Old Testament Prophets

Class 9 – Amos Analysis – Part II

1. Review last week – questions?
   
   
1. Amos –
   
   
2. Lament and call to Repentance – Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5 – Chiastic style – a Chiasm (chiasm – from the Greek ÷ëáæåéí 'to mark with an X', after the letter '×' chi)
 

                                                               i.      A 5:1-3  Mourning because of God’s judgement
       B 5:4-6  Seek the Lord
              C 5:7  Justice is perverted
                    D 5:8a-c  God acts in judgment over nature
                            E 5:8d  The Lord is his name
                     D 5:9  God acts in judgement over man
               C 5:10-13  Justice is perverted
        B 5:14-15  Seek good, not evil   
A 5:16-17  Mourning because of God’s judgment

                                                             ii.      Also sub chiasm in 5:4-6
a Seek Me and live
     b  Do not seek Bethel
            c Do not go to Gilgal
                  d Do not journey to Beersheba
            c  For Gilgal will surely go into exile
     b  An Bethel will be reduced to nothing
a  Seek the Lord and live

2. Vs 5:8 – Chrysostom
3. Vs 5:14 – 15 Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Ambrose
   
   
2. Visions

1. Vs 7:14-15 – Gregory the Great
   
   

3. Redemption – Chapter 9

1. Vs 9:1 – Chrysostom
   
   

4. Read Micah

5:8

CREATED TO FORM OUR SOUL AFTER GOD. CHRYSOSTOM: I made heaven and earth, he says, and to you I give the power of creation. Make your earth heaven. For it is in your power. "I am he who makes and transforms all things," says God of himself. And he has given to people a sim­ilar power, as a painter, being an affectionate fa­ther, teaches his own art to his son. I formed your body beautiful, he says, but I give you the power of forming something better. Make your soul beautiful. I said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, and every fruitful tree."³ HOMILIES ON I TIMO­THY 16,¹⁴

5:14-15 Hate Evil, Love Good

A CALL TO SEEK GOD. AMBROSE: For when a man rules his own self - and that counts for more than to govern others - his heart is in the hand of God, and God turns it where he wills. No wonder if he turns it to the good, perfect goodness is his. And so let us be in the hand of God that we may seek the good, that incorrupt­ible and immutable good of which the prophet Amos says, "Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord God almighty will be with you, as you have said, `We have hated evil and loved good.'" And so, where the good God is, there are the good things that David desired to see and believed that he would see, even as he says, "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living."' They indeed are the good things that endure always, that cannot be destroyed by change of time or of age. FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD 6. _35.22

THE HIGHEST GOOD. AMBROSE: Let us hurry to him in whom is that highest good, since he is goodness itself. He is the patience of Israel calling you to repentance, so you will not come to judg­ment but may receive the remission of sins. "Re­pent," he says.²³ He is the one of whom the prophet Amos cries, "Seek you good." He is the highest good, for he needs nothing and abounds in all things. Well may he abound, for in him dwells bodily the fullness of divinity.²' Well may he abound, of whose fullness we have all received, and in whom we have been filled, as the Evange­list says." LETTER 79.²⁶

JUSTICE. GREGORY THE GREAT: It was the old custom that the elders should sit at the gate to make out by judicial trial the quarrels of persons at strife, in order that they should never enter the city at variance and should dwell there in harmo­ny. And hence the Lord says by the prophet, "Es­tablish judgment at the gate." MORALS ON THE Boots OF JOB 4.21.32.²

7:14-15

GOD CALLS THE HUMBLE TO HIGH SERVICE. GREGORY THE GREAT: How good it is to raise up eyes of faith to the power of this worker, the Holy Spirit, and to look here and there at our ancestors in the Old and New Testaments. With the eyes of my faith open, I gaze on David, on Amos, on Daniel, on Peter, on Paul, on Matthew-and I am filled with a desire to behold the nature of this worker, the Holy Spirit. But I fall short, The Spirit filled a boy who played upon the harp, and made him a psalmist; on a shepherd and herds­man who pruned sycamore trees, and made him a prophet; on a child given to abstinence, and made him a judge of his elders; on a fisherman, and made him a preacher; on one who persecuted the church, and made him the teacher of the Gen­tiles; on a tax collector, and made him an Evange­list. What a skilled worker this Spirit is! There is no question of delay in learning what the Spirit teaches us. No sooner does the Spirit touch our minds in regard to anything than we are taught; the Spirit's very touch is teaching. The Spirit changes the human heart in a moment, filling it with light. Suddenly we are no longer what we were; suddenly we are something we never used to be. Forty Gospel Homilies 30

9:1 |
GOD SEEN IN His ACCOMMODATION TO OUR EYES, NoT IN His ESSENCE. CHRYSOSTOM:

Tell me, John, what do you mean when you say, No one has ever seen God"?' What shall we think about he prophets who say that they saw God? Isaiah said, "I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne."² And, again, Daniel aid, "I saw until the thrones were set, and the ancient of days sat,"' And Micah said, "I saw the God of Israel sitting on his throne." And again, another prophet said, "I saw the Lord standing on the altar, and he said unto me, 'Strike the mercy seat."' And I can gather many similar passages to show you as witnesses of what I say.

How is it, then, that John says, "No one has ever seen God"? He says this so that you may know that he is speaking of a clear knowledge and a perfect comprehension of God. All the cases cit­ed were instances of God's condescension and ac­commodation, That no one of those prophets saw God's essence in its pure state is clear from the fact that each one saw him in a different way. God is a simple being; he is not composed of parts; he is without form or figure. But all these prophets saw different forms and figures. God proved this very thing through the mouth of another prophet. And he persuaded those other prophets that they did not see his essence in its exact nature when he said, "I have multiplied visions, and by the minis­tries of the prophets I was presented." What God was saying was, "I did not show my very essence, but I came down in condescension and accommo­dated myself to the weakness of their eyes." AGAINST THE ANOMOEANS, HOMILY 4.I 8-I9.

(Anomoean - "similar; resembling"; i.e. "different; dissimilar". – a form of Arianism)

The Chiastic structure as found in Amos:

 A 5:1-3  Mourning because of God’s judgement
       B 5:4-6  Seek the Lord
              C 5:7  Justice is perverted
                    D 5:8a-c  God acts in judgment over nature
                            E 5:8d  The Lord is his name
                     D 5:9  God acts in judgement over man
               C 5:10-13  Justice is perverted
        B 5:14-15  Seek good, not evil   
A 5:16-17  Mourning because of God’s judgment

Also sub chiasm in 5:4-6

a Seek Me and live
     b  Do not seek Bethel
            c Do not go to Gilgal
                  d Do not journey to Beersheba
            c  For Gilgal will surely go into exile
     b  An Bethel will be reduced to nothing
a  Seek the Lord and live