The Hebrew Prophets

Days are coming when your bounty is so great that the season for plowing will overlap the season for reaping; when the pressing of grapes will overlap the planting of new seed; when the mountains shall drip wine and all the hills shall wave with grain.

I will restore you …….

I will plant you upon your land, and never again shall you be uprooted from it …

——- Amos 9:13-15

The earth will be so fertile that harvests will last well into the planting seasons.

God restores you when you return to your true nature. Your turning and your restoration are one in the same. The decision to turn frees you from the delusion of your separateness from God. Without that delusion, you are attuned to and in touch with godliness.

What is “your land”? From a historical perspective, the land is the Promised Land of Israel. From a personal spiritual perspective, the land is this very moment. You are uprooted from the land when you are caught up in your own psychological drama, drawing from the past, projecting onto the future, and cut off from the only place God can be met: the present moment.

Listen to Me, you devourers of the needy, murderers of the poor! …
You withhold produce from market to force the prices to rise;
you hoard crops during the Sabbatical year;
you rig your scales and doctor your measures;
you sell chaff as wheat and gouge the poor with unfair prices;
you impoverish the needy for the price of sandals.
I will never forget your actions …….

Days are coming when I will cause this land to be famished;
you will starve but not for bread, you will thirst but not for water.
You will starve and thirst for My word.
You will wander from sea to sea, from north to east in search of My word, but you will not find it.

——- Amos 8:4-12

Every seven years the land is allowed to lie fallow. Crops are not planted or harvested, and foodstuffs can become a little scarce. This is a time for generosity, not hoarding. Where do you take advantage of scarcity and another’s hunger?

Your deepest hunger is for the Word of God. Not the word printed on a page or even spoken from a pulpit; but the Word spoken directly to you by the One Who Is, in the immediacy of your everyday life. The Word of God is the world as it presents itself to you in all its unmediated wonder. If you see the world as it is, you see God present in, with, and as all things.

When you are deaf to the world as Word, you begin a frantic search for that which is always with you. You cannot find it because you already have it. You starve in the midst of plenty; you thirst even as you sit beside the river. You are desolate and alone in the center of the One Who Is all. How sad. Your despair is the result of your ignorance.

I do not rebuke you for every offense, but the weight of your injustice forces My hand.
For these reasons do you suffer:
Because you bribe judges and undermine the claims of the just;
because you artificially raise prices and impoverish the poor;
because you trample the heads of the powerless into the dust;
because you force the humble to walk a crooked path;
because young and old are inundated with selfishness;
because you lounge on garments the poor are forced to pawn;
because you get drunk on unjust taxes …….

——- Amos 2:6-8

The accumulation of evil is what condemns you, and even then it is not God’s desire to punish you. The weight of your deeds simply tips the scales, making the consequences of your actions inescapable.

Where have you failed to be generous with the poor and impoverished? Where have you used leverage against those beneath you in rank and power? Where have you led people down blind alleys simply to get what you want? Where do you take advantage of the system’s injustice, rather than reforming the system to make it more just? See the injustice you do, and cease from doing it.

Can two walk together without meeting? Does a lion roar in the forest if it has no prey? Does a beast let out a cry from its den if it has not trapped its meal?

Does a bird suddenly fall to the ground unless snared? Does a trap spring up from the ground without having caught something?

When a shofar sounds in a town, do the people not worry? Can misfortune befall a place if the One Who Is has not caused it?

Indeed, the One Who Is does nothing without first revealing it to the divine servants the prophets.

——- Amos 3:1-7

A shofar is a ram’s horn. The ancient Hebrew equivalent to a modern early warning siren, the shofar is blown to warn people of impending disaster. The blowing of the shofar is also a central part of the High Holy Day rituals. In this case, the shofar warns you of the disaster you are causing in your own life by failing to live justly, kindly, and humbly.

God is the sole reality, thus evil must come from God. You may prefer to think of God as only good, only just, only kind, and so on. But the truth is that God is everything: light and dark, good and evil, blessing and curse. You see this throughout the prophets: God is both the cause of calamity and the source of salvation. How are you to understand this?

Think in terms of electricity running through an outlet in your home. If you plug a lamp into the socket, you receive light. If you stick your finger in the socket, you get electrocuted. The nature of electricity hasn’t changed; how you engage it has. It is the same with God. Engage God wisely and goodness results; engage God foolishly and disaster occurs. What is engaging God wisely? Living justly, compassionately, and humbly. What is engaging God foolishly? Living unjustly, cruelly, and exploiting all you meet.

Here is another aspect of the prophetic task: to sound a warning so you look to your actions to see if you are not about to stick your finger in the socket and die.