Read | Amos 5:1–24
Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:
She has fallen;
Virgin Israel will never rise again.
She lies abandoned on her land
with no one to raise her up.For the LORD God says:
The city that marches out a thousand strong
will have only a hundred left,
and the one that marches out a hundred strong
will have only ten left in the house of Israel.For the LORD says to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live!
Do not seek Bethel
or go to Gilgal
or journey to Beer-sheba,
for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,
and Bethel will come to nothing.
Seek the LORD and live,
or he will spread like fire
throughout the house of Joseph;
it will consume everything
with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.
The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darkness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the water of the sea
and pours it out over the surface of the earth—
the LORD is his name.
He brings destruction on the strong,
and it falls on the fortress.
They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate,
and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor
and exact a grain tax from him,
you will never live in the houses of cut stone
you have built;
you will never drink the wine
from the lush vineyards
you have planted.
For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.
They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,
and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.
Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent
at such a time,
for the days are evil.
Pursue good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the LORD, the God of Armies,
will be with you
as you have claimed.
Hate evil and love good;
establish justice at the city gate.
Perhaps the LORD, the God of Armies, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says:
There will be wailing in all the public squares;
they will cry out in anguish in all the streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mourners to wail.
There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass among you.
The LORD has spoken.
Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
What will the day of the LORD be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
It will be like a man who flees from a lion
only to have a bear confront him.
He goes home and rests his hand against the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
Won’t the day of the LORD
be darkness rather than light,
even gloom without any brightness in it?
I hate, I despise, your feasts!
I can’t stand the stench
of your solemn assemblies.
Even if you offer me
your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
I will have no regard
for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.
Take away from me the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice flow like water,
and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.
Click here to listen to the Scripture in ESV.
Focus
View this work of art, The Slave Ship, by J.M.W. (William) Turner, connected to Sunday’s sermon passage.
As you look at this week’s piece, take a few quiet moments to notice details, colors, or emotions that stand out to you. Ask God what he might be saying through the image, and listen for his insight in your thoughts, feelings, or prayers.
Commentary:
William Turner was an incredibly prolific British landscape painter, printmaker, and watercolorist who lived during the Romantic era. Known for his turbulent marinescapes, his paintings are often seen as early precursors to impressionist paintings, utilizing expressive brushtrokes to evoke emotion in the viewer. The Slave Ship inspires awe at the immensity of natural disaster but he positions it alongside the brutal reality of human evil.
Around 1839, Turner read about the Zong massacre in The History and Abolition of the Slave Trade by Thomas Clarkson and he was inspired to make this painting, originally entitled Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on. The details of the massacre are disturbing, and the case was frequently cited in abolitionist movements in the UK. The incident was the result of human evil, greed, and a command breakdown at sea which led to grave errors in judgement. Due to a water shortage, the crew threw overboard at least 132 human beings and later claimed insurance on them as lost cargo (slavers were not compensated for slaves who died of natural causes). The courts found them at fault and denied them the insurance payments, and attempts were made by abolitionists to charge the crew with murder, though they were not successful.
Amid the blood-red sunset and turbulent waters the slave ship in the painting appears almost fragile in the background. A violent typhoon is coming on the scene from the left, and perhaps we are to imagine it will destroy the ship and drown those who are responsible for the evil represented in the foreground of the painting. The original exhibition of the work coincided with two prominent anti-slavery conventions in London. It was most certainly a political statement, and perhaps one prophesying the outcome of such evil on a "civilized" society. Turner paired it with part of his unfinished and unpublished poem, Fallacies of Hope:
Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon's coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying – ne'er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?
As viewers, we look upon Turner’s foreboding depiction with a reminder that as long as injustice thrives in a society that feeds human beings to the machine of a false god—the god of the market, of money, of greed—God will not allow it to stand. A typhoon is on the horizon.
He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns midnight into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the Lord is his name.
With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold
and brings the fortified city to ruin.
—Amos 5:8–9
Art Source: The Slave Ship, J.M.W. (William) Turner, 1840. Public domain via Wikimedia commons.
Pray
Ask God to renew you in justice, mercy, and generosity.
Going Deeper
If you are also following the BibleProject’s One Story That Leads to Jesus reading plan, complete today’s reading.