The State Priest vs. The Sycamore Prophet Text: Amos 7:10-17
Introduction: Two Kinds of Religion
Every generation, and every nation, has to decide what kind of religion it will have. And make no mistake, every nation has a religion. The only question is which one. The secularist who insists on a naked public square is not arguing for no religion; he is arguing for his religion, which is an aggressive and intolerant form of humanism. He wants a state that recognizes no authority higher than itself, which means he wants a state that is God. And when the state becomes God, it requires a priesthood to serve it.
This is the conflict we see laid bare in our text today. It is a raw, bare-knuckled confrontation between two kinds of priests, two kinds of prophets, two kinds of kings, and two kinds of gods. On the one side, you have Amaziah. He is the priest of Bethel, which means he is the court chaplain of an apostate king. His is a state-sanctioned, state-funded, and state-controlled religion. His job is not to speak truth to power, but to speak soothing lies for power. His god is a golden calf, a convenient, manageable deity who makes no real demands and exists to bless the political agenda of the current regime. His sanctuary is the king's sanctuary. His house of worship is the royal house.
On the other side, you have Amos. He is a blue-collar prophet. He is not a member of the prophetic guild, not a seminary man with a degree on the wall. He is a herdsman, a fig-pincher from the south. He has no credentials that Amaziah would recognize. But he has one thing that Amaziah does not: a direct, unmediated, and terrifying commission from Yahweh, the God who made heaven and earth. He is not there to negotiate with the king, but to announce a verdict from the King of Kings.
This collision is inevitable. It is not a misunderstanding. It is a war. It is the collision between court religion and covenant religion, between the hireling and the true shepherd. And we must pay close attention, because this same conflict is being played out in our own day. We have our own Amaziahs, our own court evangelicals, who are terrified of offending the powers that be. Their message is always one of "peace, peace," when there is no peace. They are quick to condemn the sins of the previous generation and slow to identify the idols of their own. They tell the true prophets to "go home," to "stop being so divisive," to "flee away" and do their prophesying somewhere else, somewhere less important. But the word of the Lord cannot be managed, and the man of God cannot be bought.
The Text
Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words. For thus Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’ ” Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and there do your prophesying! But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal house.”
Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs. But Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, ‘Go prophesy to My people Israel.’ So now, hear the word of Yahweh: you are saying, ‘You shall not prophesy against Israel, nor shall you drip out words against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore, thus says Yahweh, ‘Your wife will play the harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be divided up by a measuring line, and you yourself will die upon unclean land. Moreover, Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’ ”
(Amos 7:10-17 LSB)
The Official Complaint (vv. 10-11)
The confrontation begins with the state priest tattling to the king.
"Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, 'Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words. For thus Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’'" (Amos 7:10-11)
Notice Amaziah's tactics. He does not engage Amos on theological grounds. He does not argue about the interpretation of the law or the nature of God's covenant. Men like Amaziah never do. Their theology is too thin, too compromised. Instead, he immediately frames the issue in political terms. He accuses Amos of treason. "Amos has conspired against you." This is the first and last resort of every corrupt establishment when confronted with the truth. They cannot win the argument, so they seek to silence the man by labeling him a threat to public order.
The charge is that Amos is a conspirator, a political subversive. This is precisely the charge that was leveled against Jeremiah, against John the Baptist, against the Apostle Paul, and ultimately, against the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. When Jesus stood before Pilate, the charge was not that he had healed on the Sabbath, but that he was a rival king to Caesar. The enemies of God always seek to portray faithfulness as sedition.
And look at the substance of the complaint: "the land is unable to endure all his words." This is spoken like a true bureaucrat. The problem is not that Amos's words are false. The problem is that they are intolerable. They are disruptive. They are bad for business. They are upsetting the carefully managed public consensus. A state-sponsored church values stability above all else, which means it values the status quo above the truth. The true prophet, on the other hand, is sent to disrupt a false peace. He is sent to afflict the comfortable. His words are like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
Amaziah then slightly misquotes Amos. He says, "Jeroboam will die by the sword." What Amos had actually said, in the vision of the plumb line just before this, was that God would "rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword" (Amos 7:9). This is a subtle but important distinction. Amos prophesied against Jeroboam's dynasty, his posterity. Amaziah twists this into a direct, personal threat against the king's life, making it sound like a call for assassination. This is what hirelings do. They caricature the truth to make it sound more dangerous and unreasonable, justifying their crackdown.
The Professional Insult (vv. 12-13)
Having reported Amos to the authorities, Amaziah now confronts him directly, seeking to intimidate and dismiss him.
"Then Amaziah said to Amos, 'Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and there do your prophesying! But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal house.'" (Amos 7:12-13 LSB)
Amaziah addresses Amos as a "seer." This is likely intended as a slight, a condescending label for a professional fortune-teller. He then tells him to go back where he came from. "Flee away to the land of Judah." This is the ancient equivalent of "love it or leave it." You are an outsider, a southerner, you don't understand our ways. Go back to your own tribe.
But the real insult is in the phrase, "and there eat bread." Amaziah assumes that Amos is just like him, that prophecy is just a trade, a way to make a living. He cannot conceive of a man who speaks for God out of sheer, unadorned obedience. In his cynical worldview, everyone has an angle, everyone is on the take. So, he tells Amos to go peddle his wares somewhere else. Go find a market for your doomsaying in Judah, but not here. We have our own religious professionals, thank you very much.
