Amos 5:8 Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night… The prophet first draws the attention of Israel to the living God who stands behind nature, determining all its movements. The atheist is rebuked by this view of things. The thought of the prophet is full of God; nature does not deny God — it demonstrates Him. God is. Those who identify God with nature until they confound the personal God with the laws and forces of the world, are also rebuked by the text. Nature is not God. "He maketh the seven stars and Orion." And the view that nature is independent of God is equally repudiated. On the contrary, the teaching of Amos is that God acts through nature. The people of Israel are summoned to look up and to behold the supreme, self-existent God, standing before and above the world, acting upon it, acting through it, with sovereign sway. He maketh the seven stars and Orion, etc. But the argument of Amos goes farther than this; he argues that God rules in the midst of the nations just as He rules in the midst of nature, and we must see His hand in human affairs as we see it in the rising and setting of stars, in the ebbing and flowing of seas. He setteth up kings and captains, and casteth them down; He smites the splendour of nations into desolation; and again He restores their greatness and joy. The argument of the prophet proceeds on the assumption that a Divine purpose, a vast design, runs through all the evolutions of nature and all the movements of history. And in this point of view, let us say, these primitive thinkers have been confirmed by the vast majority of the philosophers who succeeded them. A few erratic philosophers have failed to discern any direction or tendency in the career of the universe; they could not detect any coherency among events, or admit that such events were working together toward any assignable result whatever. From their point of view, things and events drifted and eddied about in an utterly blind and irrational manner; temporary combinations might accidentally assume a rational appearance, but it was only accidental. Worlds, they concluded, have no definite beginning, no connection or sequence, no dramatic consistency, no definite end; all is unrelated, arbitrary, accidental, purposeless. But this interpretation has found little acceptance. , who lived some centuries later than Amos, wrote: "In the unity of nature there is nothing unconnected or out of place, as in a bad tragedy." And nearly all philosophy since then has in different ways confirmed this view of the universe set forth by the prophet of Israel and the philosopher of Greece. But the prophets of Israel not only recognised a distinct design running through nature and history; they saw, and this was the special merit of their mission and message, they saw that that design was spiritual and moral. Many thinkers see design and orderly progress in the world who recognise design and progress as purely intellectual. They see in nature and history nothing more than a play dramatically conducted; a story artistically developed; a picture exquisitely balanced and harmonious; an organism complete in all its parts and functions; but they miss the real heart of the thing, that the universe is the intellectual working out of the purpose of the holy God. This was the point of view of the prophets. The design they discovered in the universe did not merely satisfy their logical sense, their aesthetic sense, or their scientific sense, but their moral sense. They wished to teach that God rules the universe with a view to reveal His righteous character; His government is wholly moral; and the end of all His rule in heaven and earth is to instruct His children in righteousness, and to discipline them into holiness until they are perfect, even as their Father who is in heaven is perfect. The religious and moral idea is subtly interwoven with the universal fabric, but it is only spiritually discerned, only the devout soul follows the golden thread that runs through nature and the long, mysterious story of the race. "We are nothing but the playthings of Fate," says the pagan mind; but we refuse the verdict of dismal atheism. He "that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night"; He who kindles the stars, and who darkens them in eclipse; He who causes His sun to rise upon the earth, and to set in night; He who makes the firmament a magnificent theatre of majestic and unfailing order, will not permit caprice and chaos in the far higher world of human history — souls are more than stars, and when a great nation is lifted up and cast down, great reasons and great ends must be assumed. If you look through this prophecy of Amos you must be struck by its intense and persistent moral tone. The fifth chapter is full of it. "Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion." "Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right." "Seek good, and not, evil, that ye may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken." "Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate." And it is thus throughout the whole prophecy — the destiny of the nation turns on righteousness, on matters of definite, practical honesty, clemency, humanity, justice, chastity, and temperance. The shepherd Amos, like David, like Job, was familiar with the constellations, and he felt how offensive the unjust and the unclean must be to Him whose faultless government is declared in the inviolable laws which govern the chaste and solemn stars. And God is still of Coo pure eyes to behold iniquity, and, according to their works does He deal with the mightiest nations. He calls us back to Himself, to His moral government and righteous laws. God has often "made the day dark" to us, and again He has "turned the shadow of death into the morning." We live with the consciousness of these impending possibilities. Any day, any hour may witness the mighty change. These changes, so extreme and searching, are to remind us that life does not exist either for pleasure or pain, but for the perfecting of the soul in love and nobleness. He who makes the seven stars and Orion, who turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night for the education of a nation in righteousness, does the same with and for the individual. And every change is good that unsettles us in the world to settle us in God, every variation of fortune is blessed that drives us to the central reality, and makes us richer in spiritual feeling and moral fruit. In some parts of South America all seasons are singularly blended within a year; in the same locality there are many returns of spring and winter, temporary calms and temporary snows rapidly and unceasingly succeed each other, but in such places plants bloom with the greatest vigour, and are remarkable for their beauty. So, if we seek Him who maketh the seven stars and Orion, and who orders so strangely the days and nights, the summers and winters of human life, these bewildering changes shall only discipline us into more perfect strength, and make us rich in the fruits of righteousness and peace. (W. L. Watkinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name: |
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