NOTES for Amo 3:1-15

Prophecy is often thought to be a prediction of the future, something like a weather forecast. God allows prophets to look into the future and tell people about it. There seems to be little point in such prophecy, except perhaps to frighten people! But through Amos, God explains an entirely different purpose of prophecy. First of all, He reminds us that being the chosen people is a great honor, but an even greater responsibility. If that responsibility is “failed,” the fall will be catastrophic—we read about this yesterday. The purpose of prophecy, then, is to warn. The questions in verses 3–6 are remarkable: they suggest that events are interconnected. Prophecy does not arise out of nowhere or merely from a prophet’s insight, but because God has resolved to do something and considers it necessary to tell people about it so that they may take some part in it—for God created human beings to work together with Him. This is the meaning of verse 7, while verse 8 suggests that there may be many prophets—and this is exactly what happens over the following several centuries.