How does threatened desolation lead to restoration?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Pursuit and sifting precede David’s rebuilt tabernacle and renewed habitation.

Chapter breakdown

The heading interprets Israel’s desolation and David’s restored tabernacle in terms of Gentile conversion and a flourishing church. Amos sees God on the altar commanding the hinges struck and lintels shaken, naming covetousness and the sword, with no delivered fugitive. Descent to hell, ascent to heaven, hiding atop Carmel or in the sea cannot evade the stated pursuit; the serpent and sword reach sea and captivity. God sets his eyes for evil rather than good.

The earth melts at God’s touch, inhabitants mourn and it rises and falls like Egypt’s river. His ascension is in heaven, his bundle founded on earth, and he pours sea waters upon earth. The edition interprets ascension as the high throne and bundle as the church united by one faith and communion. Israel is compared with Ethiopian children; Egypt’s deliverance is placed beside the Philistines’ removal from Cappadocia and Syrians’ from Cyrene. An edition gloss uses blackness as its metaphor for iniquity; this is its commentary, not an added characterization of peoples.

The sinful kingdom is to be destroyed, but Jacob’s house not utterly destroyed. Israel is sifted among nations like corn, with no little stone falling to the ground. Sinners claiming immunity fall by the sword. God will raise David’s fallen tabernacle, close its breaches and rebuild it, to possess Edom’s remnant and nations upon whom his name is invoked. Ploughman overtakes reaper and grape-treader the sower, mountains drop sweetness and hills are tilled. The edition interprets this as successive spiritual blessings enriching Christ’s church. Captivity returns; cities are inhabited, vineyards and gardens yield food and drink, and God plants the people in their land without again uprooting them.

The story inside

The text specifies a little stone in the sieve. The edition identifies the bundle with the church. The harvest receives a spiritual-blessings interpretation.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The text specifies a little stone in the sieve.
2
The edition identifies the bundle with the church.
3
The harvest receives a spiritual-blessings interpretation.

Test your recall

Which remnant is named with the nations?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 101026–101042
9:1. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said: Strike the hinges, and let the lintels be shook: for there is covetousness in the head of them all, and I will slay the last of them with the sword: there shall be no flight for them: they shall flee, and he that shall flee of them shall not be delivered. 9:2. Though they go down even to hell, thence shall my hand bring them out: and though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. 9:3. And though they be hid in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them away from thence: and though they hide themselves from my eyes in the depth of the sea, there will I command the serpent and he shall bite them. 9:4. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall kill them. And I will set my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
Lines 101044–101054
9:5. And the Lord the God of hosts is he who toucheth the earth, and it shall melt: and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up as a river, and shall run down as the river of Egypt. 9:6. He that buildeth his ascension in heaven, and hath founded his bundle upon the earth: who calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord is his name. His ascension.... That is, his high throne.—Ibid. His bundle.... That is, his church bound up together by the bands of one faith and communion.
Lines 101056–101062
9:7. Are not you as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? did not I bring up Israel, out of the land of Egypt: and the Philistines out of Cappadocia, and the Syrians out of Cyrene? As the children of the Ethiopians.... That is, as black as they, by your iniquities.
Lines 101064–101073
9:8. Behold the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth: but yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. 9:9. For behold I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as corn is sifted in a sieve: and there shall not a little stone fall to the ground. 9:10. All the sinners of my people shall fall by the sword: who say: The evils shall not approach, and shall not come upon us.
Lines 101075–101081
9:11. In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, that is fallen: and I will close up the breaches of the walls thereof, and repair what was fallen: and I will rebuild it as in the days of old. 9:12. That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all nations, because my name is invoked upon them: saith the Lord that doth these things.
Lines 101083–101096
9:13. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed: and the mountains shall drop sweetness, and every hill shall be tilled. Shall overtake, etc.... By this is meant the great abundance of spiritual blessings; which, as it were, by a constant succession, shall enrich the church of Christ. 9:14. And I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel: and they shall build the abandoned cities, and inhabit them: and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine of them: and shall make gardens, and eat the fruits of them. And I will plant them upon their own land: and I will no more pluck them out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.