A Prophet's Bold Rebuke Of The Nation Of Israel

Would the message of the Hebrew prophets be any
less disturbing if they addressed nations today?

"You trample on the poor

and force them to give you grain, 

Therefore though you have built stone mansions,

you will not live in them;

though you have planted lush vineyards,

you will not drink their wine.

Seek good, not evil,

that you may live.

Then the Lord Almighty will be with you, 

just as you say he is.

Hate evil, love good;

maintain justice in the courts.

Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy

on the remnant of Joseph."

- Amos 5;11-12, 14-15 (NIV)

In our house church's Bible study yesterday Dick Dumas led us through the  book of Amos in the Bible, noting how relevant this ancient prophet's warnings are for nations today, including the modern nation of Israel.

Amos's tirades against greed, immorality, judicial corruption, extravagant lifestyles, devotion to false gods, and disregard for the poor could certainly be addressed to our own nation as well, and would likely be met with the same hostility. A native of the neighboring nation of Judah, Amos was seen as an intruder with no business crossing the border into the temple city of Bethel and indicting the people there for their wrongdoing. 

Given the nation's unfaithfulness to the terms of God's covenant, its failure to have "justice roll down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream,"Amos questioned Israel's very right to exist and predicted its certain demise unless it changed its ways. This led to Bethel's high priest, Amaziah, to warn King Jeroboam II that Amos needed to be banished to his own country and to "earn his bread and prophesy there."

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes the Hebrew prophets as "some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived:" 

"Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he (the prophet) is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and the affairs of the market place. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum... What if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich? ...Why such inordinate excitement? Why such indignation?"

Heschel then adds, "The things that horrified the prophets are daily occurrences all over the world," and writes:

"When the prophets appeared, they proclaimed that might is not supreme, that the sword is an abomination, that violence is obscene. The sword, they said, shall be destroyed.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,

And their spears into pruning hooks;

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

Neither shall they learn war any more.

Isaiah 2:4

The prophets, questioning man's infatuation with might, insisted not only on the immorality but also on the futility and absurdity of war.[...] What is the ultimate profit of all the arms, alliances, and victories? Destruction, agony, death."

― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets