Today's Journal
THE FRUIT BASKET III
The last couple of days I have spent examining the vision of the The Fruit Basket in the Book of Amos; one of five visions by the prophet Amos: locusts, fire, plum line, summer fruit, and altar. Chapter 8 concerns the likeness of the ‘end of summer fruit’ with ‘end of Israel’ (8:2). The reasons for rebuke of Israel are given in 8:4-10. They involve dishonest business practices, indebting the poor, forsaking the Sabbath importance and not hearing the Word of the Lord.The Lord continues through Amos:
“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.” (8:11)
The famine is not for “a famine of bread or a thirst for water’ (8:11), it is not a shortage of food. It is not a shortage of the Word being available, spoken, written and proclaimed. It is a “famine of hearing of the Word.” ‘Hear: a primitive root; to hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, or to hear, listen to, obey.’ (Strong’s Dictionary) In the Hebrew language, to hear is to obey…as a single meaning. It is reminiscent of the text in 1 Samuel 3:1: Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions and revelations were infrequent.” Samuel is young, and the next verses are his encounter with the voice of the Lord and he has to have ‘the Word of the Lord’ clarified by Eli the priest.
Samuel then “clearly hears the Word of the Lord”, he says, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (3:10). The Lord answers Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle” (3:11). That is hearing the Word of the Lord.
(continued)
“Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Jesus