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[Amos 9:8-15] It is an epilogue, and it was likely added in order to relieve the gloom
and the pessimism and the fatalism of the prophet's message, because in these verses,
Amos does an almost complete about-face. We have just finished the first half of verse
8 in Chapter 9. So 9:8a --you have this oracle of complete and devastating judgment: "Behold,
the Lord God has His eye/Upon the sinful kingdom:/I will wipe it off/The face of the earth." But
then, the second half of the verse, and the beginning of this epilogue that has been added,
immediately dilutes this: "But, I will not wholly wipe out/The House of Jacob --declares
the Lord." It seems that an editor has qualified this
last oracle of doom, has desired to qualify this last oracle of doom. And the editor continues,
For I will give the order And shake the House of Israel--
Through all the nations-- As one shakes [sand] in a sieve,
And not a pebble falls to the ground. All the sinners of My people
Shall perish by the sword, Who boast,
"Never shall the evil Overtake us or come near us."
In that day, I will set up again the fallen booth of David;
I will mend its breaches and set up its ruins anew.
I will build it firm as in the days of old, [...]
A time is coming--declares the Lord -- [...]
When the mountains shall drip wine And all the hills shall wave [with grain].
I will restore my people Israel. They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit
them; [...]
They shall till gardens and eat their fruits. And I will plant them upon their soil,
Nevermore to be uprooted From the soil I have given them--said the
Lord your God.
In other words, according to this epilogue, God's punishment of Israel isn't the end of
the story. It is one step in a process, and the affliction and the punishment serve a
purpose. It is to purge the dross, to chasten Israel. They are going to be put through a
sieve. Only the sinners will really perish. A remnant, presumably a righteous remnant,
will be permitted to survive and in due time that remnant will be restored.
To summarize Amos, and hopefully this will give us then some foothold as we move into
other prophetic books, we need to understand that the Book of Amos is a set of oracles
by a prophet addressing a concrete situation in the northern kingdom. It's been subject
to some additions that reflect the perspective of a later editor. Amos' message was that
sin would be punished by God and it would be punished on a national level--the nation
would fall. When the northern kingdom fell, it was understood to be a fulfillment of Amos'
words. The Assyrians were the instruments of God's just punishment. So his words were
preserved in Judah. After Judah fell, presumably a later editor added a few key passages to
reflect this later reality, most significantly the oracle against Judah in chapter 2, verses
4-5, and the epilogue in chapter 9, verse 8b through 15, which explicitly seem to refer
to the fall of the southern kingdom. It refers to a future day when the fallen booth of David
will be raised. That reflects a knowledge of the end of Judah, the end of the Davidic
kingship. And the phrase "on that day" which is used, is a phrase that often signals what
we feel is an editorial insertion in a prophetic book. It is pointing forward to some vague
future time of restoration. Okay.
