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"Thus the Lord GOD showed me"

Text: Amos 7:1

REVELATION OF WHAT GOD WOULD DO

Amos noted that God would first show His servants, the prophets what He would do (Amos 3:7). The following text illustrates this effectively. Amos 7-9 record a series of five prophetic visions. The following text is the first prophetic vision.

“Thus the Lord GOD showed me:
Behold, He formed locust swarms
at the beginning of the late crop;
indeed it was the late crop after the king’s mowings.”
Amos 7:1

1. “Thus the Lord GOD showed me”

a) This would be in the form of a prophetic vision.

b) As a prophet, Amos would be able to do the following things:

i) To understand the meaning of the vision.

ii) To be able to respond appropriately.

2. “Behold, He formed locust swarms”

a) Locusts were infamous for the destruction of crops and vegetation of all kinds.

b) The Lord God was the One who intended to bring up swarms of locusts on Israel.

c) The significance of this vision of the swarm of locusts.

i) It is to be understood in the light of how God sent a similar plague as a judgment on Egypt.

ii) It was one of the ten plagues God sent to chastise and punish the Pharaoh and Egypt (Exodus 10:1-19)

iii) There was an earlier reference to locusts (Amos 4:9).

3. “At the beginning of the late crop; indeed it was the late crop after the king’s mowings”

a) The king’s mowings

i) This was the way the king exercised his regal right over the land.

ii) What he harvested was his claim of his subjects.

iii) This would be the equivalent of “first-fruits” of the land.

b) Whatever the land may produce later would belong to the people.

i) If the latter rains come, the people would benefit from a good harvest.

ii) But if the rains did not come, the people would suffer (but not the king).

iii) If a plague of locusts would descend on the land, the people would suffer the most.

c) This was in the form of a vision rather than an actual occurrence. How would Amos respond?