Thus saith Jehovah For three transgressions of Gazah, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver [them] up to Edom.
Amos names Israel's neighbours one at a time. Here the word falls on Gaza, a Philistine city charged with seizing a whole population and handing it over to Edom. Why does God count the crimes of nations outside Israel? And why is this trade in captives the sin that fills their cup?
The repeated phrase "for three transgressions... and for four" is not a count of offences. Writers read the numbers as a picture of guilt that is no longer in doubt.
In the first two chapters there are eight short denunciations of judgements, introduced by the words "for three transgressions and for four." Three witnesses were adequate testimony; four is the cup running over, of which the four quarters of the earth can testify.
The point is simple: the case is closed before the sentence falls.
Gaza was one of the chief Philistine cities. Its history with Israel runs from Samson's day to the prophets.
One of the five royal cities of the Philistines... In the time of Samson, however, the Philistines held it, and they made him a prisoner there. Judges 16:21... Because it was a Philistine stronghold, the prophets pronounced woes against it. Amos 1:6-7; Zephaniah 2:4; Zechariah 9:5.
The charge is not war but trade in people. Gaza captured Israelites and handed them over to Edom.
Philistia is represented by Gaza. They also mistreated Israel and sold them into the hands of Edom (2 Chronicles 21:16). Fire would consume the cities of Philistia, Gaza and its palaces. There would be an end to the Philistines: "the remnant of the Philistines shall perish," says the LORD.
These nations stood outside Israel, yet God still holds them responsible. He punishes two things at once: their cruelty to Israel, and their cruelty as human beings.
Notice this. God announces judgment on the surrounding nations before He declares judgment on Israel and Judah. He does so because of their hostile and cruel behaviour toward the people of Israel, and also because of what was cruel in them at the root, and against even ordinary human feeling. God takes account of all these things.
God may discipline Israel, but no nation may profit from Israel's ruin. Gaza's trade in captives was a bet on Israel's collapse, and it failed.
Here we see the folly of the hope the enemies of God's people held. They sought Israel's ruin, thinking they would gain by it. Of course God can discipline His people, for He must make His own character clear. But the malice of their enemies brings His judgment on them too.
Gaza sent a whole people into exile. Now Gaza itself will not survive as a people.
It is the same with Gaza, described in the same way as standing for the Philistines, Israel's old, relentless and active enemies... They had been guilty of transgression upon transgression, and therefore the LORD would not turn back here either. He would deal with their sin at once, not just carrying them off, but wiping them out as a people. "The remnant of the Philistines shall perish," says the Lord GOD.
The list that condemns Gaza does not stop at the border. God uses the same words for Judah and Israel. No one hearing them could think He judges by nationality.
- Measure. "Three... and for four" means the case is beyond dispute. Three witnesses were enough; four is the cup running over.
- Crime. Gaza's guilt was trafficking: carrying off a whole population and selling them into Edom's hands.
- Reach. God judges the nations around Israel too — for their cruelty to His people, and for cruelty that offends even ordinary human feeling.
- Folly. God may correct His people. But those who hope to gain from it bring His judgment on themselves.
- Result. Gaza sent others into exile and is ended itself: "the remnant of the Philistines shall perish."
And I will send a fire on the wall of Gazah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.
Amos names Gaza and passes sentence on it: fire on the wall, and its strongholds swallowed up. Why does God pass sentence on a nation outside Israel? And why aim at the wall and the strongholds, the very things that made the city safe?
Gaza and its neighbours sit on ground God had already given away. He is clearing His own land.
These judgments of Jehovah fall on the nations that have settled on the territory promised to Abraham. By this gift of God, that land belongs to the people of Israel. God purges His land of what defiles it... Here we see the folly of the hope Israel's enemies held. They sought Israel's ruin, thinking they would gain by it.
One city stands for the whole nation here. The Philistines were not a distant empire but the neighbour at the fence.
It is the same with Gaza, which in the same way stands for the Philistines. They were Israel's old, unrelenting and active opponents — an enemy on the border, if not inside the land. They had been guilty of transgression upon transgression. So Jehovah would not turn back here either. He would deal with their iniquity at once, not merely carrying them off, but wiping them out as a people.
One instrument keeps reappearing in these announcements. One phrase keeps closing the door on appeal.
In each judgment prediction we find the phrase, "for three transgressions or four... I will not reverse it." The meaning is that the measure is full and nothing can turn the judgment aside. Fire stands out as the way judgment comes. These nations were the enemies of Israel.
The wall was the city's defence. The strongholds — older translations say "palaces" — were its wealth and pride. Fire takes both, and the loss runs past the buildings to the people themselves.
