingdom of God, and its ultimate glory. And again, of these four, the first and second (Amo 7:1-6) are distinguished from the third and fourth (Amo 7:7-9, and Amo 8:1-3) by the fact, that whereas the former contain a promise in reply to the prophet's intercession, that Jacob shall be spared, in the latter any further sparing is expressly refused; so that they are thus formed into two pairs, which differ from one another both in their contents and purpose. This difference is of importance, in relation both to the meaning and also to the historical bearing of the visions. It points to the conclusion, that the first two visions indicate universal judgments, whilst the third and fourth simply threaten the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel in the immediate future, the commencement of which is represented in the fifth and last vision, and which is then still further depicted in its results in connection with the realization of the divine plan of salvation. Visions of the Locusts, the Fire, and the Plumb-Line. The Prophet's Experience at Bethel - Amos 7