Amos 4:11

"I have overthrown cities among you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a brand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah."

In a sense, Sodom and Gomorrah were surely "cities among" the Israelites; and yet, despite the fact that Israel was actually "more corrupt than they (Sodom and Gomorrah)" (Ezekiel 16:47f), God had nevertheless spared them. This truth, that Israel was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah is seldom stressed, but it is profoundly evident in the Bible; and the only reason that God spared Israel, as far as we are able to discern, was that the promise of the Messiah to come through Israel had not yet been realized; and, in a sense, God was "stuck" with the chosen people until that promise should become a reality. Instead of being humbled by the judgment of other nations around them, Israel only presumed upon God's unlimited tolerance of their wickedness, a presumption that nerved them to the murder of the Son of God Himself when he finally arrived.

"I have overthrown cities among you ..." "This is generally taken to refer to an earthquake of extreme severity,"[28] an opinion followed by Barnes,[29] Smith,[30] and many others; but it appears to us that a specific reference to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah is made. Of course, that event was accompanied by a great earthquake also.

McFadden's quotation from Lecky is:

"The theological habit of interpreting the catastrophes of nature as Divine warnings or punishments or discipline, is a baseless and pernicious superstition."[31]

This is a fair representation of so-called "scientific" or "modern man"; and, while true enough, that each individual disaster might not be attributed to the immediate sin of the victim (John 9:1-10), there is nevertheless a direct and pertinent connection between the disasters of earth and the rebellion of Adam's race.

"To the sensitive heart, every disaster speaks an urgent message. We have no right to interpret it as the punishment of others, but we have every right to regard it as a call to ourselves, a call to reflection and repentance."[32]

Amos 4:6-11 have recounted the seven great disasters through which Israel had passed, ending in the same plaintive cry every time. "Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah."

Some critics make a big thing out of God being referred to in this verse (Amos 4:11) in the third person, whereas, the first person is otherwise prominent throughout; but this is not due to any interpolation, and only signifies that Amos unconsciously reverted to quotations from the Pentateuch in mentioning Sodom and Gomorrah, as any one familiar with the Bible would have done.

It should be noted, as Smith pointed out, that:

"The oracles in Amos 1 and Amos 2 were addressed to seven nations before reaching Israel. Here seven calamities strike before the final act of judgment is experienced."[33]

That final judgment upon the Northern Kingdom will be uttered in the very next verse.