Amos 6

¹ “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! ² Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, ³ O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence? ⁴ “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, ⁵ who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, ⁶ who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! ⁷ Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.” ⁸ The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.” ⁹ And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰ And when one’s relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, “Is there still anyone with you?” he shall say, “No”; and he shall say, “Silence! We must not mention the name of the Lord.” ¹¹ For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits. ¹² Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—¹³ you who rejoice in Lo-debar, who say, “Have we not by our own strength captured Karnaim for ourselves?” ¹⁴ “For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord, the God of hosts; “and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

When I was thirteen, the group Midnight Oil released their song “Beds are Burning.” Some of you may remember it. It is an arresting and memorable song with wonderfully odd lead vocals and a refrain that sticks in your head. The song is about (a) Aboriginal land rights in Australia and (b) the question of how a society that has wronged others can carry on in ease and celebration when people are suffering. Listen:

Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam at forty-five degrees

The time has come to say “Fair’s fair”
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact’s a fact
It belongs to them, let’s give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

The time has come to say “Fair’s fair”
To pay the rent now, to pay our share

Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore, east to Yuendemu
The Western Desert lives and breathes
In forty-five degrees

The time has come to say “Fair’s fair”
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact’s a fact
It belongs to them, let’s give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

The time has come to say “Fair’s fair”
To pay the rent now, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact’s a fact
It belongs to them, we’re gonna give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

The two repeated questions in the song are key:

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

Indeed! How can we carry on as if nothing is wrong when others are suffering and suffering, to some extent, because of the behavior of the dominant society?

This is not the first time such a question has been asked. The prophet Amos asked the same questions. In particular, he too spoke of beds of and of revelry when people were suffering and hurting. In Amos 6, the Lord will phrase the question like this: How can you be “at ease in Zion” knowing what you have done and knowing the devastation it has wrought? How can you dance when the earth is turning? How can you sleep when your beds are burning? How can you be at ease in Zion when the cries of the suffering have reached the ears of God and judgment is coming upon you?

Let us unpack this powerful idea of being at ease in Zion. What does that mean? Furthermore, how do you know if you are at ease in Zion?

If you are rebelling against God but feel no fear of God, you are at ease in Zion.

How do you know if you are at ease in Zion? First, if you are rebelling against God and feel no fear of God. This was precisely the position of many of God’s people in the days of Amos. Watch:

¹ “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes!

Why did God’s rebellious children not fear Him? Because they felt comfortable and secure. Their religion, they thought, would keep God at bay and their mountains would keep enemies at bay. They were rebellious, but they felt safe. They had long ago ceased to tremble before a holy God. They were at ease in Zion!

So the Lord reminds them of the flimsy basis of their assumptions of safety.

² Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, ³ O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence?

Calneh. Hamath. Gath. All cities that had been overrun. All cities that thought they were safe when they were not. All cities that, as we might say, found out! Thomas Finley writes:

Amos tells the leaders to consider three well-fortified capitals that were unable to withstand assault and diminution of their territories. It is false for a nation to hope in religion or in human fortification and geographical impregnability when unrighteousness reigns within it. No nation is invulnerable; if the Lord wills, He can bring devastation to the strongest of fortresses. Even Zion is not immune to destruction.[1]

Are you at ease in Zion? Do you believe that your religion will keep God placated and that your own ingenuity will keep yourself safe? Do you think you have enough money to ward off disaster, enough deadbolts on the door to be safe? This is a false sense of security. It means you are at ease in Zion.

If your luxuries and diversions have anesthetized you to the suffering of others, you are at ease in Zion.

Those at ease in Zion no longer fear God. And those at ease in Zion no longer grieve over the suffering of others, even over the suffering of those they themselves have hurt. And why do they not grieve? Because their hearts have been anesthetized by their luxuries and their diversions. They are too distracted titillated to care. Listen:

⁴ “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, ⁵ who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, ⁶ who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! ⁷ Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.”

Notice the marks of their luxury and diversions:

• rich ornate beds
• couches of ease
• sumptuous food
• banal entertainment
• substance abuse
• a lack of care about anybody else

This is a picture of obscene wealth. Take “beds of ivory.” Philip Johnston points out that beds inlaid with ivory are mentioned in ancient sources and always in connection with great wealth. For instance, “Assyrian king Sennacherib boasted of such beds” and “[m]any Akkadian texts mention beds inlaid with ivory and covered with precious metals, but these were placed in temples for the gods.”[2] These were items of excess that only the powerful and rich could afford.

When John Chrysostom, in the 4^th century, commented on their lying “on beds of ivory,” he said:

For what could be worse than this frivolity, this sleeping on beds of ivory? The other sins, such as drunkenness, greed and profligacy, provide some pleasure, however small; but in sleeping on beds of ivory, what pleasure is there?[3]

Indeed. Ivory on their beds granted them nothing. It was simply excess and posturing.

And what of their food, these lambs and calves and bowls of wine? Tchavdar Hadjiev offers some interesting insights on this point.

