The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 69

inconsistent with the thing be bad appointed. The observance of them was not eervioe, but disobedience and rebellion. For the Nadabs and Abihus who offer strange fire before the Lord there is reserved the fire of his wrath and not the light of hie favour, 3. II wa., reeking with the wickedness with which it was deliberately mia:ed "I>· "Multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices.n 'l'he "obedience" to himself which "is better than sacrifice" was entirely wanting. The "mercy n to men which be will have "and not sacrifice" ha.d been desidcmted in vain. With one hand they piled high the offering, and with the other piled higher still the trespass. And in so aoing they piled the mountain of a moral impos~ibility between them and acceptance. The form of worship, in combination with the reality of sin, is a spiritual monstrosity which, as an offering to God, may not be so much as named. God will take no gift from a sin-stained band (Isa. i. 15). "If we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not bear us " (Ps. lxvi. 18). If we lift up unclean hands in worship, he will not accept (1 Tim. ii. 8). Let us "wash our hands in innocence n when we go to the "holy altar." With clouds of sin hovering over our sanctuary service no dews of Divine favour can ever fall. Vers. 6-13.~udgment the Divine retort to human sin. This is the sad history ol God's vain contendings with an incorrigible nation. In eh. iii. is an account of the mercies by which he at first had tried to draw them. A.ll that ha.d failed utterly, They met pri,ilege with inappreciatiou, friendship with rebuff, and favour with incredible disregard. Then he ha.d changed his tactics. They would not be drawn, perhaps they might be driven. The experiment was worth the making, and the record of it is in these verses. I. THE VARIED VISITATIONS OF JEHOVAH. "So then God ha.d but one gift which he could bestow, one only out of the rich storehouse of his mercies, since all besides were abused-chastisement" (Pusey). This he sent: 1. In diverse forms. He reduced them by famine, which often acts as a moral depletive, by cutting off its supply from lust. He plagued them with pestilence-a. visitation that strikes terror into the boldest hearts. He slew them with the sword of their enemies-a fate which bas terrors peculiarly its own. He swallowed them up in earthquakes-the most portentous and awful of earthly phenomena. 2. In incre,a,sing severity. Famine is direful, but it is directed primarily against the means of life. Pestilence is ghastlier, for it is directed against the life itself. The sword is more terrible than either, for it takes the life with circumstances of cruelty, which are an added horror. The earthquake is the most terror-moving of all, for it summons the overwhelming forces of nature to our destruction. 3. With differentiating circumstances in different cases. There was nothing humdrum in tbe visitations, no pitching them on the dead level of hackneyism or prescription. (1) The drought came three months bef<>re harvest. This was a most unseasonable and fatal time. It was in February, just when the latter rain was due. The seed would be brairded, or just in the stage in which rain was the one thing absolutely essential to life and growth. Drought at this season "is utterly ruinous t«> the hopes of the farmer. A little earlier or a. little later would not be so fatal, but drought three months before harvest is entirely destructive" ('The Land and the Book'). (2) It came on one place and not on another. Ordinarily the showers fall impartially. They water the fields of the just and the unjust alike (Matt. v. 45). They refresh the wilderness where no man is, as abundantly as the cultivated land, with its teeming population (Job xxxviii 26). When they become eclectic, falling on one city or field and not on another, the feature reveals miraculous intervention. When, as probably in this case (see Prov. iii. 33), the watered fields or cities are those of the righteous, the adjustment is eloquent of the moral government of a God who hates sin {Isa. !xv. 13). On the artificially irrigated gardens, where drought would not readily tell, he sent blasting, mildew, and worms (ver. 9). In the repertory of nature he found an instru- ment of destruction suited to every possible case, and in the allocation of these was revealed his omnipotent and resourceful hand. The overthrow of" some" when others escaped (ver. 11) was a providence burdened with the same lesson. (3) The cause ancl its effect are set cwse together for idenu,fi,cation. "The piece whereupon it rained not withered," etc. The nearer results are 'to their causes the easier it is to see the con- nection between them. God, both in the visitation and the record of it, pointedly> 1lH, IV. 1-13,] THE BOOK OF AMOS. 611