Amos 3:9-15, Bear Witness

Yahweh had been pronouncing judgment upon Israel’s enemies/neighbors but then suddenly included Israel and Judah in these pronouncements. Their special relationship to Yahweh made them more responsible for their rebellion. God calls Israel’s (Samaria’s) enemies/neighbors to bear witness to the injustices in her that demand His judgment.

3:9 Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and witness the great tumults within her, and the oppressed in her midst.” 10 “My people do not know how to do right,” declares Yahweh, “those who store up their wealth from violence and robbery in their strongholds.”

11 Therefore thus says the Sovereign Yahweh: “An adversary will surround the land and bring down your defenses, and your strongholds shall be plundered.”

12 Thus says Yahweh: “As the shepherd tries to rescue a sheep from the mouth of the lion getting only two legs, or a piece of an ear, so will the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed.

13 “Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,” declares the Sovereign Yahweh, the God of hosts, 14 “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. 15 I will strike the winter house of the wealthy along with the summer house, and their houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end,” declares Yahweh.

Samaria, Israel’s capital city, was representative of the nation’s failures to keep Yahweh’s law. There were “great tumults” in the city from those oppressed by the wealthy. The wealthy had become rich through violence and robbery of their own people. Yahweh complains that His own people do not even know how to do right. His children, whom He has raised to know better, have refused to follow their learning.

Consequently, Yahweh will bring the Assyrians to surround Samaria, besiege it and defeat it and plunder it. This is what they deserve for their own plundering of their own people. Like a shepherd who was required to provide evidence of an animal killed under his care (Ex 22:13) to prove he didn’t steal it, getting only a leg or piece of an ear from the lion’s jaw, Israel would be left with only pieces of the furniture of the wealthy after Assyria’s destructive attack.

The altars of Bethel would be destroyed. Bethel, where Jereboam first set up the bull as an image of Yahweh to worship, establishing a place of false worship in Israel to counter Jerusalem in Judah (1 Kings 12:25-33), would be bereft of her altar and the “horns” of the altar, the projections at the four corners of the altar, to which the sacrifices were bound. “According to Israelite law, a fugitive could find refuge at the altar by grasping its horns (1Ki 1:50), but even this last refuge would be lost” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary).

False worship was a sin being condemned, and dishonest accumulation of wealth at the expense of the poor was also, as represented by the luxury of having summer and winter homes. Yahweh would bring these to an end by His appointed judgment.