Amos 9:1-10--The Destruction of Israel

Amos 9:1-10
English Standard Version

The Destruction of Israel
9 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:

“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
    and shatter them on the heads of all the people;
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

2 “If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”

5 The Lord GOD of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
    and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6 who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth--
the LORD is his name.

7 “Are you not like the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the LORD.
“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the LORD.

9 “For behold, I will command,
    and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
    but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

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The Lord orders the load-bearing pillars to be struck down so that the structure collapses under its own weight (or probably the society collapses under the weight of its sin--again, physical things that are happening are pictures of what is happening to the people spiritually).  There will be nowhere to hide from God.  The people cannot run to the mountains or the heavens or to the depths of the sea.  Judgment will find them there.  Even the grave (Sheol) will not be able to save them.

There is a callback to the book of Numbers when the LORD used fiery serpents to judge His people when they were in rebellion.  The answer then was for them to look at the image that pictured the cross, and the answer for this people is the same.  The people will go into captivity and many of them will be killed.  The LORD's eyes will be upon them not to bring them blessing, but to bring them justice for the wickedness they have done.

They have forgotten how big God is.  He is the one who created everything out of nothing, set the laws that nature exists under, and He sustains all things that would die without Him constantly superintending the little things like the changes in the seasons, the rain, and the boundaries of the oceans that He set.

He establishes and tears down peoples and nations.  Are they any different to Him than the Gentile nations that He has recently judged and found worthy of destruction?  They believe they are something special, that their genetics make them invincible, but He assures them that they are no different and that a day of destruction is coming for them.  The house of Israel (the northern ten tribes) will be shaken and the sinful people will die.  Unless the LORD intervenes, not a single one of them will survive this judgment.