It
will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
Amos 8:9
Amos 8 [1.] Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.
He said, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then Yahweh said to me,
“The end has come on my people Israel.
I will not again pass by them any more.
The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh.
“The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy,
and cause the poor of the land to fail,
Amos 8 [5.] Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat,
making the ephah small, and the shekel large,
and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;
that we may buy the poor for silver,
and the needy for a pair of shoes,
and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”
Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob,
“Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Won’t the land tremble for this,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it?
Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River;
and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.
It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh,
“that I will cause the sun to go down at noon,
and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
Amos 8 [10.] I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies,
and baldness on every head.
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and its end like a bitter day.
Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh,
“that I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing Yahweh’s words.
They will wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even to the east;
they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh’s word,
and will not find it.
In that day the beautiful virgins
and the young men will faint for thirst.
Those who swear by the sin of Samaria,
and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives;’
and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives;’
they will fall, and never rise up again.”
Meaning:
Amos was a shepherd from Tekoa in Judah whom God sent to the northern kingdom of Israel in a time of wealth and ease. In this chapter God shows him a basket of summer fruit, a sign that Israel was ripe for judgment, because the rich were cheating and crushing the poor, buying “the needy for a pair of shoes.”
- “I will cause the sun to go down at noon”
Darkness at midday is a picture of sudden disaster. The light fails at the very moment it should be strongest. The prophets often describe “the day of Yahweh” in this way: “The sun will be turned into darkness” (Joel 2:31). The judgment comes because God’s people ignored his call: “But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24).
- “like the mourning for an only son”
The next verse says the feasts would turn to mourning, “like the mourning for an only son.” In Israel no grief was deeper than the loss of an only son, through whom the family’s name and hope continued.
- Darkness at the cross
When Jesus was crucified, “from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45). Noon became night, as Amos had said. God’s only Son was dying, and those watching “returned home beating their breasts” (Luke 23:48). The judgment Amos announced against sin fell on the one who bore sin for others, for “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16).
The Significance of Amos 8:9
- God sees injustice
God takes the oppression of the poor seriously. Those who cheat the needy will answer to him.
Cross-References:
Amos 5:24: "But let justice roll on like rivers," What God required of Israel.
John 3:16: "he gave his one and only Son," The mourning for an only son fulfilled in love.
Conclusion: Amos 8:9 warns that God would turn noon into darkness in judgment on Israel’s injustice. At the cross the sun was darkened at midday while God’s only Son bore the judgment for sin.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible