Amos 9: The Promise Of Restoration

A consistent theme that runs through the Bible is the idea that the Lord will spare a remnant of His people.  Even within scriptural prophecies of gloom and doom, we find the promise that times of blessing lie ahead.  The Book of Amos ends on just such a positive note.

Amos 9 begins, however, by continuing the warning of a coming punishment.  In what must have looked like a prescient description of the earthquake that would hit the region in two years (1:1), Amos has a vision of the Lord standing beside the altar and commanding that the capitals be struck until the thresholds shake and they come down on the heads of the people (vs. 1).  Wherever His people may try to hide themselves from Him, God vows to find them.  His eye is on them "for harm and not for good" (vs. 4).

Landing a blow to Israel's pride of place as the chosen people, God points out through the prophet that all the nations of the world are His.  Just as He has guided the Israelites, so, too, has the Lord been working His will through the Ethiopians, the Philistines, and the Arameans.  There wasn't a special qualitative difference in Israel that made them morally superior to everyone else but a special relationship that they were blessed to enjoy with God in order to be His emissaries and missionaries to the world.  They were chosen not just to be blessed; they were chosen to fulfill a purpose and be a blessing to others.

After letting the people of Israel have it and not holding back from fiery words about a coming judgment, Amos concludes his writing with a promise of restoration.  Beginning in verse 11, the tone shifts noticeably as Amos offers a message of hope for Judah.  "On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old (vs. 11).  God will not forsake His promise to Abraham.  While the northern kingdom of Israel may be carried into exile and disappear as a nation, Judah will survive - and even thrive!

Here is the hopeful vision of the future that Amos ends his writing with: "I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.  I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land I have given them, says the Lord your God" (vs. 14-15).