A quick succession of northern kings (2 Kings 15)

Jeroboam II - Zechariah (end of Jehu's mini-dynasty)

Shallum

Menahem - Pekahiah

Pekah

Hoshea

Zechariah became king after Jeroboam II died. He did evil in God's sight and reigned only 6 months before being assassinated in a coup d'état. He was the fourth generation of descendants after Jehu and his reign fulfilled God's promise to Jehu.

Shallum is the man who assassinated Zechariah and became king. He reigned one month before being assassinated by Menahem, who became the next king.

Menahem reigned for 10 years and did evil in God's sight. He massacred the civilian population at Tirzah and ripped open the stomachs of pregnant women. Previously, such war atrocities had been done by foreign invaders. Here, an Israelite king is doing it.

The king of Assyria invaded the northern kingdom but Menahem bought him off with silver. Menahem levied heavy taxes to pay off the Assyrians for them to withdraw the invasion.

His son Pekahiah became king after Menahem died. Pekahiah did evil in God's sight, ruled for 2 years, and was killed in a coup d'état by the commander of his army, Pekah.

Pekah reigned for 20 years and he did evil in God's sight. During his reign, the Assyrian army returned. This time, they captured a number of towns and took the population into exile in their empire. Here, we have the warnings of Amos starting to be fulfilled - Israelites being taken into exile. However, one the Israelites disappear as captives into the Assyrian empire, they lost their cultural identity and become lost to history.

Amos' warning also contained a promise that the people could escape invasion exile if they repented. The rest of the northern kingdom is still intact, but will they repent now that Amos' prophecy is starting to come true?

Meanwhile, Hoshea assassinates Pekah and became king.

The Book of Amos

Amos was a shepherd who lived in Judah. He received a series of visions during the reign of king Jeroboam II of the northern kingdom and king Uzziah of the southern kingdom.

At least chronologically, he is the first prophet who's Biblical record is principally an apocalyptic writing. There were other prophets, like Elijah and Elisha, who were associated with major miracles as they pronounced judgment.

Amos' ministry was principally to pronounce the judgment of God. If anything, God has given up on trying to miraculous demonstrations of power to convince the people to turn back to him. No, that did not work.

This ministry is similar to Jonah. But there are two major differences between Jonah and Amos. First, Jonah's prophecy was directed solely to the people of Nineveh, enemies of Israel. The book of Amos covers God's judgment on Israel's neighbors, but mostly focuses on Israel itself.

Likewise, the book of Jonah primarily focuses on what Jonah did with the message - he ran away. In contrast, Amos largely focuses on the receipt and interpretation of the message itself.

Later in the book, we find Amos in Bethel. So, it sounds like Amos went from Judah north to Bethel where he proclaimed God's judgment. I will explain the significance of Bethel later.

God's message

The first judgments in the book of Amos are against Israel's neighbors and enemies. The Edomites, Philistines, Arameans, Ammonites, Moabites, and the city of Tyre each have a judgment of God.

Intriguingly, it says that God will send down fire to smite their walls and cities. It is easy to picture a Sodom and Gomorrah type destruction, but it is not clear how literal we should take that either. Even if literal, the fire of God's judgment could come from invading armies setting fire to buildings. Or, it could be a spiritual fire that does not necessarily manifest in actual fire that leaves the place spiritually vulnerable to destruction from anything else.

One notable neighbor is absent from the list of calamities - the people of Nineveh/Assyria. It could be because they are repenting from Jonah's message or because God plans to use them to fulfill some of these judgments.

The people of Judah do not escape this either. God's fire will destroy all the fortifications of Judah.

However, the primary focus on Amos' message is the northern kingdom. God is angry that they have forsaken vast sections of the Mosiac law and worship idols at Bethel. Bethel was one of the two places that Jeroboam I had placed golden calves to prevent his people from going to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. At the time, Jeroboam had said that this was the god that brought them out of Egypt. Likewise, God had sent a prophet who proclaimed that the altar of Bethel would be destroyed by a descendant of David.

The judgment of Amos refers to Bethel and the worship of idols on a number of occasions. The description of Amos makes it sound like the grain offerings and sacrifices required by the Mosiac law that they should do in Jerusalem were brought to the golden calf at Bethel.

Nevertheless, God offers a chance for repentance. Otherwise, the day is coming when they will taken as exiles to a "land east of Damascus" (5:27). We know from history it is the Assyrians that do this. Part of the way the Assyrians subjugated people they conquered was to relocate them within their empire.

The end of the book describes specific visions that Amos received and his reaction to them. First was a swarm of locusts that ate every green plant in Israel. Amos begs for God's forgiveness on behalf of Israel and pleads to God to not do this. God relents and says "I will not do this."

