NOTES for Amo 2:1-16

Historians of religion have often compared the prophets with reformers and even with revolutionaries. Sometimes, when reading passages like today's, it can indeed appear that before us is not the preaching of a man of God, but that of a true rebelling accuser. And yet this is not so. Every social reform and every revolution always begins with the desire to change the old, established order of life: economic, political, or social. And this desire is born from the conviction that a person really is capable of replacing the old, imperfect order with a new one that seems perfect to him, or at least better than the previous one.

But the prophet does not think that the goal of social activity should be some reform or the creation of a better society. He speaks of only one thing - violation of the Torah, the Law, given by God (v. 4). In fact, returning to the norms of life that correspond to the Torah is the only point of his prophetic 'reform program.'

At first glance, such an approach narrows both the reformer's freedom of action and the range of tasks before him. But no prophet ever set as his goal the establishment of social harmony in society. For Amos, following the commandments matters first of all because violating them destroys a person's relationship with God, and this is far from only the private affair of individual people. For if there are many such violators, they begin to hinder those who want and are ready to live a normal, full spiritual life (vv. 11-12) - and then the time of reckoning comes (vv. 13-16).

And the point is not that God takes revenge on someone for something. What matters to Him is not an abstract society or people, but a concrete person, with whom He forms concrete and always entirely unique relationships. Society can either help this or, on the contrary, hinder it. And if it begins to hinder it, then in God's eyes it loses all value, and then catastrophe becomes inevitable.