The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 184

not independent of or co-ordinate with the First Cause, but the instruments in its hands. Behind all nnd in all is the Divine Omnipotent energy, the ultimate cause, direct or indirect, of whatever is. 2. The Divine word pkdglll! the exercise of this Divi·ne ,mergy. God's word is absolute truth. It cannot be broken, If it goes before, the correspond• ing net will follow. As well divorce the lightning from the thunder as the work from the word of God, When he says, and what be says, and as be says, be does infallibly. 3. The Di1Jlne will constitutes the Divine energy. God wills all things into existence. His choosing that a thing shall be brings it to pass. What a source of unfailing con- solation Is this fact to the gracious soul I Its rich future is assured. Omnipotent power and unchanging truth have the issue in hand, and miscarriage is not to be named. Vers. 13-15.-0ut of the shadow into the sun. Israel's atmosphere has cleared. The thunders are silent. The storms are blown out. The clouds are scattered. The shadow of " the great doom's image" has lifted. And now the sun comes ont in the clear shining after rain. We look forth on a new land of promise, a land from which the curse of God and the track of the destroyer have disappeared. The ruins are rebuilt. 'l'he waste places bloom. The fields throw teeming crops, beyond the harvester's power to gather. The erewhile sinful and down-trodden people are prosperous and pure and free. It is a scene of idyllic beauty and peace-a happy final,e to the dark storm-times that have gone before. This time will be- I. A TIME OF TEEMING PLENTY. Figures of unheard-of fertility and abundance are multiplied. 1. &ed-time and harvest should overlap. " The ploughma11 shall overtake the reaper," etc. With a certain difficulty of defining the exact idea here, the general purport of the language is plain. The teeming crops could scarcely be gathered till another seed-time had come, or else growth would be so quick that the harvest would begin as 110011 as the seed-time WILS over. So Shakespeare-- "Spring come to you at the farthest In the very end of harvest." This rich promise was not now recorded for the first time. Conditionally on obedience, it had been made by the mouth of Moses seven centuries before (Lev. uvi. 5). But, absolutely made, it assumes a new value now. And as the events in it are altogether impossible in the natural world, it must obviously be taken in a spiritual sense. The plenty, like the previously threatened famine (eh. viii.11), was not to be one of bread and water, but " of hearing the words of the Lord." In the spiritual sphere the seed-time and the harvest may come together. The man who goes forth with seed may return with sheaves (Ps. cxxvi. 6). Indeed, the Samaritan fields were "white unto harvest" (John iv. 35), when, as yet, the sowing had only begun. In such a case poetic figure becomes literal truth, and Zion, as soon !LS she travails, brings forth (Isa. !xvi. 7, 8). 2. The mountains should drop wine spontaneously: The vineyards of Israel were on the mountain-slopes. Of the plethora of over-rich grapes with which they would be loaded many would burst, and in the spontaneous discharge of their juice the mountains would literally " drip new wine." This process, in its spiritual analogue, is more wondrous and delightful still. Spiritual plenty has its inevitable and enriching over- flow. "Freely have ye received, freely give." Spiritual character is always imparting of itself in spiritual influence. From the gracious lip there drops continually the new wine of" a word in sea.son." And the religious life, "lived not for ourselves," is a tide of helpful action beating perpetually on the shore of others' lives. 3. The hills should dissolve themselves in the products they yield, This is the force of the expression, "All the hills shall melt." The rich earth throws its own substance into the teeming crops it bears. 'l'he richer it is the larger proportion of its substance is expended in this process. Pure leaf-mould would, in this way, almost totally disappear, transforming itself entirely into grain or fruit. Jn the spiritual sphere self-surrender for others is a law of life. Christ gave himself, and Christians give themselves, for men. "I will very gladly spend and be spent for you" (2 Cor. xii. 15) is the philosophy, not alone of Paul's, but of all Christian livin11:. The gracious heart expends itself in helpful action. The sum-totnl of philanthropic effort in the world is just the concreted spiritual energy of the godly company. II. A TIME OF NATIONAL RJl:STORATION. (Ver. 14:.) Each term here has a spiritual 186 THE BOOK OF AMOS. Leu. 1x. 1-15.