            The banquet is described in verse 7 as a marzēah (revelry, NRSV, ESV ‘carousing’, NAB; ‘festive meal’, NJPS; ‘feasting’, NIV; ‘banquets’, NKJV)…It describes an institution that was widespread in the Ancient Near East over a long period of time. McLaughlin…concludes that the marzēah was an exclusive upper-class institution, something like a club for rich men, which organized banquets characterized by excessive consumption of alcohol.[4]

Let me ask you a question, child of God: do you feel anything about the suffering of the world? Do you grieve over the rampant drug addiction in our own state? Do you care about lives lost to abortion, lives lost to violence, lives lost to substance abuse? Do you care about strife in the home: the abuse of spouses, the abuse of minors? Do you care about the poor? The sick?

Do you feel anything at all?

Or has your life become in some way lambs and calves and bowls of wine? Has your life become ivory beds and luxurious couches? Has your life become silly songs and diversions? Are you so obsessed with your creature comforts that you have forgotten the agony of God’s suffering creation?

How can we not grieve?

The priest, Kaj Munk, killed by Hitler’s goons in January of 1944, wrote:

What is, therefore, our task today?  Shall I answer: “Faith, hope, and love”?  That sounds beautiful.  But I would say—courage.  No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.  Our task today is recklessness.  For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature…we lack a holy rage – the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.  The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth…a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world.  To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world.  To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.  To rage at the senseless killing of so many, and against madness of militaries.  To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace.  To rage against complacency.  To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God.  And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish…but never the chameleon.[5]

Do you feel this way? Then perhaps you are at ease in Zion!

If your ego and sense of accomplishment have left no room for God, you are at ease in Zion.

And how else might we know we are at ease in Zion? When God is eclipsed by our own egos and sense of entitlement. An inflated view of self leads to a smaller view of God and results in our being at ease in Zion. We begin with the Lord calling Israel out on its pride.

⁸ The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”

Rank pride is one of the primary causes and one of the most foul fruits of being at ease in Zion. What follows next is chilling.

⁹ And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰ And when one’s relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, “Is there still anyone with you?” he shall say, “No”; and he shall say, “Silence! We must not mention the name of the Lord.” ¹¹ For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits.

Verses 9–11 are difficult verses and commentators have offered a number of possible interpretations. This much seems clear: it is a picture of coming judgment in which all or the vast majority will suffer agony and death. It is possibly a picture of a house in which there is only one survivor out of ten and that one survivor, when he is called out to by the burier or the cremator outside the house who has come to deal with the bodies, begs that the name of the Lord not be spoken. This is a picture of recognition and of fear: recognition that the plague or the violence that killed the inhabitants within is from God. Verse 11 is likely a summary of 9 and 10: the great house shall be struck down and the little house as well. Judgment is coming!

Then, once again, we see Israel’s pride:

¹² Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—¹³ you who rejoice in Lo-debar, who say, “Have we not by our own strength captured Karnaim for ourselves?” ¹⁴ “For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord, the God of hosts; “and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

“Have we not by our own strength captured Karnaim for ourselves?” the people boast. “Are we not in charge? Can anybody touch us? Are we not lords of the earth?”

See the haughtiness of Israel! See the shocking arrogance of those who are ease in Zion! “Am I not great? Do I not have all things under control? Why on earth should I fear God? Why should I make time for God? Why should I concern myself with God or with the unpleasant realities of a suffering world?”

Woe to those who are ease in Zion!

Horatius Bonar, the great Scottish minister and poet, wrote:

At ease in Zion! What are souls to him?

            He rests on roses, while the world is dying;

Millions are passing on to their long doom,

            The nations in profoundest darkness lying,

For love and help and healing vainly to us crying.

At ease in Zion! Can a soul redeemed,

            That should, while here, be solemn vigils keeping,

Sit idly on its couch of luxury,

            When the world lies in saddest slumber sleeping,

In pleasure’s deepest draught its senses madly steeping?

At ease in Zion! Where is then the cross,

            The Master’s cross, all pain and shame defying?

Where is the true disciple’s cross and cup,

            The daily conflict and the daily dying,

The fearless front of faith, the noble self-denying?

At ease in Zion! Shall no sense of shame

            Arouse us from our self-indulgent dreaming?

No pity for the world? No love to Him

            Who braved life’s sorrow and man’s disesteeming,

Us to God’s light and joy by His dark death redeeming”[6]

Ah! Church! Let us plead with the Lord God of Heaven and earth to keep our hearts lashed to the cross, our minds ever-fixed on our Savior, and our hands engaging a lost and hurting world with the good news of the gospel. Let us beg God that we would, like Jesus, care and weep over Jerusalem, over North Little Rock, over Arkansas, over the world.

Let us beseech the Lord God to jolt us out of our ease in Zion and make us an incendiary people of proclamation, of service, and of love.

Woe to you who are ease in Zion!

 

[1] Finley, Thomas J. Joel, Amos, Obadiah. (Biblical Studies Press, 2003), p.232.

[2] Johnston, Philip S. “Amos.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. ed. John H. Walton. Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), p.76.

[3] Ferreiro, Alberto, ed. The Twelve Prophets. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Gen. ed. Thomas C. Oden. Old Testament, Vol. XIV (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p.105.

[4] Hadjiev, Tchavdar S. Joel and Amos. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Vol. 25 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), p.155.

[5] Clairborne, Shane. The Irresistible Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), p.294–295.

[6] Bonar, Horatius. Hymns of the Nativity. (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1879), p.35–36.