Amos 9:11-15
11 “In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,”
declares the Lord who does this.
13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
Today we are wrapping up the book of Amos. After a book that has largely been a downer, focused on the sin and failures of Israel, we’re actually ending on a bit of an up note. But, as we will see, the optimism is actually not about Israel, but Judah, and I’ll explain more about that in a minute. So, to get us going, I want to repeat a historical note that I have said almost every week, because it is critical to the narrative here, and it is critical to us in understanding why the story of Amos, and most of the other minor prophets, actually matter today.
At this time, the nation of Israel is divided into two kingdoms. We’ve talked about this ad-nauseum, but it is a super important component of what is going on here. In the north we have what is still called Israel, and in the south we have what is called Judah. Now, as we know, Amos is from Judah, but he is sent to Israel to declare the word of the Lord. Now, let me refresh us on how this division came to be.
During the time of Solomon, David’s son, one of his superintendents named Jeroboam, conspired against Solomon to become king. This was discovered and Jeroboam was forced to flee to Egypt, but after Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam ascended to the throne of Israel, and it opened the door for Jeroboam to return. The people pleaded with the new king Rehoboam to end the high taxes that Solomon had placed on the people, but when he refused, Jeroboam led a revolt of the ten northern tribes forming the kingdom of Israel or Samaria, and leaving the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south to be called the Kingdom of Judah.
So, the northern kingdom of Israel was essentially the rebellion. It wasn’t the tribes of the south that “pulled out of the Union” per se, it was the north. And when the northern kingdom was established that essentially began a new monarchy from the line of Jeroboam. Meanwhile, in the south, the Davidic monarchy continued undisturbed. Here’s why that is important, only David had been anointed by God to be king of Israel. And, not only that, God made a covenant with David. In 2 Samuel 7, God sent the prophet Nathan to David to declare this:
12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”
The New Testament writers tell us that this promise to David, to establish his throne forever, is really a promise about the Messiah. In fact, the New Testament begins, Matthew 1, with a genealogy of Jesus that shows him to be from the line of both Abraham and David. So, we know that Jesus came from the line of David, but there are also seventeen verses in the New Testament that call him the Son of David which is more of a Messianic title.
So, with that in mind, let’s look at today’s text which also begins by talking about David. As we pick up in chapter nine, Amos has been seeing and declaring a series of visions about Israel. And chapter nine begins with a final vision that feels final. God declares that destruction is coming and that any attempts to flee or hide will be pointless. God says, you can swim to the bottom of the ocean to try to hide, and I’ll command a sea serpent to come and bite you. You cannot escape what is coming. But, then look at verse 11:
11 “In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
First, the “day,” that is being referred to here is probably “the day of the Lord.” You may recall back in chapter five that Amos said to Israel: Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light. What we said was that the phrase “the day of the Lord” is used in different ways throughout Scripture. For Israel, the day of the Lord was not going to be good. Verse 10 says: All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword who say, “disaster shall not overtake or meet us.” But, there would ultimately be good that would come out of it, and the good is that God keeps his covenant promises.
The Old Testament is constructed around a series of covenants that God makes with men. He makes covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David. And, these aren’t just promises, these are covenants, which means that God is not basing upholding his end of the covenant on whether or not the other party has upheld their end. Something of a corollary in today’s world is the marriage covenant. It’s an agreement that we keep for better or worse. So, by saying that he will rebuild the booth or tent or house of David, God is saying, I will be faithful to secure the throne of David forever.
There is all of this language of repairing breaches and raising ruins and rebuilding. And, I think this is both metaphorical and literal language. Jerusalem would eventually be destroyed by the Babylonians. The temple would be destroyed. The walls would be torn down, and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are about the people of Judah coming back from exile to rebuild and establish Jerusalem, eventually rebuilding the temple. So, there would be a literal rebuilding that would have to take place. But, there is also a symbolic rebuilding that will happen. The text in verse twelve mentions that the house of David will possess the remnant of Edom and “all the nations who are called by my name.”
Now, turn with me real quick to Acts 15: This is a scene in Acts known as the Jerusalem Council. In some ways, this is the first recorded church leadership meeting that we have. James the brother of Jesus references this exact passage to explain the fact that Paul and Barnabas were seeing not just Jews but Gentiles coming to follow Christ. He says:
“Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
16 “‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it,
17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’
19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,
When Paul and Barnabas come before the council and say that they’re seeing Gentiles becoming followers of Christ, James says, we shouldn’t be surprised by this because Amos told us that this would happen. That the tent of David would be rebuilt, and the Jerusalem Council sees that as happening through Christ, and that when it is rebuilt it would include not just ethnic Jews but people from all nations who are called to Christ. Let’s read on:
13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
Amos ends with a picture of a restored Eden. It is a picture of a land that is so fertile that just as soon as a person picks a crop, the plowman is coming through to replant, and, at the same time that grapes are being made into wine, new seed is being sown. If you remember the covenant God made with Adam in Genesis 3, known as the Adamic Covenant, it came as a result of the sin of the man and the woman. So God says:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
That’s a covenant about how all the earth is going to be broken as a result of sin. This doesn’t just mean that there will be sinful activity in people, but that literally the earth itself will not bend to the will of man. It’s going to be hard to plant and reap food that is good…meanwhile worthless plants like thorns and thistles will grow abundantly.
But, in Amos’ vision, he says the land will be so abundant, it is as if it is just flowing with sweet wine. And, then from there he describes the restored fortunes of Israel and says, they shall never again be uprooted out of the land I’ve given them. Have you ever thought about how much of the story of Scripture is a story of loss of place. Adam and Eve are forced to leave Eden and travel into a land that is hard and broken. Abraham is called out of his land and sent to a place he has never been before never to return to his home again. Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery and finds himself in Egypt where he remains forever. Moses’ mother, in fear for his life, puts him in a basket and sends him down the river only to find him in the house of Pharoah. And after killing an Egyptian, Moses lives a large portion of his adult life in exile only to return and lead the people out of Egypt to wander in the wilderness for forty years. Ruth follows Naomi to her land to live amongst her people. Israel itself winds up in slavery in Egypt which begins the saga of them trying to find and establish their home in Canaan. The Son of God leaves his home in heaven to come and dwell amongst his creation.
So, now, the covenant age that we are living in is not the age of the Davidic Covenant or the Covenant with Abraham, but it is the age of the Messianic Covenant or what is most commonly, simply known as the “new” covenant. This is a covenant that we talk about each week as a part of communion. Jesus tells us that he is fulfilling the old covenants and establishing a new covenant based on his blood. And, in this new covenant, all those who have faith in Christ are not simply promised eternal life, but are promised a home, and a home that will never be taken away from you. In the context of Scripture, when Amos says that Israel will never again be uprooted from the land, I don’t believe he’s talking about the Middle East, I think he is talking about a future place. A land truly flowing with milk and honey. And, what James makes clear, is that this Israel that lives in this new promised land is not like the Israel of the Old Testament, but it is an Israel that is made up of all nations. And, what makes them Israel is not their ethnic heritage, it is that whom they are bowing down to: the new and better David, the true Davidic King, Jesus Christ. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 11, when he calls the Gentiles a “wild olive shoot” who have been grafted into the promise of Messiah. This is not just our hope, but this is the hope of the whole world. That through faith in Christ, we might all truly become the people of God and dwell with him forever.
