Amos 4:6 - Meaning and Application

Here, God complains that his people would not change, even after he disciplined them to humble and restore them. He had given them clear signs of his displeasure so they would repent and make peace with him, but the warnings had no effect. The repeated charge in these verses is, “Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord.” They had been corrected many times, but they were still unchanged, with no sign of turning back.

This shows that God meant every providential warning, every trouble he sent, to bring them back to loyalty to him. If they had returned to God, he would have welcomed them, and their troubles would have ended. The fact that he sent further judgments only shows that earlier ones had failed to do their work. God was grieved by their stubbornness, because they forced him to do what he did unwillingly. They had turned away from the very God who was ready to receive them and who had so often called them.

To show how patient he had been, God points to the lighter judgments he had already used to call them to repentance. At times there had been a shortage of food, even though no clear cause could be seen. He says, “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,” meaning they had nothing to eat, so their teeth stayed clean. In other words, bread, the main support of life, was missing, even though they had sown much and brought in little (Haggai 1:9). Some think this refers to the seven-year famine in Elisha’s time (2 Kings 8:1). Even then, instead of turning back to God, they did not return to him.

At other times, God withheld the rain, and then the crops failed. This was his doing, for he says, “I withheld the rain from you” (Amos 4:7). God controls the clouds, and no one can open what he shuts. The rain stopped when harvest time was still three months away, when they normally needed it most. That made the judgment especially severe, because it ruined their hopes for the crop. God even made the lack of rain uneven: one city might have rain while another nearby had none, and one field might be watered while the next one stayed dry.

This was no accident. It showed that the rain was directed by God’s will, not by chance. It also likely showed that the places left dry were the more wicked ones, such as Bethel and Gilgal (Amos 4:4), while the places that received rain still had some faith and goodness among them. In the town fields, rain might fall on one owner’s land and not on another’s, because God’s curse rests on the house and ground of the wicked, while he blesses the home of the righteous. It would have been a sharp grief for those whose land withered to see their neighbors’ fields flourishing. The wicked would see others prosper and be troubled by it.

Still, in the larger picture, even this judgment had mercy mixed with it. That should have strengthened their call to repent and given them hope of mercy if they returned to God. But they did not use this kindness well, and so they did not benefit from it. As Amos 4:8 says, two or three cities wandered to one city like beggars, hoping to find water and carry some home, but they were not satisfied. Water was scarce, and those who had it could spare only a little, fearing they might need it themselves. Those who drank were still unsatisfied, because they had only a measured amount, and their thirst remained.

One would think such repeated disappointment would have led them to consider their ways and repent. But it did not. They still did not return to God, not even enough to pray rightly for the early and late rains (Zechariah 10:1). This shows how foolish worldly hearts are. They keep running from one place to another, and from one created thing to another, looking for satisfaction, yet never find it. They labor for what does not satisfy (Isaiah 55:2), and even then they will not turn back to God, in whom true satisfaction could be found.

The preaching of the gospel is like rain. God sometimes blesses one place with it more than another. Some countries and cities are, like Gideon’s fleece, soaked with this dew, while the ground around them stays dry. Wherever this rain is missing, everything withers.

It would be good if people cared for their souls as carefully as they care for their bodies. When they do not have this rain near them, they should go and seek it where it can be found. If they seek in the right way, they will not seek in vain.

Sometimes the fruits of the ground were eaten by caterpillars or spoiled by mildew, as in Amos 4:9. Heaven and earth are armed against those who have made God their enemy. When God was displeased, they suffered from a harmful air, either too hot or too cold, which ruined their crops in a way no one could see or stop. There was no defense against it.

They also suffered from harmful creatures. Their vineyards and gardens gave a rich harvest, and so did their fig trees and olive trees. But the palmerworm devoured them before the fruit was ripe and ready to gather. This may have been the same judgment we read about in Joel 1:4-6, or a smaller warning of the same kind. But they did not learn from it: yet you have not returned to me.

At other times the plague raged among them, and the sword of war cut off many, as in Amos 4:10. Pestilence is God’s messenger. He sent it among them and directed whom it should strike, and it was done. It was a plague like the one in Egypt, with deaths spread among them by a destroying angel at midnight. Perhaps, like the Egyptian plague, it struck the firstborn.

Or it came “in the way of Egypt,” as the margin says, meaning that when they were fleeing to Egypt or going there for help, the plague met them on the road and stopped them. The sword of war is also the sword of the Lord. He drew it out with authority, and it killed their young men, the strength of that generation and the hope of the next. God says, “I have killed them,” and openly owns the act. The slain of the Lord are many.

