A MINOR PROPHET'S PIERCING CRY FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE

PITILESS NATIONAL POLICY VEHEMENTLY REBUKED

Amos is an outstanding prophet of economic justice. e vividly pictures a riot of excess-tax oppression and exactions by rulers who were so "drunk with authority" that, said he, "they know not to do right" (Amos 3:10); so lacking in moral responsibility that they violated "the brotherly covenant" (Amos 1:9).

He calls them, "treaders upon the poor; robbers of their granaries" (under the pretext of emergent taxation, "Ye take from him burdens of wheat"); afflicters of the just; takers of bribes; turners-aside of the poor in the gate (the seat of government, where they did not dispense justice, but framed mischief by law); oppressors of the poor; crushers of the needy; ye who "turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth." (Amos 4:1; 5:7, 11, 12.)

He does not ask charity for the poor, but justice which would obviate the need of charity, the dole, and old age pensions.

He offers these recreant rulers life by a return to Bible Economics -- through hating the evil, loving the good, and establishing judgment in the gate and by upholding the law they had sworn to honor. (Amos 5:14, 15.)

Otherwise for their artificially engineered scarcity among the people -- not upon themselves -- God would send them "cleanness of teeth" (Amos 4:6), His word for real famine, striking the palaces first -- "want of bread in all your places."

"For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who STORE UP violence and robbery in their palaces" (Amos 3:10).

A FOUR-STAR CHAMPION OF BIBLE ECONOMICS

Caricatures Tax-Hounds

Amos was a peerless pioneer of freedom of speech and of the pen (press); of the right of faithful and constructive criticism of recreant rulers; a check on faithless rulers when uncommon courage was necessary. With stinging, biting rebuke and invective he penetrated the triple mask -- patriotism, public interest, external religion -- whence the rulers of his day worked ruin. Amos placarded them in their true colors, as scare-crows before the outraged people: rulers who cried for the reform of every one except themselves; who scattered the taxes they conscripted, which represented the blood and toil and sweat of the people's labor, in wanton extravagance; whose every cry to the tax-bled people was, "Give ye"; who arbitrarily took from the poor burdens of wheat; who lay awake nights scheming up new methods of tax-exactions, and mercilessly multiplied the ever-increasing and staggering tax-load under which the people groaned. Amos, speaking for the long-suffering people, said "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves" (Amos 2:13).

Amos' Specific Charges Against Rulers

Irreverence for the dead; despite to their original constitution; influence of the children against the commandments of the fathers; irreverence for personality; exorbitant taxation -- "that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor"; that put the temptation of strong drink before the temperate, and, for revenue, corrupted the pure Nazarites whom God commanded to abstain from strong drink (See Amos 2).

Amos resisted the Tammany-hall-izing of Palestine three millenniums ago.

The reader may judge wherein our times repeat these conditions.

Incomparable Extravagance

These thoroughly self-centered rulers cornered the market, cried scarcity amidst abundance, boosted prices, shortened measures and weights, reduced the purchasing power of the shekel and resold to its producers the refuse of the good wheat they had exacted in burdensome measure for taxation.

Were they examples of the measures of emergent stringency they imposed upon their subjects? They were not. Their own tables groaned with "the lambs out of the flock" and "the calves out of the stall" and the best of everything. While their subjects staggered under a restricted diet to the point of near starvation, their benevolent, philanthropic and reform-zealot-rulers lay indolently upon beds of ivory, and wined and dined, as they reclined upon luxurious couches, from costly golden bowls, the while lulled by the dreamy music of the viol to all sensibility or sympathy with their suffering subjects.

Amos had no word of condemnation for their numerous palaces -- stone, ivory, marble, or for their winter and summer houses -- but protests at using them as caches for the proceeds of tax-graft and robbery:

"Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces" (Amos 3:10).

He rebukes the indolent occupants for their insensibility to their subjects, groaning under mountainous tax-loads while they feasted, drank, reveled. Palaces so perverted, Amos justly warned, were hated by God, their Giver and He would smite, despoil, and end them. (Amos 6:8, 11.)

Amos continues:

"For ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock" (Amos 6:12).

But so drunken with authority were these rulers that they rejoiced "in a thing of nought" as a benefaction. (Amos. 3:4.)

Amos presses into the king's chapel and court, and with piercing voice rebukes the king, princes, and judges, indignation flashing from his rugged features.

In alarm the king sent an ambassador to silence Amos and eject him from his court and land:

"Prophesy not again... at... the king's chapel, and... the king's court" (Amos 7:13).

Only death could silence Amos' pent-up indignation:

He shows that election to exalted honor and opportunity for service (3:2), turned to oppression and wantonness, marble-hearted ingratitude, and irrevocable incorrigibleness, made inevitable the dethronement and captivity of the king at Bethel who arrogantly repudiated God's call to just economics, in imagined immunity from the evil day of bitter recompense. (Amos 5:5; 8:10; 9:10.)

DETAIL OF AMOS' DYNAMIC IMPEACHMENT CHARGES

He recapitulates, reiterates his charges in slightly changed form for cumulative effect:

In the gate, the seat of government, instead of obtaining justice, the poor were tread upon, turned aside from their right, oppressed, crushed, robbed, ostensibly, under the pretext of emergent taxation for legitimate legislative expense, but actually to cache piratic spoil for wanton extravagance. Instead of justice, there was affliction; instead of peace, the tumult of the oppressed; instead of honesty, bribery; the hope of the distressed, swallowed up; the bewildered people, ruined by legalized taxation larceny, made to fail. (Amos 4:1; 5:7, 11, 12; 8:4.)

