Amos 3:13-15: what God punishes
“Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,” declares the Lord God, the God of hosts, “that on the day I punish israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great house shall come to an end.” Amos 3:13-15
God calls Egypt and Philistia once again to testify against Israel. God’s witnesses to Israel’s crimes are stubborn, rebelious nations, but they can point out the crimes of Israel well. God tells his witnesses what he will punish. Of all the mistakes Israel has made, of all the ways they have lived, of all the deeds they have done, what is God going to make sure he punishes?
(1) their false religion. He is going after their altars. Their worship is infuriating to Him (Amos 5:21). It isn’t real worship of the true God. It isn’t birthed out of a passion for the true God. Instead it has been shaped and tweaked to accommodate their own desires, many of which are blatantly sinful. And their worship is another expression of their oppression of the poor. So God is going after their alters. He is going to tear them down. The horns of the altars, which are a symbol of strength and pride, will be smashed and broken, laying on the ground. Their false gods will be proved impotent. Their man-made creations will be put away. God hates this false religion, and he will see to its destruction.
(2) their riches that oppress the poor. He is going after their extra houses. The winter and summer house. One would face one direction to be warmer in winter, and the other would face another direction to be cooler in summer. Israel was beginning to have more of these…by oppressing the poor. They had even built some houses of ivory, which would have been massively expensive…by oppressing the poor. They had sections of great houses, nicer homes, luxurious homes that stood in contrast to the smaller, simpler homes of the poor. These neighborhoods were built by oppressing the poor. In fact, this is an early glimpse of a sociological problem we will fight today. Neighborhoods mainly for the poor and neighborhoods mainly for the rich, with a thick separating wall between them. This leads to resentment, superiority, crime, pain, glass-ceiling upward mobility, and all sorts of other problems. Consider how Israel contributed to this problem:
In the age prior to Jeroboam II, the houses in Israel’s cities were roughly the same size. But archaeologists find a change starting in the eighth century b.c. – ancient cities like Tirzah have a neighborhood of large, expensive houses and another neighborhood of small, crowded structures, smaller than the houses from previous years. The larger houses are filled with the marks of prosperity, and the oppressive rich of Israel thought they could find safety there – but God’s judgment came against those houses as well, just as Amos promised.
