The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 51

Vers. 9-12.-The prophet gets Ms heavy commission. It is Jehovah that speaks. He addresses the prophets (Keil), or the heathen (Lange), or the heathen through the prophets. The passage is a summons to the nations to appear as witnesses of Israel's flagrant sin, and her dreadful punishment. '!'here are many articles in her predicted woe. Not least of these is condemnation by the heathen, who for less heinous sins were to be themselves destroyed. When a professed follower of God apostatizes in such a fashion that even God's enemies cry shame, and endures a corresponding punishment in their sight, the cap of his iniquity and of his retribution are both full. I. THE CRIME CHARGED. There are many counts in this grave indictment. 1. The confusion of sordid money-seelcing. "See the great confusions in the midst thereof." The restlessness of greed, the fever of speculation, the wrangling of barter, and the tumult of audacious extortion are all included here. The mingling of excitement, disorder, and noise in a struggle for money, suggest a scene in which little is left to fancJ with one who has been "on 'Change." 2. The oppression of power without principle. " And the oppressed in the heart thereof." From fraud to oppression is but a single step, and a short one. It is simply e. question of power. The swindler would steal if he ocntld. The thief would rob with violence if he dare. When dishonesty, moreover, prevails in private life, a system of public plunder is only a question of opportunity. 3. Wrong-doing till the way to do right had been forgotten. "They know not to do right." "In the nature of things every sin against light draws blood on the spiiitual rttiua" (Joseph Cook). Men are both hardened and blinded by a course of fin. Evil actions repeated become habits, and evil habits indulgtd in work thcruselves into the "ery texture of the soul. The wrong of ill-doing soon ceases to be felt, which naturally leads to its ceasing to be seen (Jer. iv. 22; cf. Rom. xvi. 19), When we can sin without conscience, we are very near to sinning without conscious- r,e>s. The way to preserve a good conscience, a conscience that knows evil and con• dcmns it, is to respect its least dictate. "Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny." 4. Puttin.g by plunder in store. "Who store up violence and devastation in their palaces." Plunder has not even the poor excuse of need. It is practised gratuitously, as without limit, 'l'he poor were fleeced and impoverished, that the sordid rich might heap up enormous and superfluous stores. And by the terms there was stored up not only the spoil of violeiice, but violence itself. Pari pauu, with the accumulation of ill-gotten gain wu OH, III. 1-15.] THE BOOK OF A.MOS. 51