Commentaries:
Unlike the judgments of the Gentiles (Amos 1:3-15; 2:1-3), Amos indicts Judah for breaking His commandments, specifically lying.
Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept His commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies after which their fathers walked. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” (Amos 2:4-5)
Judah's despising of God's law and Israel's commanding the prophets to stop preaching His Word (Amos 2:12) reflect the exact same moral condition: Both refused the voice of God as spoken through His prophets. What God intended to be their privilege through the revelation of Himself and His law had turned out to be their central peril. It is another way of saying, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).
Physical Israel today—the Anglo-Saxon nations of America, the British Commonwealth, and northwestern Europe—is rejecting God's way of life just as ancient Israel did. It is this proud attitude that spiritual Israel, God's church, is fighting. God will not accept any excuse for failing to live His way of life (Hebrews 6:4-6) because when He reveals it, He also provides the power to live it.
God promises He will never give us a trial that is too great and will always provide a way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13). He wants to see if we love His truth and follow His instructions. And if we need help to do what He has revealed to us to be His way, He will endow us with the ability to fulfill it (II Corinthians 3:4-6).
As God destroyed the Egyptians and Amorites to deliver Israel (Amos 2:9-10), He will also deliver us no matter the odds against us. We cannot overcome human nature, Satan, and this evil world without the help of God. We must seek God and ask for the gifts we need to overcome, grow, and produce the fruit of a godly way of life (Luke 11:9-13; James 1:5).
Despising truth is an inward attitude that outwardly reveals itself in immorality, and this is the condition God found in ancient Israel. The people had become complacent about His revelation to them. They zealously sought after knowledge—even religious knowledge—but they did not really love the truth (Romans 10:2-3). Their ambivalence to the truth was reflected in their immorality; if they truly loved God's truth, they would have lived it, and God would have had no cause for judgment.
In this Information Age, we accumulate mounds of data—regarding ethics, solutions to social ills, and the like—yet our morals decline. Intelligent, educated individuals have written many Bible commentaries, but they still refuse to keep the Sabbath or holy days. They write that Christmas and Easter have pagan origins and are not commanded in the Bible, but they still observe them. They do not love God's truth enough to change. Such was Israel's problem, and it could be ours if we are not careful.
Because God has revealed His truth to us, each Christian is responsible for conforming to it and growing. A greater diversity of distractions competes for our time and attention than at any other time in the history of mankind. If we are not extremely careful and lose our sense of urgency, we will gradually lose our understanding of what is true and what is not. Our ability to distinguish between right and wrong will become blurred. We must ensure that God, His Word, and His way are always first in our lives.
Christ said that if we keep the truth, the truth, in turn, will keep us free (John 8:31-36). If we live it, the revealed truth of God will protect us from sinking back into slavery to sin. But first, we must love the truth God has given us. Humanly, we pursue what we love. God wants a father-child or teacher-student relationship with us. If we do not love truth, and if we do not pursue it and God Himself, we will seriously undermine our relationship with Him, and He could interpret our attitude as despising His truth.
Love of the truth comes from God through His Holy Spirit and must be nourished through our response to it. We must not only learn it but also apply it in our lives. Doing so will make the difference between being saved and perishing (II Thessalonians 2:9-12).
John W. Ritenbaugh and Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (Part Two)
The translation of "law" is misleading. The word is torah, and in this context it does not mean a code of rules written in a book, like a book of law. That aspect is found in the word "commandments" or "statutes," which means written, in this case, on stone. The word is literally "engraved." "Law" is teaching or instruction, suggesting a relationship that exists because an instructor is teaching a pupil.
When God says, "they have despised the law," in reality they have rejected Him, the Instructor. In effect, He says, "The relationship has been broken and now you are breaking My commandments," showing that it is a cause and effect process. Just in case they missed the point, He illustrates what He meant from examples out of society.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Guard the Truth!
Notice first that the Gentile nations are guilty of the same basic sins—that of gross and vicious cruelties in warfare. In sharp contrast, God charges Judah with commandment-breaking, specifically lying. Israel's sins largely involve national and personal deceitful faithlessness in social, economic, and cultural circumstances. This is not to say that other nations do not have some of these same characteristics or that Israelites have no vicious streak in them. However, Israelites have the Word of God and most especially God's commandments more generally available to them and thus have less excuse, so God holds them more accountable than any other people (Amos 3:2). To whom much is given much more is required (Luke 12:47-48). Israelites should know better.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Seventh Commandment
Law in Amos 2:4 refers to instruction, not legislation and its enforcement. From a Hebrew verb that means “to throw,” its root describes casting lots or throwing dice. When lots or dice were cast, God revealed His will in the way they landed (Proverbs 16:33; see Leviticus 16:8-10; Acts 1:26). At times, lots were used in making judgments in criminal cases in which judges needed to ascertain God's will (Joshua 7:13-25). Thus, by setting a legal precedent, the casting of lots provided instruction in other cases involving the same basic principles of behavior. God's will—His law—was taught to His people through casting lots.
This instruction process implies a teacher-student relationship. When the Israelites rejected God's instruction contained in His law, they rejected the Instructor as well. Their relationship with Him quickly deteriorated.
The Hebrew word underlying commandment means “to engrave or cut into stone,” suggesting its permanence and immutability in contrast to temporary and changeable lies. The law comes from an unchangeable, righteous, and pure God in contrast to fickle and iniquitous men.
Judah's despising of God's law and revelation of Himself was internal—from the heart (Psalm 78:37; 81:11-12; Jeremiah 5:23). The personal and social failures Amos records provide evidence that the people had rejected the truth. So it is with us: God wants to change our hearts so He can change our actions and turn around our lives.
In every area of life, Israel perverted the truth of God to accommodate human ideas. In the final tally, they loved lies rather than the revelation of God (II Thessalonians 2:11-12). Thus, Amos says that God's people despised His law. They made the mistake of devaluing their calling and considered it common. Believing they were God's elect, they thought they were irrevocably saved. With this attitude, it was only a matter of time before spiritual and moral complacency set in. As the church of God, we cannot allow ourselves to slip into this attitude because we, too, would fall into immorality.
If that occurs, God must pass judgment because His justice is the same for everybody (Colossians 3:25; I Peter 1:17). God's laws govern the people on the outside as well as the people on the inside. No matter what makes Israel or the church distinctly different, His judgment is always righteous. When God could not change Israel's immorality through His prophets, He had to punish them. So will He punish an apostate church.
It is easy to see why this book was written for the end-time church. The people of America and the British Commonwealth are already in the moral and spiritual condition of the people of Israel and Judah in the time of Amos. Members of God's church come out of such a world. Just as Israel's privileged position became a curse, so will it be for the Christian who ultimately rejects his calling (Hebrews 6:4).
John W. Ritenbaugh and Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (Part Two)
God judges the other nations guilty of gross and vicious cruelties in warfare. Israel's sins, though, largely involve national and personal deceit, disobedience to God's commandments, and creating social injustice by being faithless toward fellow man to get for the self.
It is not that other nations do not have these characteristics, but Israel has less excuse to be this way because God gave the Israelites His Word. They should know better! Amos 3:2 drives this home: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." God has given no other people the privilege of being faithfully responsible to Him to keep His commands.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Seventh Commandment (1997)
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Amos 2:4:
Amos 2:4
Romans 3:20
1 John 3:4
