Amos 1 Devotional

No Cruelty Goes Unseen

“This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly.”Amos 1:11 (BSB)

Amos, a shepherd from Tekoa, opens with the LORD roaring from Zion (1:2). Then he circles Israel's neighbors one by one, each introduced with the same formula of three transgressions, even four. Damascus threshed Gilead with iron sledges (1:3). Gaza and Tyre handed whole populations over to Edom, and Tyre broke a covenant of brotherhood (1:6, 1:9). Edom chased his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion (1:11). Ammon ripped open pregnant women to gain territory (1:13).

These nations are not charged with breaking a law given to Israel, yet God holds each of them accountable for its cruelty. He is not a local god concerned only with his own people. He is the Judge of all the earth, as Abraham called him, who does what is right (Genesis 18:25). The captives, the conquered, and the pregnant women of Gilead, who seemed forgotten by the powerful were never forgotten by him. That is a comfort to anyone who has been wronged, and a sober reminder that God weighs how we treat those within our reach.

To think about: Is there anyone whose suffering you have quietly ignored, and how does God seeing it change how you respond?