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Monday 9 April 2018

Amos 2:1-5 - Moab and Judah

2:1-3
Moab is the last of the non-Israelite nations in this list. Notice that it is not just sins against Israel that car condemned. Here it is sins against Edom. There was a time when Judah and Edom joined forces against Moab (2 Kings 3:6-9). The morality of the time was in favour of respecting the corpse of a royal enemy, so Moab violated that more. The judgement on Moab would match the crimes that she had committed.

2:4,5

If Amos was giving all these prophecies on a single day one can imagine the Israelites being excited by it all, hearing of God’s judgement on enemy nations. Amos now turns to Judah, and they would be quite happy to hear of God having a few harsh words for them as well. However, the indictment against Judah takes a slightly different turn. The introduction is the same as for all the others, “For three ... and for four”, but the charge is that she has rejected the law of the Lord. This is a crucial difference. For the other nations a specific crime was named, for Judah it is the Law. God is scrupulously fair in His judgments. People often ask “what about those who have not heard”, but God will judge fairly. These other nations did not have the Law, but all men have a conscience, all men have some innate sense of right and wrong. And all men, at times, act against that sense, ie do things which we know are wrong. All are guilty, but the guilt of Judah was greater, for she had the Law of God. So Jerusalem would receive judgement like any other nation. As Peter says in his first letter, there is no favouritism with God. The reference to “their lies”having led them astray may be a reference to the consequences of idol worship.

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