The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 53

■ensue.li~t, the bes0ttcd clrnnke.rd, what is e11.0h but a human wreck P The kernel or life is ,,-asted, and only a husk remains. No wallflower of good can ever grow to cover these ,necks of time. Vers. 13-15.-The'residtu qf Israil's woe. Those who had been called to witness the sin of Israel are now summoned to hear and report her sentence. In conneotlon with this we see that- I. EVEK HEATHENS CAN TESTIFY AGAINST APOSTATE ISRAEL IN THE JUDGIIIENT, To testify i~ not merely to convey intelligence; it contains in it the idea of protest, i.e. testifying against. 1. The heathen had a natural sense of right and wrong. Paul says the~· "show the work of the law written in their hearts," and "are a law unto themselves." A rule of duty is included in the constitution of their nature. They know right from wrong, and are governed by a sense of obligation. They could, there- fore, judge the conduct of Israel. They could see and testify that it did not come up to even their own imperfect standard of right. 2. They had been truer to their standard "f right than Israel had. Paul tells us that the heathen had not been true to their light (Rom. i. 21-28), and that the punishment of that we.s diminished light. But they had been truer, on the whole, than Israel had been to hers. 'l'heir morality was not so far below Israel's as their inferior light would lead us to expect. Hence the assumption that they would be shocked at Israel's manifold corruptions, Moral deterio- ration is measured, not so much by the absolute amount and kind of wrong-doing as by the extent to which it falls below the known standard of right. Other things being equal, he is relatively the best man who most closely follows his light (John iii. 19; Rom. ii. 14). 2. They would learn something for themselves from this witneBB-bearing. Discrimination would see that Israel's sin was not a result, but the contradiction, of the national religion; that it was an evil result of heathen influence, and involving the heathen more or less in its guilt ; that Israel's God was a God that judgeth righteously, and taketh vengeance on evil-doers; and that judgment, beginning at God's chosen people, would not miss his open enemies. The very act of testifying against Israel, moreover, would involve such an exercise of the moral sense, in refer- ence to their sin, as could not fail to be beneficial. II. SIN IS PUNIRBED BY BEING RETURNED ON THE SINNER'S HEAD, "When I visit :;srael's transgression upon him." The sin not only leads to the punishment, but as it were re-em bodies itself in it. 1. The 'lne'IIWry of it haunts him. When sin is done it is not done with. Like the dead bird around the Ancient Mariner's neck, an avenging Providence ties the memory of it to our soul. Like the crime of Eugene Aram, it becomes an evil-haunting memory, to dog our steps for ever, • And still no peace for the restleBS clay Will wave or monld allow; The horrid thing pnrsues my BOul- It stands before me now." (Hood.) 2. The permanent evil consequences of it ke,ep it before the memory. The sins of youth are the sowing of which the sufferings of manhood and age are the harvest-a harvest too constantly and painfully reaped to allow the harvester to forget. The sins of one man are the fruitful source of the sins and sorrows of many, and find in each of these a mentor who makes it impossible to forget. In addition to the sinner and the sinned agaiost, wrong-doing injures those whose well-being depends on either. It is thus a poison-tree that forks and branches in the bearing of its deadly fruit. While the evil consequences of his wrong-doing are around him, and propagating themselves in ever- widening circles, the sinner apart from conscience canuot get his iniquities out of sight. 3. Not sddom the punishment ia a resuNectwn of the sin itself. Laban's trick on Jacob was a rcpetit,ion of Jacob's trick on Isaac (Gen. xxix. 23; xxvii. ,16-27). The deaths of Haman and Jezebel were similarly adjusted punishments. So with the cutting off the thumbs and great toes of the arch-mutilator Adoni-bezek (Judg. i, 6, 7), In sucu cases the sin is palpably returned in retribution on the sinner's head. III. IDOL-WORSHIP re A SIMULATION OF THE woRBJIIP0F GoD. "The altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar." Both in the u~ of an al~r arid in tbe fonn of the altar cir. DI, 1-16.] THE BOOK OF AMOS. 63