Fire would consume the cities of Philistia — Gaza and its palaces. There would be an end to the Philistines: "the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the LORD."
Their treatment of God's people brought this on them, and the pattern reaches beyond Philistia:
The Philistines lived on a narrow strip along the seashore. They were the long-standing enemies of the people Israel... The vengeance of the Lord fell on the coast of Philistia, and they experienced the fury of the Lord. He dealt with those who had corrupted His people. And so God will deal in due time with all His enemies.
The list does not stop at the border nations. Amos uses the same wording for God's own people, and names the same penalty.
The measure was full for these nations, who had heaped transgressions upon transgressions. Yet Judah and Israel were just as guilty — yes, even more guilty than these nations. Amos uses the same telling phrase, "for three transgressions and four," of both... Fire was to devour the cities and palaces of the nations. Fire was to come upon Judah and the palaces of Jerusalem too.
The city's name carries its own irony, and the lesson outlives Philistia.
Gaza, a city of the Philistines, means "strong." For ceremonial religion seeks the greatest power in the world, and boasts of the strength of its numbers. Such strength means nothing to those who walk by faith. Let us never be intimidated by it. The harlot city Babylon may be so strong that she reigns over the kings of the earth (Rev. 17:18), but "her plagues will come in one day — death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her" (Rev. 18:8).
- Cause. Gaza piled up transgression on transgression, above all in its treatment of God's people. The measure is full, and the sentence stands.
- Court. God judges over land He had promised to Abraham. He is purging His own territory, and those who hoped to profit from Israel's ruin drew His judgment on themselves.
- Fire. Fire is the instrument through this whole section, and it strikes the wall and the strongholds — the city's defence and its wealth.
- Reach. Gaza's fall is not the end of the list. The same phrase and the same fire come to the palaces of Jerusalem. God's own people face the same measure.
- Result. Fire burns the city whose name means "strong." No human strength is worth fearing, "for strong is the Lord God who judges her."
And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Amos names the crimes of Israel's neighbours one by one, and here Philistia's turn comes city by city until nothing of that people is left. Why does a prophet sent to Israel spend so long on foreign nations, and what does it mean that even the remnant perishes?
One writer traces the order of this chapter, and the reason behind it:
At the start Jehovah proclaims His own rights from the place of His own throne. He roars from Zion and speaks out from Jerusalem. We may notice that God announces the judgment of the surrounding nations before He declares the judgment of Israel and Judah. This is because of their hostile and cruel behaviour towards the people of Israel. It is also because of what was cruel in their very nature, and contrary even to ordinary human feeling. God takes notice of all these things.
This verse closes an announcement that opened with a count of wrongs. That count is not vague:
In the first two chapters there are eight short announcements of judgment, introduced by the words "for three transgressions and for four." Three witnesses were enough testimony. Four is the cup running over, and the four quarters of the earth can testify to it.
The phrase can sound mild, as though God were only shifting His attention. It is not. One writer compares the places where this expression appears:
Isaiah 1:25, and Amos 1:8, and Psalm 81:14, show, I think, that "turning the hand upon" is in judgment.
The verse ends with the remnant. One writer weighs how far this sentence goes:
Gaza stands here for the Philistines — Israel's old, tireless, active enemies, a foe on their border if not inside the land. They had been guilty of transgression upon transgression. So Jehovah would not turn back here either. He would deal with their iniquity at once, not merely carrying them off, but destroying them as a people. "The remnant of the Philistines shall perish," says the Lord GOD.
There is a reason God names these particular neighbours. They all sat on ground He had already given away by promise:
Here again we notice what we have seen elsewhere. These judgments of Jehovah fall on the nations settled on the territory promised to Abraham. By this gift of God, that land belongs to the people of Israel. God purges His land of what defiles it, and sadly that means Judah and Israel too. At the same time He asserts and keeps His own rights, and He will exercise them in grace for Israel in the last days.
Commentators differ over how much of this is history and how much is still ahead. One reads the Philistine judgment as long past, but as a sample of something larger:
As we think about these brief judgment messages we must remember one thing. These nations of the past have ceased to exist as nations, and the predicted judgment came long ago. Yet they are a picture of the other nations who also sin against Israel, and whose judgment will come "in that day."
Another writer, weighing a prophecy about these same cities, finds that Philistia's story does not end in complete extinction:
These predictions most likely have a twofold fulfilment. Part has already come true, as far as the temporal judgments on these cities go, for these Philistine cities have certainly been visited. But the careful reader will notice that the whole prophecy has not been fulfilled. It speaks of a spared remnant from the Philistines who will be "for our God." This must be future.