The enemy took their horses and used them for himself. The dead bodies of those killed by sword or plague were so many, and left unburied so long because there were no surviving friends, that the smell of their camps rose into their noses. It was foul and dangerous, and should have reminded them how offensive their sin was to God. Yet even this did not humble them or bring them back: you have not returned to him who struck you. Such a sad, dreadful sight still did not make them turn to God.

In these and other judgments, some were strikingly cut off and became examples of justice, while others were strikingly spared and became examples of mercy. Placing those two sides beside each other should have moved them, but it did not, as Amos 4:11 says. Some were totally ruined, with their families destroyed along with them: “I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” They may have been destroyed by lightning, as Sodom was, or their houses may have burned down another way, with the people in them.

Sodom and Gomorrah are said to have been condemned by overthrow and made an example (2 Peter 2:6). God had warned that he would destroy the whole land with an overthrow like Sodom’s (Deuteronomy 29:23). But he began with certain places first, to warn them, or perhaps with certain people whose sins had already gone before them to judgment.

Others barely escaped. “You were like a firebrand pulled out of the burning, like Lot out of Sodom, when the fire had already started on you.” And yet they hated sin no more for the danger it brought, and loved God no more for the rescue he gave. Those who had been so clearly and specially delivered still did not return to him.

At the end, God calls on his people to understand, even now, the things that belong to their peace before they are hidden from their eyes, as in Amos 4:12-13. He threatens them with worse judgments than any they have faced so far: “Therefore, since you have not been changed by correction, thus I will do to you, O Israel.” He does not say exactly what he will do, only that it will be worse than what has come before (John 5:14). Or he means, “I will go on doing this to you, one judgment after another, like the plagues of Egypt, until I make a full end.” Nothing but repentance will keep a sinful people from ruin. If they do not turn to him, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out. The law had said the same thing: if they would not be reformed, he would punish them seven times more (Leviticus 26:23-24).

So he calls them to make peace with God while there is still time: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” This can mean, first, think about how unable you are to meet him as an enemy. Some take it as irony or a challenge: prepare to meet God, who is coming out to contend with you. What armor can you wear? What courage can you harden yourself with? In truth, it is like putting briars and thorns in front of a consuming fire (Isaiah 27:4-5). Can you, with fewer than 10,000, meet the one who comes against you with more than 20,000 (Luke 14:31)?

It also means, second, resolve to meet him as a repentant person, a humble suppliant, one who comes to meet him as your covenant God, ready to submit and stop resisting. We must prepare to meet God in the time of his judgments (Isaiah 26:8), and lay hold of his strength so we may make peace. Since we cannot run away from God, we must get ready to meet him. He gives warning so we can prepare. And when we come to meet him in his ordinances, we must also prepare our hearts to seek him.

God shows the greatness of his power as another reason to prepare to meet him, in Amos 4:13. If he is the God described here, it is foolish to fight against him. It is our duty and our good to make peace with him. It is a blessing to have him as a friend, and a danger to have him as an enemy. He formed the mountains, the strongest and most majestic parts of the earth, and still holds up the earth and the mountains by the word of his power. Whatever good comes from the everlasting hills, he made them. Whatever salvation people hope for from hills and mountains, he is the one who founded it (Psalm 89:11-12). The God who formed the great mountains can also make them level when they stand in the way of his people’s rescue.

He creates the wind.

The power of the air comes from God, and he directs it. He brings the wind out of his storehouses and decides which direction it will blow. The one who made the wind also rules it, and even the winds and the seas obey him.

He also shows people what he is thinking. He makes his will known through his prophets to the people of the earth, including his judgment against stubborn sinners and his good purpose toward those who repent. He can also reveal the thoughts in a person’s heart, because he knows them perfectly. He understands them from far away, and on the day of conviction he will bring a sinner’s evil thoughts forward with the rest of their sins.

He often turns morning into darkness by covering the sky with thick clouds just after the sun has risen bright and clear. In the same way, when we expect peace and joy, he can quickly shatter our hopes with a sudden trouble. He treads on the high places of the earth. That means he is not only higher than the highest, but has authority over all. He crushes proud people and the idols worshiped in high places.

The Lord, the God of hosts, is his name. He exists by himself and is the source of all life and being. All the armies of heaven and earth are under his command. So let us humble ourselves before this God, prepare to meet him, and do all we can to make him our God. Happy are the people whose God he is, because they have all this power working for them.