The Brotherly Covenant

In the first two chapters of Amos we have pronouncements of judgment against six nations neighboring Israel and Judah. There is a general theme among the words of condemnation against these Gentile nations relating to the treatment of others. Damascus was guilty because “they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron” (Amos 1:3). The student manual suggests that when Syria conquered Gilead, “They evidently treated their captives with barbaric cruelty, crushing them under iron threshing sleds.” This terrible treatment of their neighbors did not go unnoticed by the Lord and they were condemned for it. Gaza “carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom” (Amos 1:6). Here the Philistines sold their captives to the Edomites, again terribly mistreating people who were their neighbors. Tyre seems to have done about the same thing: “They delivered up the whole captivity to Edom” (Amos 1:9). Edom was also guilty “because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever” (Amos 1:11). Again this people did mistreat others and did not have pity as they should have had. The transgressions of Ammon were atrocious towards the innocent: “They have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border” (Amos 1:13). Their actions were not hid to the Lord and He would come out against them in judgment because of it. Moab was also condemned “because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime” (Amos 2:1). Here the action was not against Judah or Israel but it was still punished by the Lord because Moab showed great pride and disrespect to their neighbors. All six of these nations were guilty in one way or another of giving hatred and abuse instead of love and kindness to their fellow men.

               It is instructive that the Lord would condemn these six nations for their treatment of others even though they were not His covenant people. They had not entered into special promises with the Lord like Israel and Judah had, but they were still held accountable for things that they surely knew were wrong but did them anyway. The Lord’s eye is over all the earth, and He notices how His children treat each other. We will be held accountable for anything we do to injure one another. In Amos’s condemnation against Tyrus he wrote that they “remembered not the brotherly covenant” (Amos 1:9). This likely referred to some actual agreement between Tyre and its political neighbors that they broke but I’d like to think that we all have a “brotherly covenant” to treat all of God’s children with kindness and respect. Whether we have made a covenant of baptism or not with the Lord, we are still responsible to help and love our brother just as the Lord expected Cain to be his “brother’s keeper” (Moses 5:34). The Lord’s expectation for all of His children to love each other was expressed movingly in the Savior’s interaction with Enoch: “And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;… the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” (Moses 7:33, 37) He weeps when we do not love our brothers and sisters on the earth, and Amos’s message from the Lord is a warning to all who mistreat and abuse others: “I will not turn away the punishment thereof;… I will send a fire” (Amos 1:3-4). Or, as the Lord told Enoch: “And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them” (Moses 7:34). We may wonder why so many tyrants seem to get away with so much wickedness against their fellow children of God, but these scriptures are clear: they will get their punishment in the end.