And why must he leave? "For it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal house." This is the heart of the matter. Amaziah lets the cat out of the bag. Bethel does not belong to Yahweh; it belongs to the king. It is a government facility. It is Jeroboam's chapel. Therefore, the king, not God, sets the acceptable boundaries for all speech within it. This is the essence of all state-run religion. The pulpit is subordinate to the throne. The Word of God is subject to a royal veto. This is idolatry of the highest order. It is a direct denial of the First Commandment. Amaziah is not just a priest; he is the high priest of a blasphemous merger between church and state, where the church is nothing more than the religious wing of the ruling party.
The Amateur's Defense (vv. 14-15)
Amos's response is a masterclass in prophetic authority. He does not defend himself by appealing to his credentials, but by demolishing the very premise of Amaziah's worldview.
"Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, 'I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs. But Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, ‘Go prophesy to My people Israel.’" (Amos 7:14-15 LSB)
When Amos says, "I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet," he is not denying his function. He is denying Amaziah's category. He is saying, "I am not a prophet in your professional, guild-member sense of the term. I didn't go to your approved seminaries. I don't belong to your union. I am not doing this for money." He is rejecting the careerist model of ministry that Amaziah represents.
Instead, he identifies himself by his secular vocation. "I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs." A sycamore fig was a poor man's food, and the work of "growing" them involved pinching or scraping each fruit to help it ripen. This was tedious, humble work. Amos is saying, "I am a working man. I am a nobody. I had a job. I was minding my own business."
And that is the foundation of his true authority. His authority does not come from a human institution, but from a divine interruption. "But Yahweh took me from following the flock." The call was not his idea. It was a sovereign seizure. God drafted him. One moment he was following sheep, and the next he was being sent to confront a king. Yahweh took him, and Yahweh said to him, "Go." That is the extent of his resume. His authority rests entirely on the raw, unmediated command of God. This is what terrifies men like Amaziah. They can control the institutions, the budgets, and the credentials. But they cannot control a man who has heard a direct command from the living God.
The Unbearable Word (vv. 16-17)
Having established the source of his authority, Amos now turns the tables and pronounces a devastating sentence on Amaziah himself.
"So now, hear the word of Yahweh: you are saying, ‘You shall not prophesy against Israel, nor shall you drip out words against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore, thus says Yahweh, ‘Your wife will play the harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be divided up by a measuring line, and you yourself will die upon unclean land. Moreover, Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’" (Amos 7:16-17 LSB)
Amos begins by quoting Amaziah's prohibition back to him. You are the one telling God's prophet to be silent. You are the one trying to muzzle the Word of the Lord. "Therefore," because you have set yourself up as an authority over God's Word, God will bring a specific, personal, and catastrophic judgment upon you and everything you hold dear.
The judgment is brutal and systematic. First, his family will be publicly shamed and destroyed. "Your wife will play the harlot in the city." This means she will be publicly violated by the invading soldiers, the ultimate humiliation for a man in that culture. "Your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword." His lineage will be cut off. Second, his property will be confiscated. "Your land will be divided up by a measuring line." Everything he has accumulated will be seized and given to others. Third, his own life and ministry will end in disgrace. "You yourself will die upon unclean land." As a priest, his entire life was supposed to be about maintaining ceremonial purity. His punishment is to die in a pagan land, far from the temple, far from the covenant land, and to be buried in defiled soil. He who served a false god in Israel will die under the authority of false gods in Assyria.
And then, as a final, thunderous conclusion, Amos repeats the very message that Amaziah tried to suppress, but with even greater certainty. "Moreover, Israel will certainly go from its land into exile." You cannot stop the Word of God by silencing the prophet of God. All you accomplish is to bring that prophet's curse down upon your own head. The message will go forth, and the judgment will fall. Amaziah thought he could protect the nation by getting rid of Amos. But in seeking to save his nation from the Word, he guaranteed his own destruction and the destruction of the nation he claimed to serve.
Conclusion: The Unmanageable God
This is a sobering and necessary word for the church in our time. We are surrounded by Amaziahs. They are in our pulpits, our seminaries, and our Christian publishing houses. They are the respectable, reasonable men who are always counseling caution, compromise, and a quiet life. They tell us that certain topics are too political, too controversial, too unloving. They tell us to stick to a "simple gospel" that never seems to touch on the reigning sins of the day.
They want a manageable God, a tamed Christ, a church that is a royal sanctuary, a chaplaincy to the powers that be. They want to eat bread, to maintain their position, to keep the peace. And when a man like Amos shows up, a man sent by God with an unvarnished word, they are the first to accuse him of being a conspirator, of being unloving, of disrupting the unity of the church.
But God is not manageable. The Lord Jesus Christ is not safe; He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And His Word will not be silenced. God still takes men from following the flock. He still takes men from their construction sites, their accounting desks, and their software companies, and He says, "Go, prophesy to My people." And when that word comes, it will divide. It will offend. The land will feel that it cannot endure it. But it is the only word that can save.
The choice before us is the same choice that was before Israel. Will we have the priests of Bethel, or the prophet of God? Will we listen to the soothing lies of the establishment, or the hard truths of the herdsman from Tekoa? Will our churches be sanctuaries for the king, or embassies of the Kingdom of God? May God give us the grace to be like Amos, to speak the word He has given us without fear or favor, and to trust Him with the consequences. For it is better to die in exile speaking the truth than to live in comfort as a priest to a golden calf.