I wrote the below essay while overseeing (with others) a gathering of around eight families through the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. With local churches having closed their doors, we, along with the others involved, decided to open ours.

Each of the eight families who attend are in similar life stages though their struggles and circumstances vary widely. Debilitating anxiety, financial hardship, terminal illness, children on the autism spectrum, marital dysfunction, and workaholism are all present difficulties. The adults in our gathering are weary from pandemic-fueled hypervigilance and fear. They are hungry for God’s truth and eager to sit under the authority of his word. More than anything, these families (along with my own) need to be reminded of God’s steadfast sovereignty and goodness in the middle of life’s challenges as well as the beauty of the hope he offers in our present fears, frustrations, and circumstances.

Amos 9 is a crescendo of God’s judgement on Israel followed by relief because of his grace. Amos’ early Israelite readers would have felt a stiff reprimand and a sober reminder of God’s holiness, power, and wrath. The genre of Amos is prophetic, though his words do have an apocalyptic timbre to them as well. The content of his final oracle  would feel like an end-times account if it were not for the final five verses. It is in those last verses where we see the biblical theological climax of the text: while God will in fact judge Israel, he does so not to destroy them, but to bring them near. As John Oswalt notes, “God’s ultimate purpose in judgment is never destruction (v. 8), it is always restoration.”

The first part of Amos 9:1 sets the scene for the next nine verses: the Lord is next to the altar, the place from which he will pronounce his sentence on the people. The image of a spurned God near the altar is fitting, since hollow, heartless worship was one of the major offenses of Israel in their time of wealth and prosperity. Oswalt notes, “Their worship of God was little more than attempts at magical manipulation of him, much like the religion of their pagan neighbors.”¹ The latter part of the first verse details how thoroughly the temple will be ruined and how nondiscriminating God’s judgement will be on the people. The vision continues to darken from here.

The next section vividly illustrates the magnitude and inescapability of God’s judgement. It is helpful to break the next six verses into three parts: God’s pursuit of sinners (vv. 2–4), God’s power (vv. 5–6), and God’s providence (vv. 7–8). The first part expands the scope of God’s thoroughness in seeking out his offenders. Wherever the people flee—Sheol or heaven (v. 2), mountaintop or seafloor (v. 3), or behind enemy borders (v. 4)—God will pursue and punish those who have sinned against him. The second part illustrates God’s matchless power by describing acts like melting (v. 5) and flooding (v. 6) the earth. The final part of this section is a reminder of God’s sovereignty over not only Israel, but of all other nations as well (v. 7). John D. Barry notes, “Yahweh reveals to Israel that, despite Israel’s election as His chosen people, He still cares for all people” and that he ”claims responsibility not only for the movement of Israel from Egypt to Canaan but also for the migrations of the Philistines and the Arameans (Syrians).” ² God’s sovereignty is uncontested, his power is unmatched, and his wrath cannot be escaped.

The cumulative effect of Amos 9:2–8 is for hearers to be impressed with the unstoppable and inescapable wrath of God to come. If they had failed to grasp this reality in Amos’ earlier visions, it would have been unmistakeable at this point. Thankfully, the vision doesn’t end there. While God’s wrath is inevitable and Israel will be shaken as “one shakes with a sieve”, Amos adds, “but no pebble shall fall to the earth” (v. 9). Finally, readers receive a glimpse of hope in a passage riddled with doom. As a nation, Israel will suffer God’s wrath, but his promise to preserve his faithful remnant still stands. The question remains to be answered, How exactly will God restore Israel after they have been sifted as dirt through a sieve? (v. 9) The next five verses offer the hope we and ancient readers so desperately need.

If Amos 9 is a crescendo to the whole book, the final five verses are the crescendo of the crescendo. This final section starts with a promise: “In that day I will” (v. 11). Readers desperate for a reminder of God’s faithfulness finally find it here. The same consistency of character with which God punishes sin will also drive him to preserve his promise. And his people can take great hope in the content of the promise he has made: “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” (v. 11). Though the nation of Israel will bear his wrath, God will preserve his own, and he will do it through the Davidic line just as he promised centuries prior (2 Samuel 7:15–16, Psalm 72:17).

It is at this point (v. 11) where we begin to understand how the Apostles and NT authors saw this text as referring to Christ and his church. Calvin and Owen aptly note, “This is the import of the whole. After having shown then that the people had no hope from themselves, for God had tried all means, but in vain, and after having denounced their final ruin, he now subjoins, ‘The Lord will yet have mercy on his people, for he will remember his covenant.’ How will this be? ‘The Redeemer shall come.’ We now then understand the design of the Prophet and the meaning of the verse.” ³

Indeed, our Redeemer has come and he will come once again to make all things new (Revelation 21:5). The visible fulfillment of the Davidic promise in the person of Christ supplies believers with strong confidence in his future paradise as Amos describes (vv. 13–15). But until then, for now, Christ starts by giving believers new life in him (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As modern readers of the text, we have the advantage of seeing the ultimate fulfillment of Amos’ prophecy in the person of Christ. Though God vowed to destroy the temple (and did), David’s tent was repaired, raised, and rebuilt through another, perfect Davidic King. Though the people of Israel and Judah were scattered among the nations, God’s remnant has been preserved through another Ruler and commissioned to make disciples among them (Matthew 28:19). And while God’s wrath is still inescapable for sinners, we may now stand protected through the wrath-bearing sacrifice of our sinless Savior on the cross. Just as Amos foretold, those who are found in Christ will be planted in the promises of God, never again to be uprooted out of the inheritance he has given them (v. 15).

For the families and individuals in our church context, Amos 9 offers profound hope in their various trials and circumstances. Indeed, parts of our life feel the effects of our sin more than others. Our minds are overwhelmed with anxiety as we lay awake at night, striving to reconcile our very real emotions with the deeper realities and promises of God. Our bodies are stricken with brokeness and disease which remind us that no matter where we go—the mountaintop or the seafloor—there we are, with the effects of death and decay still trailing close behind. Like Israel, we have profoundly sinned against God, and like Israel, we are subject to his inescapable, inevitable wrath. Most profoundly, like Israel, the guarantee of God’s redemption remains. Though condemnation is what we deserve, it is not what we receive (Romans 8:1). Instead, because of God’s grace we are redeemed in Jesus Christ. In him, we have hope, and in him, the prophecy is fulfilled in its most ultimate sense.

What a wonder it is to marvel at the steadfast holiness and justice of God from the vantage point of one saved by his selfless love and unassailable grace. It truly is a magnificent mystery, and one we must never tire of savoring. As Dr. Duguid notes when describing Christ in the prophetic texts, “These are the things into which angels long to look. Jesus Christ, our righteousness, our holiness, our hope of heaven, our refuge from the wrath to come. The center and theme of the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation.”⁴ May the same Jesus Christ be the center and theme of our whole existence, both in this life and the next.

1. Oswalt, John, “Amos,” in The ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2007), 1656–1674. [back]
2. Barry, John D., et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Am 9:7. [back]
3. Calvin, John and John Owen, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets (vol. 2; Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 404. [back]
4. Duguid, Iain. “Seeing Christ in the Prophets.” Lecture, Westminster Theological Seminary, Glenside, PA, May 7, 2021. [back]