Of this accomplishment of theirs they boasted while the people groaned:

"Have we not TAKEN to US horns by our OWN strength?" (Amos 6:13.)

"Taken" was the word! They even claimed that God sanctioned their course which crushed the people. They camouflaged their distorted economics by formal worship. We assemble in the Temple, multiply offerings; sing songs; play melodiously on viols. (Amos 5:14.)

Amos, the watchdog of right economics was not deceived by word and tongue worship not backed up by deed and truth. He showed them that claiming God's sanction of robbery by unjust taxation and having God's sanction were at antipodes: The God of Hosts shall be with you, as ye have spoken IF ye seek good and not evil; if ye establish judgment in the gate; if ye hate the evil, love the good and cease bribery; if ye let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. (See Amos 5:12-15, 24.)

Without balanced economics, Amos continued, all your religious pretensions -- music, offerings, worship, Temple activities -- are mockery:

"I hate, I despise your feast days and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings... I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

"Take thou away from me the NOISE of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols" (Amos 5:21-23).

Just economics, in fact, not pretense, would return national blessings, Amos promised. But the oppressor-spoiler-rulers knew this would end their carnival of, tax-graft and plunder.

They rejected this truth and tried to silence the troublesome prophet of economic justice:

"They hate him that rebuketh in the gate [the seat of government], and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly" (Amos 5:10).

Amos must be stopped. He weakened the plunderers. Freedom of speech must be curbed. Evil hates the light. Amos caricatured their legislation: "Come to Bethel, and TRANSGRESS; at Gilgal multiply transgression" for you know not to legislate justly.

Amos is weighted down with the burden of the people. Personifying their tax-woes he cries out: "Behold I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves" (Amos 2:13). The excessive tax-juggernaut crushed the people to finance the rulers' criminal waste and extravagance; their love of luxury and indolence, their costly vacations to and fro to their numerous palaces; the transportation cost of their hanger-on attendants; their costly feasts and expensive wines.

They boasted of their achievement: "Have we not taken unto us horns by OUR OWN STRENGTH?"

Amos retorts: "Your achievement is a thing of NAUGHT; your rejoicing in this tax-theft is a mockery to the people staggering under the load; you put far away the evil day of reckoning; the time of bitter recompense, dethronement, banishment; but it is inevitable; your oppressions have reached Heaven and cried for sure revenge. (Amos 6:3-11.) God who gave them now hates the palaces you have perverted. His revenge shall strike the palaces first and those recreant rulers within them who have "turned judgment into gall and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock." (Amos 6.)

Even then, Amos offers one of two alternatives:

(1) LIFE -- by turning to the Bible Economics they had despised -- through hating the evil, loving the good, establishing judgment in the gate, upholding the law they had sworn to honor. (Amos 5:14, 15.)

(2) DEATH -- through famine, combined with other national calamities so overwhelming that the "swift," the "strong," the "mighty," despite vaunted egotism over their prowess, could not escape. (AMOS 2:14.)

Amos pleaded for the widow and the orphan and the poor by rebuking rulers who oppressed them by tax-conscription, or legalized stealing, or arbitrary appropriation of their possessions. I would plead for them by rebuking our legislators who are obsessed with the idea of soaking the rich, whose confidence should be restored, so that they may use their wealth and intelligence in creating work and wages for the poor, which, happily they want to do. Stealing the people's inheritance under the guise of necessary taxation would not have been so reprehensible had the proceeds been used for constructive purposes and true national betterment. But the selfish rulers could not vision the life, blood, sweat, tears, aches, and pains represented in what they arbitrarily stole from the toiling people. They further intensified the miseries of their victims by flaunting personal extravagance and squandering for selfish waste the proceeds of their legalized tax larceny.

Come easy go easy. Bible Economics prophets characterized spend-thrift rulers as the "assembly of mockers," so callous that they rejoiced while the pains of hunger distressed their oppressed and peeled subjects.

Hated, evicted, overshadowed by prison and death for his uncompromising loyalty, Amos was happy. He had played the man. He had shown kings, princes, judges, that life lay in the fullness of their subjects, and that the way of defeat and death lurked in the want of their people.

The patience of God and of the people towards these ruling brigands and their organized robbery is significantly indicated: the inspiration of Amos' burning cry for economic justice came to him "two years before the earthquake," a figure of speech for the famine of food and of water, the failure of crops, of the fruit of the trees and of the vines, the pestilence that decimated their live stock, and the foreign invasions -- God's instruments of punishment, that slew their young men -- which came upon the kingdoms of Judah and Israel following the rejection by their rulers of Amos' two-year-cry for economic justice. (Amos 1:1-15.)

Their blatant claim of God's sanction in their course of robbing the people -- while they practiced evil, not good, merited national death, not life. (Amos 5:14.)

Since they rejected the one true course for the return of national blessing -- judgment running down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream (Amos 5:24) -- fearful punishment from God was inevitable.

Their worship was hypocrisy; their legislative deliberations were but a multiplication of trespasses and transgressions against God and His people. And, Amos prophesied, since their palaces -- stone, ivory, marble -- were perverted into caches for the storing of the proceeds of their tax-graft and robbery, they should be smitten first; despoiled; ended.