Amos 2:14

"And flight shall perish from the swift; and the strong shall not strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself; neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself; neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself; and he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith Jehovah."

(See under Amos 2:13 above for further comment on these verses.) The complete and irreversible overthrow of Israel is solemnly prophesied in this climactic denunciation.

"Naked ..." This word, "upon which the description ends, sums up effectively the pitiful helplessness of a man stripped of all the resources on which he had counted to maintain himself when he faces the final catastrophe."[44]

"In that day ..." The day of the Lord refers to that day when, "God's judgment would fail upon Israel."[45] Although the immediate application of these words is thus accurately indicated, there is a more extended and ultimate sense in which they refer to the Great and Final Day of Judgment, when the entire human race shall confront the judgment of God upon human rebellion and wickedness.

All of the predictions here made against Israel, as is also the case in all the other judgments cited in these two chapters, were most accurately and circumstantially fulfilled. We conclude this chapter with the following discerning paragraph from McKeating:

(The predictions of Amos) were fulfilled to the letter, and within the prophet's own lifetime or shortly afterward. They were fulfilled while there were still plenty of people around who could remember what they said. Their words were therefore treated with respect and eventually written down.[46]

CORRECTION

We regret accepting in an unguarded moment the critical nonsense that the repeated expressions in Amos regarding: "for three transgressions ... yea, for four," to the effect that these are merely a stereotyped formula. This cannot be true; and we are delighted to correct the error in this Revised Edition.

We have the words repeated eight times that, "Thus saith Jehovah," making God Himself the author of these words, not Amos. Furthermore, there is no known recurrence of this formula anywhere else in the literature of all nations. It is therefore not a stereotype. We believe that there is an eternal message in this eight-fold warning. The three and four pattern holds good for the whole world of Adam's race. Adam's race has already been judicially hardened THREE TIMES; and the FOURTH AND FINAL TIME (perhaps even now beginning) will usher in the SECOND ADVENT AND FINAL JUDGMENT OF ADAM'S REBELLIOUS RACE!

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