The Prophecy of Amos, Part 2 - Christogenea on Talkshoe 2-8-2013

The prophecy of Amos begins with oracles against both Israel and Judah, and also against the Edomites, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites and certain of their cities. In the first segment of our presentation of the Book of Amos we began to discuss the fates of these places, and presented much of what can be seen of these things from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. This helps to demonstrate that the Biblical account of the history of this period certainly is true, and also to show that these prophecies indeed had the beginning of their fulfillment in the years subsequent to the time of the prophet. Here we shall repeat these oracles against Damascus and against Gaza, and continue with our theme from last week.

3 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad. 5 I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 4 - Christogenea on Talkshoe 2-22-2013

In closing the last part of this presentation on Amos, we discussed some of the historical evidence of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Early in that presentation we had seen the attestation of the text of the ancient Moabite Stone. In it we see the tribe of Gad mentioned explicitly, connected to the “king of Israel”, and in some of the same locations that the Hebrew Bible also places them.

Where the Moabite Stone says “Now the men of Gad had al­ways dwelt in the land of Ataroth, and the king of Israel had built Ataroth for them”, it agrees with the Biblical Book of Numbers at chapter 32, verses 1 through 4. This same inscription also mentions the Israelite king Omri, as the Assyrian inscriptions also often do. The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian inscriptions verify the historicity of many things in the Bible, which we shall see as this presentation unfolds. To imagine that all of the inscriptions attesting to the historicity of the Bible are somehow spurious is ridiculous. There is no doubting the veracity of a great number of these inscriptions, for the accounts concerning their discoveries are well recorded.. The people that made such inscriptions were pagans, and had nothing extraneous to gain by them, and could not have imagined that over 2,500 years later these things would be dug out of the ground and found to verify the accounts in an unrelated book which was to be passed down over so many centuries.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 6 - Christogenea on Talkshoe 3-8-2013

In the first two chapters of Amos, we saw judgements pronounced upon the people of Israel and Judah, and also upon the surrounding nations as well. These other nations are the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines and the Syrians of Damascus. Some of these people of the surrounding nations were from the accursed tribes of Canaan, or from of the inbred descendants of Lot. Others were Adamic peoples closely related to the Israelites. Many of the people in these nations were evidently Israelites themselves who had been both residing in and even mixing with these nations ever since the period of the Judges, and especially since the time of the division of the Kingdom when Israel was turned to paganism by their political leaders. 

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 8 - Christogenea on Talkshoe 3-22-2013

Most of the historical portion of our presentation is past. Now we shall focus on the pattern of sin and punishment suffered by the children of Israel.

KJV Amos 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Bashan means fruitful. The land of king Og of Bashan fell to the lot of Manasseh when the land was taken from the Canaanites and divided by Israel (Joshua 17). The children of Israel are likened to kine. If we had to venture as to why, it is evident that they had worshipped the golden calves of Jeroboam I all throughout the period of the divided kingdom. Adam Was formed in the image of Yahweh his God, and these Israelite children of Adam would rather worship calves. They were therefore likened to calves. Later, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, Azariah, Menahem, Pekah, all kings of Israel, and probably some others besides these, were all criticized for doing “evil in the site of Yahweh” and for not departing from the ways of “Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin”.