Commentary - Amos 7:1-3

Bird's-eye view

In this chapter, the prophet Amos is shown a series of three visions from Yahweh, with the first two being the subject of our passage. These are not abstract theological dissertations; they are living encounters between the prophet and the God who governs all things. The first vision is of a devastating locust swarm, poised to annihilate the nation's food supply. The second, which immediately follows, is of a consuming fire. In both instances, the prophet Amos, who has spent the previous six chapters denouncing Israel's sin with unsparing severity, turns and becomes an intercessor. He pleads with God on behalf of the very people he has been condemning. His prayer is striking for its simplicity and its basis: "How can Jacob rise up, for he is small?" In response to this faithful intercession, God relents. This passage is a profound display of the interplay between God's sovereign decrees of judgment, the genuine efficacy of prayer, and the tender heart of a true prophet who loves his people, even in their rebellion.

This section serves as a hinge in the book. After wave upon wave of prophetic denunciation against the nations, and especially against Israel, we now see the curtain pulled back. We are shown the prophet's heart and the nature of his ministry. He is not a detached bearer of bad news. He is a participant in the covenant lawsuit, and his intercession demonstrates that the goal of prophecy is not merely destruction, but the potential for repentance and restoration. It reveals a God who is not a stone-cold determinist, but a living person who relates to His servants and responds to their pleas within the framework of His sovereign plan.

Outline

Context In Amos

Amos 7 follows six chapters of blistering indictments. Amos, the shepherd from Tekoa, has pronounced God's judgment on Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and finally, in extensive detail, on Israel. He has condemned their corrupt worship, their oppression of the poor, their sexual immorality, and their smug self-satisfaction. The nation is spiritually rotten to the core, and God's patience has run out. The first six chapters establish the legal basis for the judgment. Now, in chapter 7, God begins to show Amos precisely what this judgment will look like. The visions are progressive. The first two judgments (locusts and fire) are averted through prayer. The third vision, the plumb line (7:7-9), represents a judgment that is fixed and will not be turned aside, leading directly to the confrontation between Amos and Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. This progression shows us that God offered opportunities for repentance, but the nation, as represented by its leadership, was intransigent.

Key Issues

Prayer That Moves the Hand of God

One of the central difficulties for the modern mind in a passage like this is the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's prayer. If God has decreed something, how can prayer change it? And if prayer can change it, was God really sovereign in the first place? The Bible refuses to indulge our desire for a neat, philosophical system that resolves this tension. Scripture simply presents both truths as fully operational. God is absolutely sovereign, ordaining whatsoever comes to pass. And, the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

We must not think of God "relenting" as God changing His eternal decree. Rather, God has decreed the end from the beginning, and He has also decreed the means to that end. In this case, God decreed the judgment, He decreed the prophet's intercession, and He decreed His own response to that intercession. The prayer of Amos was not an unexpected interruption that forced God to change course. The prayer of Amos was part of the course. God ordains that His people pray, and He ordains that He will respond to those prayers. The prophet's prayer was a real, effective, history-altering event, precisely because the sovereign God of history ordained for it to be so. This should not flatten our understanding of prayer, but rather give us immense confidence in it. We pray because God, the one who holds all outcomes in His hand, has commanded us to pray and has promised to hear.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Thus Lord Yahweh showed me, and behold, He was forming a locust-swarm when the spring crop began to come up. And behold, the spring crop was after the king’s mowing.

The vision begins with the formula, "Thus Lord Yahweh showed me," emphasizing that this is a divine revelation, not Amos's own nightmare. God is not just predicting a locust swarm; He is actively forming it. This is a direct act of creation for the purpose of judgment. The timing is precise and devastating. It comes just as the "spring crop" or "latter growth" was beginning to sprout. This was the second cutting of hay, the one the common people depended on for their livestock after the first cutting, "the king's mowing," had been taken as a royal tax. So this judgment is aimed directly at the livelihood of the ordinary Israelite. It was a judgment on their bread and butter, a direct assault on the prosperity they had come to worship.

2 And it happened when it had completed eating the vegetation of the land, that I said, “Lord Yahweh, please pardon! How can Jacob rise up, For he is small?”

In the vision, Amos sees the judgment carried out to its conclusion. The locusts devour everything. At this point, the prophet who had been the mouthpiece of God's wrath becomes the mouthpiece of human desperation. He turns from prosecutor to defense attorney. His prayer is a model of effective intercession. First, he appeals for pardon: "Lord Yahweh, please pardon!" He knows the root problem is sin, and the only solution is forgiveness. He does not make excuses for the people. Second, he appeals on the basis of their weakness: "How can Jacob rise up, for he is small?" This is a stunning reversal. Israel was arrogant, wealthy, and proud of its military might. But Amos, in the presence of God, sees the nation for what it truly is: small, fragile, and utterly dependent on God's mercy. He doesn't appeal to their past faithfulness or any inherent goodness. He appeals to their pathetic smallness. It is an appeal to God's pity, the kind of argument a father might hear concerning a toddler who has misbehaved. True prayer begins with this kind of humility, seeing ourselves as we truly are before God.

3 Yahweh relented concerning this. “It shall not be,” said Yahweh.

The response from God is immediate and decisive. The Hebrew word for "relented" often carries the sense of sighing, of grieving or changing one's mind in response to a new situation. As noted above, this does not mean God was caught off guard. It means that God, in His interactive relationship with His prophet, responded to the prayer that He Himself had prompted. He incorporated the plea of Amos into the outworking of His will. The judgment was real, the threat was real, the prayer was real, and the pardon was real. God says plainly, "It shall not be." The vision of the locusts, a picture of what Israel deserved, was set aside because of the plea of a faithful man who reminded God of Jacob's smallness. This is a powerful testimony to the fact that God governs the world through, among other things, the prayers of His people.

Application

This short passage is packed with application for the church today. First, it teaches us the true nature of a prophetic ministry. A true prophet is not someone who delights in judgment. He is someone who, like Amos, can pronounce God's fierce wrath against sin and then, with a broken heart, turn and plead for mercy on behalf of the sinners. We are called to hate sin, but we are also called to love sinners enough to stand in the gap for them. If our denunciations of our culture's wickedness are not accompanied by earnest, tearful prayers for its repentance and pardon, then we have the spirit of a clanging cymbal, not the spirit of Amos or of Christ.

Second, we learn the basis of all effective prayer: humility. Israel was proud, and their pride was leading them to destruction. Amos prayed on the basis of their weakness: "he is small." In our age of self-esteem and endless self-promotion, we must learn to approach God in the same way. We do not come to God because we are strong, or clever, or have a great track record. We come to Him because we are small, weak, and desperately in need of His grace. Our smallness is our greatest plea. When we are weak, then He is strong. Our national sins are great, our churches are often compromised, and our own hearts are prone to wander. Our only hope is to cry out, "Lord Yahweh, please pardon! How can Jacob rise up, for he is small?"

Finally, this passage gives us a robust confidence in the power of prayer. God responds to the intercession of His people. History is not a closed system, a machine grinding away according to impersonal laws. It is a story being written by a personal God who invites us to be characters who speak real lines that have real consequences. God has determined to rule His world in part through the prayers of the saints. Therefore, let us pray. Let us pray for our families, for our churches, and for our nation, knowing that the God who forms the locust swarm is also the God who relents when His small children cry out to Him.