Week 30 Amos
Once I finished reading Daniel I decided not to read the short prophets in bible order. My Good Idea was to read them in the order they were written. Unfortunately there isn’t unanimous agreement about the chronological order.
I decided to avoid that squabble. Instead I grouped the short prophets under four rough-and-ready headings:
Prophets who prophesied to the northern kingdom
Prophets who prophesied to the southern kingdom before the exile
Prophets who prophesied to the southern kingdom in Babylon
Prophets who prophesied to the southern kingdom after the return.
So my northern kingdom prophets were Obadiah Jonah Amos Hosea & Nahum. One of the first things I notice about Amos’ book is that even though he’s mainly interested in Israel-North he’s interested in other nations as well. In the first two chapters he names Damascus Gaza Tyre Edom Ammon & Moab as Regions of Interest.
It looks like every nation was under prophetic scrutiny but Amos confirms that Israel got unique treatment. He quoted the Lord: from among all the nations on the earth, I chose you alone.
I already knew that but it’s a reminder that the procedure the Lord decided on to achieve his overall objective was to start with a family-tribe that grew into a small national aggregation. The Lord’s actions with them were interactive and their functionality was assessed. But even though Israel was the real Test Case other nations were operating like semi-independent variables. All part of the mix.
Note: quote from Amos 3:2 (NLT).