Vision of the Summer Fruit
“Thus the Lord God showed me: Behold, a basket of summer fruit. And He said, “Amos, what do you see?” So I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me: “The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. And the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day,” Says the Lord God—“Many dead bodies everywhere, they shall be thrown out in silence.”
Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail, saying: “When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, nd the needy for a pair of sandals—even sell the bad wheat?”
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall the land not tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? All of it shall swell like the River (the Nile), heave and subside like the River of Egypt. “And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord God, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight; I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, and baldness on every head; I will make it like mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it. “In that day the fair virgins and strong young men shall faint from thirst. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan!’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives!’ They shall fall and never rise again.”
What could be more enticing than a lovely basket of ripe summer fruit? We might drool simply imagining how good those apples and pears might taste. But what if the fruit is bad, almost to the point of rottenness? Or what if the fruit is infested with worms? Few things are worse than biting into an apple and seeing HALF a worm, particularly if you have already swallowed that bite! Here God is comparing the nation of Israel to a basket of summer fruit. The Israelites have been worshiping idols for centuries and now the end is approaching rapidly. God is about to withdraw His presence, and the songs of praise in the temple will turn to keening wails of grief. There will be dead bodies everywhere, and they will be thrown out silently, for fear of the enemy.
Meanwhile, all the time Amos is uttering these prophecies, upper-class Israelites are pursuing business as usual. Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail, saying: “When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—even sell the bad wheat?” It’s no time to be a poor person in Israel! If you aren’t sold rotten wheat for inflated prices, some rich person might buy you as a slave for a few pieces of silver or even for the price of a pair of sandals.
These people are crazy, refusing to remember that God watches everything they do and remembers their names. “The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their works.” God knows these people’s thoughts even before they conceive them. Even the very land is grieving because of these people’s sins.
Amos is warning that God is preparing to bring judgement and that when that judgement arrives, the skies will blacken, and everyone will be so grieved that the survivors will tear out their hair and wear sackcloth. The survivors of Israel will grieve like parents who lose an only son.
Finally, God is promising to withdraw His word from the land. “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it.” Even though so many people in Israel are worshiping idols, God still has a remnant of true worshipers. But when God withdraws His people, those who are left will suddenly miss righteousness, holiness, and peace and search everywhere with no results.
“In that day the fair virgins and strong young men shall faint from thirst. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan!’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives!’ They shall fall and never rise again.” The end is coming for idolaters in Israel, and they will die.
APPLICATION There’s a 1970 Joni Mitchell song that says, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.” (Joni Mitchell “Big Yellow Taxi”) Although Mitchell was writing about mindless development in Hawaii, the words could apply to the citizens of Israel. God has called the Israelites to be His holy people, a light to the nations. Sadly, the Israelites have settled for worthless idols that demand horrible sacrifices, fertility cults, and wide – scale corruption.
If God is preparing to make an end of Israel, why send prophets such as Amos? God is doing everything He can to give the citizens of Israel the opportunity to repent while there is still time. God is trying to pierce through the stony covering of selfishness and greed to the hearts trapped there. God is using the example of a basket of ripe fruit to indicate that the sins of Israel have ripened to the point of harvest – God’s harvest and not man’s.
While it is tempting to criticize the Israelites, are we doing any better? Those promoting electric vehicles are conveniently overlooking the fact that many of the elements of the batteries for those vehicles are being mined by child labor. We revel in cheap clothing prices, ignoring the Asian sweat shops that produce those garments. Ghanaians describe someone who is very rich as “enjoying.” Are we “enjoying” at the expense of the poor? What does God think about our lifestyles? Do we need to repent? May God open our eyes to see those things in our lives that grieve Him!
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we are blinded in many areas. Show us those things we need to change and those attitudes from which we need to repent. Help us to repent and change. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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