The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 89

HOIDLETICS. Vers. 1-3.-lsrael's elegy. It is poor work singing the things that might have been. It means sweet dreams dispelled, fair hopes blighted, and human lives in ruins. Yet such is the prophet's task in this passage-writing Israel's elegy among the graves of her de!Ld millions. He had been denouncing nameless woes against the rebellious people. Here he changes his tone to that of a mournful spectator of e.ccomplished ills. In imagination he throws himself forward out of the sinful present into the calamitous future, and in accommodation to the change of scene his denunciation becomes a dirge, It is a natural transition, and at the same time a new form of appeal. When ears become inattentive, the skilled musician will vary his tune. We have here- I. A BROKEN IDEAL. The things that might have been with Israel were far enough from existing facts. The Israel of God's ideal was: 1. A holy people. (Exocl. xix. 6; Deut. xxviii 9.) Theoretically they were, as the word "holy" means (Deut. vii. 6), a people separated from mell and sin and set apart to God. But the fair ideal of their national life remained an ideal and nothing more. The reality never reached it, never approached it. They connected themselves freely with heathen men and heathenish sin. They at times outdid the nations (eh. ii. 6-9) in avarice, injustice, spoiling the poor, abominable rites, and every nameless infamy. 2. An unconquered people. 'fhis is the force of the expression "virgin (ot) Israel." God was to champion their cause, and to fight for them as his loyal people (Deut. i. 30, etc.). If, and so long as he did so, they would be invincible. But they never claimed his help on the appointed terms. His promise was doubted (Deut. i. 32) and its conditions disregarded, with the inevi- table result that it failed of fulfilment in many a critical time, Israel, theoretically "the unconquered," was practically the often vanquished, the twice carried captive, the soon-to-be-destroyed. God's help comes surely, but comes only where there is attention to the conditions on which it is offered and given. 3. .A prosperous people. Palestine, their national inheritance, was the very garden of the earth; unique in the combination of the highest agricultural capacities, with the finest commercial situation, The prosperity of an industrious, peaceful nation in it was, so far as favourable circumstances went, a foregone conclusion. But war bad devastated, and mildew blighted, and drought laid bare its fertile fields. God saw his gifts abused and made the ministers of sin, and he was driven to destroy these in their hands. When temporal good begins to be made the occasion of moral evil, our tenure of it will soon end. 4. .A happy people. A people prosperous, strong, and pure, could not but be happy as well (Ps. cxliv. 15). And such was Israel in the Divine ideal (Deut. xxxiii. 29). But the actual misery experienced was as complete as the theoretical happiness revealed, Happiness is nowhere so impossible, misery nowhere so intense, as with a people who have fallen beneath themselves. In proportion as the former might have been, will the latter be. 11 . .AN ANTICIPATIVE DIRGE. Prescient of coming evil, the prophet's lamentation becomes a funeral song. 1. .A nation made ahipwreclc is a sight for tears. It is the destruction of magniticent possibilities of good. It is the falling of a tremendous reality of evil It is the ruin of most precious interests on a gigantic scale. If one soul lost is the occasion of grief to pure spirits and a travaillng Saviour, what must the calamity be when multiplied a millionfold? 2. When tM wiclced fall the trueat mourner• OH. V, 1-27.] THE BOOK OF AMOS. 89