Today’s reading: Amos 1-2; Mark 6
Even during the period of the divided monarchy, where Israel split off from Judah, I personally still think of them as one nation, so it’s interesting to read Amos, focusing on Israel (the Northern Kingdom), and considering Judah like just another nation.
Amos opens with a series of condemnations against the nations, and the arrangement of those condemnations, geographically, forms something of a target with the bullseye squarely on the Northern Kingdom. The last nation to be condemned before he gets to Israel is Judah. Then he goes on to spill three times as much ink on God’s indictment against Israel than on any of the other nations.
When I got to Judah in the list, and saw it treated like all of the other nations, it was a little jarring and confusing, because, like I said, I still think of them as one nation when I’m reading about them. But I think this is probably an important context to keep in mind as we are reading through the prophets and histories from this period, that the people would have seen themselves as separate nations. The two kingdoms have separate kings, a well-defined border, different gods (because Jeroboam introduced the worship of the two golden calves), and they are almost always enemies. I read about them in books like Kings and Chronicles that track them both in parallel and deal with the kings’ interactions with one another, and I also read about them with the knowledge that God says He is going to recombine them into a single nation, but none of this would have been the experience of the average Israelite back then. Plus, Israel has strayed much father from the Lord than Judah has, so it also makes sense that God would have different indictments to level against each nation.
Maybe others already think of Judah and Israel separately like Amos does, but in case anybody else is like me, it’s helpful to pay attention to the distinction to understand the scope and focus of Amos’ charges against Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment