Amos 6
Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria — the prosperous who lie on beds of ivory and do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
Summary
Chapter 6 opens with a woe oracle — formally the woe of the funeral lament — directed at two groups: those at ease in Zion and those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria. The prophet names them as the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes. He then challenges them to look at the neighbouring kingdoms — Calneh, Hamath the great, Gath of the Philistines — and ask whether these are better than they are, whether their territories are larger. The challenge is rhetorical: the neighbouring kingdoms have already fallen or are falling. Israel is not exceptional; it is next in the sequence.
The description of the upper class that follows is one of the most precise social portraits in the prophetic literature. They lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, eating lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall. They sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, improvising on instruments like David. They drink wine in bowls — the word is miz'raq, the large ceremonial bowl used in temple ritual, repurposed for the private party — and anoint themselves with the finest oils. And they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. The phrase is the moral diagnosis: the prosperous class of the capital is not merely indifferent to the collapse of the social order around them; they have insulated themselves from grief. The LORD swears by himself — taking the heaviest oath the text can construct — that he abhors the pride of Jacob and hates his strongholds, and will deliver up the city and all that is in it.
- Amos 1The chapter opens with the superscription placing Amos in the reign of Jeroboam II, two years before the earthquake, then immediately with the roar: the LORD roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem.
- Amos 2The chapter opens with the sixth and seventh oracles — Moab, for burning the bones of the king of Edom to lime, and Judah, for rejecting the law of the LORD — and then, having walked the full circle of nations, lands on Israel.
- Amos 3The chapter opens with the address Hear this word, the first of three such addresses that structure chapters 3 through 5.
- Amos 4The chapter opens with the cows of Bashan address — the wealthy women of the capital whose only recorded speech is telling their husbands to bring more wine — and announces that hooks and fishhooks will take them out through breaches in the wall.
- Amos 5The chapter opens with a lament — a dirge for Israel in the present tense, as if the fall has already happened: Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.
- Amos 6Chapter 6 opens with a double woe — against those at ease in Zion and those who feel secure in Samaria — and then invites the audience to look around the region: are these nations better than Israel, are their territories larger? Then it describes, with a precision that reads like a reporter's note, the world of the upper class: they lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches; they eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall; they sing idle songs to the sound of the harp; they drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
- Amos 7The chapter opens with the first two visions.
- Amos 8The fourth vision opens with the LORD showing Amos a basket of summer fruit.
- Amos 9The fifth and final vision gives no object and no question.