- The cup fills. Three witnesses were enough testimony. "For three transgressions and for four" counts past that — the fourth is the cup running over.
- The hand turns. "Turning the hand upon" a people means judgment, not attention. Isaiah and the Psalms use the phrase the same way.
- The hand reaches everyone. Ashdod loses its people and Ashkelon its ruler. God strips away population and leadership alike.
- The hand finishes. God does not merely carry Philistia off. The remnant perishes, and the nation ends as a nation.
- The hand belongs to the Owner. These nations sat on land promised to Abraham. God is clearing His own ground. He does not spare Judah and Israel either, yet He keeps His rights, so He can act in grace for them later.
Thus saith Jehovah For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke its sentence; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant.
Amos opens with judgments on the nations around Israel. Here the word falls on Tyre, a rich trading city that had once been Israel's friend. The charge is not war but betrayal. Tyre handed a whole people over to Edom and forgot a covenant between brothers.
Each announcement opens with the same counting formula. The numbers themselves carry the message. Commentators read them as testimony piling past the point of doubt:
In the first two chapters there are eight short announcements of judgment, introduced by the words "for three transgressions and for four." Three witnesses were enough proof. Four is the cup running over, and the four quarters of the earth can testify to it.
The repeated phrase settles the outcome before the crime is even named:
In each judgment prediction we find the phrase, "For three transgressions … and for four, I will not revoke the punishment." It means that the measure is full and that nothing can turn the judgment aside. Fire stands out as the way judgment comes.
The "covenant of brotherhood" was not a figure of speech. It pointed back to a real friendship between Tyre and Israel's kings — and to what money did to it:
But hope of gain made Tyre forget the covenant of brotherhood, and Tyre gave the refugees up to the cruel Edomite. Tyre did not remember the covenant of brotherhood. This is the prophet's charge against her. David and Hiram, king of Tyre, made a covenant, and Solomon confirmed it; Hiram called Solomon "my brother" (see 2 Sam. 5 and 1 Kings 5 — 9).
That history is what makes the betrayal so ugly. The friendship had held for generations:
Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia, had also sinned against Israel by handing them over to their great enemy Edom. Their sin was especially wicked because David and Solomon had made a covenant with the king of Tyre, so no king of Judah or Israel had ever gone to war against Tyre.
Tyre did not sell a few prisoners. It sold a whole people, and it sold them to Israel's fiercest enemy:
Then Tyre comes before us, proud of its money as a city of merchant princes usually is, and linked by trade with every part of the earth. Fire would devour its palaces, and that is exactly what happened… They broke faith with their covenant of brotherhood, and handed the whole body of Jewish captives over to Edom, the proud hater of the people of God. They never thought that He saw their greedy trade in Israel and was angry at it.
This was not Tyre's only sale of God's people. One writer sets the charge here beside another charge in Scripture:
One specific charge brought against Tyre is that "they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood." Amos 1:9. God said of them that they had taken His silver and His gold, carried His finest treasures into their temples, and sold the children of Judah to the Greeks. Joel 3:5-6.
The sentence did not stay a threat. Writers trace how it came true through two conquerors:
But Tyre broke away from the "covenant of brotherhood," and came under God's displeasure (Amos 1:9). Because of their sinful pride, God's judgments came on these cities, just as Isaiah (Isa. 23) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 26-29) had prophesied. They came through Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and later through Alexander the Great of Greece.
Tyre saw Israel fall and saw money in it. That calculation is where Tyre went wrong:
Here we see the folly of the hope held by the enemies of God's people. They sought Israel's ruin, thinking they would gain by it. God can certainly discipline His people, for He must show what His character is; but the malice of their enemies brings His judgment on them too.
The prophet then turns to God's own people. Judah is measured by the same formula used against Tyre:
After this we come in Amos 2:4 to the solemn announcement that God must deal with Judah just as He deals with their Gentile neighbours. With God there is no favouritism about sin, and none about righteousness either.
- Covenant. David and Hiram made a covenant, and Tyre's king called Solomon "my brother" — a real bond, not a formality.
- Forgotten. Hope of gain made Tyre forget that covenant. Profit beat a friendship generations old.
- Sold. Tyre handed a whole people over to Edom, the proud hater of God's people. It traded human beings for money.
- Seen. Tyre never thought God was watching. The numbers "three and four" say the measure was full, and God would not revoke the punishment.
- Burned. Judgment fell through Nebuchadnezzar and later Alexander. Seeking your own gain in another's ruin is folly, and with God sin meets no favouritism.