NOTES for Amo 3:1-15
Today, when people speak of keeping the commandments or of spiritual life in general, many feel that this is a strictly personal and even inward matter. At first glance, that is indeed so. After all, it concerns a person's relationship with God. Any close relationship, even one between human beings, is an intimate matter. This is all the more true of the relationship between a person and God. On the other hand, even the closest and most intimate human relationships still have an outward dimension; they always manifest themselves outwardly in some way. Without such manifestations, one could hardly speak of the depth of these relationships. Human beings are not angels, not incorporeal spirits, and every relationship between them therefore has a bodily dimension too.
One might think that the same cannot be said of God: He is incorporeal. Yet a relationship with Him also involves the whole person, with all their thoughts, feelings and intuitions. Here too, then, it is impossible to remain confined to the inward alone: a relationship with God must necessarily find outward expression as well. And it is not just a matter of religious rituals. For when God gave humanity the Torah (the Law), He based it on commandments which presuppose, above all, a quite definite quality in a person's relationships both with God and with other people. Here there is no boundary between private and public life, since society itself is ultimately nothing other than a system of relationships between people. That is why Amos pays such attention to social questions and, in particular, to questions of social justice (vv. 9–11; Amos 2:6–8). Of course, social justice matters because every person is infinitely precious to God, and violating its standards always, in a certain sense, diminishes the value of the human person. Those who violate them are, as it were, saying to God: ‘You may love and value this person, but we do not; unlike You, we are indifferent to them.’
But justice is no less important for those who violate it. For to say to God what those who violate justice say to Him is, in effect, to break off all relationship with Him. Justice in general, and social justice in particular, evidently matter not simply in themselves: they prove to be the environment within which healthy relationships can be built both with God and with one's neighbour. That is why all the prophets, including Amos, were in practice public figures: they could not and would not lead a double life, not only because it is immoral, but also because they would then simply not have been prophets—for in such a double life they would have had to forget about a healthy relationship with God. This is how faithfulness to God and social justice are bound together in the life of the righteous person.