Amos 8:1-14--The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

Amos 8
English Standard Version

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
8 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel;
    I will never again pass by them.
3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
declares the Lord GOD.
“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
“Silence!”

4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will the new moon be over,
    that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
    that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
    and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6 that we may buy the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
    and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
    and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,
    “I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
    and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist
    and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
    “when I will send a famine on the land--
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
    and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
    but they shall not find it.

13 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
    shall faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
    and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’
    they shall fall, and never rise again.”

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The LORD starts off this prophecy by showing Amos a basket of summer fruit.  We don't really get an explanation of why other than it has something to do with how the LORD sees the state of the northern tribes.  They are about to be judged.  They will weep and mourn bitterly.  There will be dead bodies everywhere, and no one will be left to bury them.  The few that remain will be taken into exile.

They will receive justice for the injustices they have committed towards the poor and needy.  The people were greedy and spent all their holy days thinking of when the holy day would be over so that they could go back to working and making money--even if that money was earned by dishonest gain or the sale of their fellow countrymen.  This was abominable to the LORD.

The LORD is going to remember their wickedness (the Old Testament is full of references that the LORD will have mercy and choose to forget the sins of the people, but not here).  When he acts, it will be bring a response from both heaven and earth.  The earth will shake and the sun will go dark like it was setting at noon (both these things happened when Jesus was crucified and took the judgment we deserved, and they will happen again in the last days to those who choose to drink of the cup of the wrath of God themselves).

The day is coming quickly when their hedonism will be turned into mourning and suffering.  There will be great famine that will reflect to the people the condition of their own hearts.  It will be widespread so that they will not be able to run anywhere to escape it.  The idols the people of Israel worshiped would be unable to save them.  Even the young will perish from lack of food and water.  They will die and no one will take their place.