Second, a great fire comes and consumes Israel. Amos again pleads to God and God relents from this plan.

Third, Amos sees God testing Israel with a plumb line to determine if it is still straight. God does not relent from this plan and God will test Israel. In particular, the shrines and temples will be destroyed and king Jeroboam II will die.

This vision makes its way to Jeroboam and Amos is accused of hatching a plot against the reigning monarch. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, tells Amos to go back to Judah. If Amaziah was priest of Bethel, then he probably was a priest of the golden calves set up by Jeroboam I. Amos then proclaims a specific prophecy on Amaziah. Specifically, Amaziah's wife will become a prostitute, his children will die, and he will did in exile.

Amos then received a fourth vision of ripe fruit. The interpretation was the Israel was ripe for punishment. God also plans to do famine of speaking to Israel. People will recognize the dearth of God's word, look for it, but not be able to find it.

The final vision is God destroying the Temple. In the context of the rest of the book, it sounds it could be temple at Bethel housing the golden calf. But it is a little nebulous but it probably refer s to the temple of Jerusalem.

This is further supported because the book concludes with a restoration of the house of David and bringing the people of Israel back from exile. We know from history that this happened explicitly with the people of Judah after the Babylonian captivity. However, an unrecorded return from exile could have happened with the "Lost 10 Tribes". The conclusion of Amos gives some indication that might have been on God's mind.

Jehu's mini-dynasty (2 Kings 13; 14:23-29)

Jehu-Jehoahaz-Jehoash

God promised that Jehu's family will reign in the north for four generations. 2 Kings 13 covers his son and grandson, Jehoahaz and Jehoash, respectively. Both were bad kings and let the Ashereth poles stand. God allowed Hazeal, king of Aram, to frequently harass and defeat the northern kingdom at this time.

Both Jehoahaz and Jehoash cried out to God at various points with all these military defeats by Aram and God gave them some victories and peace. But it was not enough for them to turn to God in a substantial way.

Elisha became old knew and he knew he was going to die. Jehoash visits him on his deathbed and asks for deliverance from the Arameans. The French Bible says that Jehoash said that Elisha was worth many chariots and charioteers of Israel, but the English (NLT) translates it slightly differently in that he sees chariots when he sees Elisha. This would indicate that the kings of Israel see Elisha as militarily valuable, which would be understandable given that Elisha struck the Aramean raiders blind one time. It would also indicate that Elisha is looked upon favorably with the kings, which was very different than the treatment that Elijah received from Ahab/Jezebel.

Elisha has the king shoot an arrow the window. The arrow symbolizes the victory of God over the Arameans. Elisha then has him strike other arrows on the ground. He does this three times. Elisha is frustrated because the king did not do it 5-6 times, which would mean total victory over the Arameans, whereas the king would only get 3 victories for striking the arrows 3 time.

When I first read this, I was sympathetic to the king. How could the king know what striking the arrows on the ground meant? On a second reading, I have less sympathy because Elisha explained to him, quite literally, what the arrows meant when he shot it out of the window. The arrows mean God's victory. The king already understands that when Elisha makes a prediction, it will happen.

The king's casual attitude to the arrows indicates he understood what he to be doing to be a ritual performance, rather than an invitation by God (through Elisha) to get involved at a deeper level. Did he not understand God or what Elisha was saying? I think the answer is no and hence, that explains why Elisha gets frustrated.

Sure enough, he gets 3 victories over Hazeal's son, Ben-Heddad.

Elisha dies from a sickness and is not taken up to heaven like Elijah was. At least, not in the similar way. Going back to Elijah's whirlwind to heaven, since it was not visible to the other prophets who were present besides Elisha, it would indicate that it happened on a spiritual level and not necessarily on the physical level. So, we don't know how often that happens.

Regardless, Elisha's death is different from Elijah and Moses - there is a body to be buried. Elisha's corpse is in a tomb when another body is thrown into it and the corpse of the second man becomes alive.

Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:23-29)

Great grandson of Jehu

Jeroboam II became king after his father Jehoash died. He was a bad king in God's eyes, but despite that, he had many military victories and a fairly long reign.

He even recovered some of the land that had been lost. Some of the victories had been prophesied by Jonah.

He is also the fourth generation of the dynasty, inclusive of Jehu. Jehu was the best and the rest of the dynasty did poor in God's eyes, although they treated God's prophets much better than their predecessors (Ahab-Elijah) or their contemporaries in the south (Joash-Zechariah). It will be interesting to see what God has to them now that the promised fourth generation is reached.