Show and Tell
- The book closes with a series of prophetic visions. Since there is no Shmoop in ancient Israel, God himself has to explain what they mean.
- The first two visions include destruction by locusts and fire. Amos is losing creativity points by the minute.
- Amos protests that Israel is small and unworthy—how will it survive these plagues?
- God relents; he won’t do it. No locusts, no fire for now.
- But he’s still angry—he’ll find other ways to destroy Israel.
- All these visions exposing the unjust acts of the Israelite elite leads a priest named Amaziah to accuse Amos of conspiring against the king of Israel.
- The priest orders Amos to leave the country and prophesy against Judah instead, but Amos refuses. Instead, he predicts that Israel will be taken into captivity, a move not exactly guaranteed to win friends up in the capital city of Samaria.
- Chapter 8 opens with God showing Amos a basket of figs and asking him what they are.
- This is a setup for some divine humor—apparently the words for “figs” (literally “fruits of summer”) and “doom” sound alike in Hebrew.
- Doom has arrived for Israel; there will be corpses everywhere. Bad figs, maybe?
- God reams out the people who can’t wait for the Sabbath to be over so they can go back to selling their produce—with deceptive sales practices, no less.
- God will completely withdraw from the people. They’ll be dying for advice from him, but forget it.
- God reiterates his total power to create and destroy and lets the Israelites know that they’re no more to him than anyone else.
- Everyone who thinks so will perish by the sword. And when that’s finished?
- The book ends with a few more or less obligatory verses promising the return of God’s favor, with lots of plants, and mountains flowing with wine. Sound familiar?