And God saw that it was good. Publication date: Jun 3, 2010. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. ABUNDANCE OR JUDGMENT. vii., c. 6: ; "Those men shall be thrice and four times happy.". It is likely that the formula was used as a rhetorical device to emphasize the fact that the cities or nations committed crime after crime, thus deserving Gods judgment. THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL Let the nations who have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit through Amos says to the nations. Every day, just like the farmer, we must show up and do the work. The amount of rain, the cool of the nights, the warmth of the days, soil conditions, insects, and many others. Amos 1:3 Parallel Verses [ See commentary ] Amos 1:3, NIV: This is what the LORD says: 'For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not relent.Because she threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth, Amos 1:3, ESV: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges . These are the men of Recah. And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of theLordyour God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how theLordhas destroyed them to this day, and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, , 1 Chronicles 4:38-41 These mentioned by name were princes in their clans, and their fathers houses increased greatly. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Isaiah 7:8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. " You shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff. summed up by the word. I Damascus and Samaria (Israel) fought over this area for a hundred years or more. Does he continually open and harrow his ground?Ecclesiastes 5:9 But this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields., Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek theLord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.Micah 4:1-4 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of theLordshall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of theLord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of theLordfrom Jerusalem. The day-to-day chores, tasks, and attention required to the smallest details made agriculture an unforgettably rich metaphor for Jesus and His teachings. Judging, probably, of Davids defensive conquests by its own policy, it joined the other Syrians who attacked David, was subdued, garrisoned, and became tributary 2 Samuel 8:5-6. Silence is often more emphatic than words. Damascus, Gaza and Tyrethree important cities in the region of Israel and Judahare called to account for their actions by a shepherd from Judah. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Home / Commentary / Amos / Amos Chapter 1 / Amos 1:35. If Amoss preaching bears witness to his insistence that nations need to acknowledge their sin, should not our preaching do the same? 4 tn Heb "they threshed [or "trampled down"] Gilead with sharp iron implements" (NASB similar). And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you., Genesis 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. They enslaved local populationsprobably those located in the lowlands or Shephelah of Judah among others. Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. " (Cf. Genesis 2:15 says, The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it., Agriculture is highly encouraged throughout the Scriptures. I will not turn away the punishment thereof. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty., Genesis 37:7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. Their commercial interests included the slave trade, even selling Judeans to Greeks far from their homeland (Joel 3:6). The punishment is first denounced upon their enemies, and that, for their sins, directly or indirectly, against themselves, and God in them. with threshing sledges of iron. Blog, A They beat down my people in Gilead as grain is threshed with iron sledges. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. We are encouraged to Work Hard and keep ourselves busy. God promised to make His people into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth and use them to bring judgment on those who oppress the godly (Is. a aq as _ \\ \ \ \ ss ce ake i arthur s. phelps his booke god give him grace. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that theLordyour God may bless you in all the work of your hands., Deuteronomy 22:9 You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.Deuteronomy 28:1-68 And if you faithfully obey the voice of theLordyour God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, theLordyour God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. Why Did Jesus Talk So Much About Agriculture? Kimchi thinks that this respects four particular seasons, in which Damascus, or the Syrians, evilly treated and distressed the people of Israel; first in the times of Baasha; then in the times of Ahab; a third time in the days of Jehoahaz the son of Jehu; and the fourth in the times of Ahaz; and then they were punished for them all: because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; that is. So Seneca in Hippolyt., Act. Mail (will not be published) __('(required)'). The reign of this lineage would be destroyed for their wrongdoings. Seven is used as a symbol of a whole, since on the seventh day God rested from all which He had made, and therefore the number seven entered so largely into the whole Jewish ritual. And he said: The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers. Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am theLordyour God., 1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.Leviticus 26:1-5 You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am theLordyour God. Vv. Isaiah 41:15 Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff;Matthew 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.Genesis 1:11-12 And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth. And it was so. Adam, the first human in the Bible, is also the first farmer. This is what the LORD says: 'For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not relent. A threshing board, also known as threshing sledge, is an obsolete agricultural implement used to separate cereals from their straw; that is, to thresh.It is a thick board, made with a variety of slats, with a shape between rectangular and trapezoidal, with the frontal part somewhat narrower and curved upward (like a sled or sledge) and whose bottom is covered with lithic flakes or razor-like . 10 million Ukrainians without power because of Russia. Only one sin is identified even though many others are presumed (three, even four). The order of Gods threatenings seems to have been addressed to gain the hearing of the people. Again, Sowing discord among brethren Proverbs 6:16-19, has a special hatefulness, as not only being sin, but causing widewasting sin, and destroying in others the chief grace, love. Because she threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth, 4 I will send fire on the house of Hazael that will consume the fortresses of Ben-Hadad. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. V They cover an area at last 25 (or 30) miles in circuit, and make the environs an earthly Paradise. Whence the Arabs said, If there is a garden of Eden on earth, it is Damascus; and if in heaven, Damascus is like it on earth. But this its beauty was also its strength. The name of his servant Eliezer my God is help, implies that at this time too the servant was a worshiper of the One God. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to theLord. The expression one who holds the scepter is a figurative way of talking about someone who occupies a royal position. Without the Barada, says Porter, the city could not exist, and the plain would be a parched desert; but now aqueducts intersect every quarter, and fountains sparkle in almost every dwelling, while innumerable canals extend their ramifications over the vast plain, clothing it with verdure and beauty. Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. On the schism of the ten tribes, the hostility of Damascus was concentrated against Israel who lay next to them. You will be challenged and encouraged to be one who is firmly . As such, patience is a required virtue for a farmer. Conclusion: The Lord God has spoken (not always present). Amos 1 contains a brief historical account on the prophetic ministry of Amos, providing the reader with the date of Amoss ministry and how the LORD has called him to minister to Israel. Hesed, I didnt know that thrashing tools might have been used in torturing people. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. "They have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron." Gilead was a part of Israel on the eastern side of the Jordan river. We need only look at the history of nations, including the United States, to know that these kinds of atrocities have happened over and over.