Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
Amos wanted to make men repent of their sins, while Amaziah wanted only to make them easy in their minds; and no man can do both at once. So it was then, my friends, and so it will be till the end of this wicked world.
His son Amaziah began well, obeying the Lord by dismissing the Ephraimites whom he had hired to aid him against the Edomites, and he was therefore rewarded with a great victory; but so strangely blind was he, that he brought home the vain gods of Edom and worshipped them.
No wonder that the Israelites thought Amos a most troublesome and insolent person. No wonder that the smooth priest Amaziah begged him to begone and talk in that way somewhere else. He saw plainly enough that either Amos must leave Samaria, or he must leave it. The two could no more work together than fire and water.
This is strangely different from the last expression of Stephen, who "kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Amaziah returned "from the slaughter of the Edomites," and set up the gods of the idolatrous enemies he had whipped, "to be his gods." Ahaz was a wicked idolater, worshiping Baal and sacrificing his own sons.
Accordingly Amaziah was so distressed, and in such fear of his life, that he made his enemy to be received into the city.
Amos went, I presume, in fear of his life. But he left noble words behind him. "I was no prophet," he said to Amaziah, "nor a prophet's son, but a herdsman, and a gatherer of wild figs. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
But if thou wilt go, do it; be strong for the battle: God shall make thee fall before the enemy: for God hath power to help, and to cast down. And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The LORD is able to give thee much more than this.
For instance, the opium traffic; how is it defended? Some attempt is made to prove either that we did not force it upon China, or that the talk about the evils of opium is missionary fanaticism, but the sheet-anchor is: 'How are we ever to raise the Indian revenue if we give up the traffic? That is exactly Amaziah over again, come from the dead, and resurrected in a very ugly shape.
When Amos the prophet spoke bold words against a king, it was Amaziah the priest who gave the shameful counsel, 'O thou seer, flee into the land of Judah, and prophesy there; but prophesy no more at Bethel: for it is the king's sanctuary. Is there no such thing known as a flaming profession of religion, because it is respectable, or opens the way to some good position?
And Judah was put to the worse before Israel; and they fled every man to their tents. And Jehoash king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash the son of Ahaziah, at Bethshemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, four hundred cubits.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking