Amos H

<p>For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ <a href="https://www.douglasjacoby.com/amoshmp3/" target="_blank"><strong>website.</strong></a></p><p><strong>Background</strong></p><ul><li>The mid-8th C. was a heady time for both kingdoms, because<ul><li>Syria (Aram) was drained from its exertions in resisting Assyria.</li><li>Egypt was weak, thus constituting no southern threat.</li><li>Assyria was preoccupied with the kingdom of Urartu.</li><li>Israel's smaller neighbors, Phoenicia, Philistia. Ammon, Moab, and Edom, posed no threat.</li></ul></li><li>The prophet now shifts his attack to the rich and powerful <i>men </i>(having already criticized the callous upper class <i>women </i>in chapter 4).</li></ul><p><strong>Complacent (6:1-7)</strong></p><ul><li>In heady times, it is easy to grow complacent.</li><li>Zion is Jerusalem.<ul><li>The southern kingdom of Judah was not much more righteous than the northern kingdom of Israel.</li><li>Israel, despite its (false claims) to be God's people (the true Zion), were not!</li><li>Samaria and the entire kingdom of which it was the capital went into captivity nearly a century and a half before the kingdom of Judah was exiled.</li></ul></li><li>Israel was no better than other kingdoms (v.2).</li><li>Lives of luxury are reprehensible when basic physical and spiritual needs in others are going unmet!<ul><li>The operative word is "lounge."</li><li>These people are drinking wine straight from the bowl!</li><li>Note: anointing was part of daily personal hygiene (as in Matthew 6). It also kills body lice.</li><li>Meat (probably lamb) was a great delicacy, at a time when most tasted meat only 3x/year. (See Luke 15:23.)</li><li>They cared only for themselves and the perks that come with power.</li><li>Their creative energies went into music, not into helping the poor. Their priorities were skewed.</li><li>Historical sidelights:<ul><li>Harvard University expeditions of 1908-1910 found potsherd inscriptions at Samaria recording deliveries of jugs of old (well fermented and